I dug my spurs into my horse’s flanks, urging her forward to
cut off the cow before she wandered off the trail, dragging half the herd with
her. She complied but bellowed to let me
know she wasn’t happy, and it wasn’t too long before a heifer tried the same
thing. My horse diligently obeyed,
though I could feel her heavy breaths as her sides expanded and deflated,
moving my legs out and in with each pant.
Her mane was damp and her hide glistened with sweat, but on she
went.
It’s not a perfect parallel, but to coincide with William Sumner’s
ideas, we could call this horse “the forgotten horse.” William Sumner was an American social
scientist who taught at Yale during the Gilded Age. The uprisings of monopolies and flourishing of
the middle class starkly contrasted with the life the new immigrants and lower
class were living. Efforts were put
forth to hinder the growth of booming businesses and others sought ways to
assist the immigrants and lower class.
So what does this have to do with a forgotten horse?
In Sumner’s work, What
Social Classes Owe to Each Other, he passionately argues that “every effort
to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.” He sees many people working diligently and
seeing success, yet the fruits of their labors are laid at the feet of those in
poverty. There is no motive to rise
above that condition when “social doctors flock about him, bringing the capital
which they have collected from the other class, and promising him the aid of
the state to give him what the other had to work for.” With these circumstances, the social
reformers and philanthropists, A and B, dictate what C will do for the poor,
D. And what does he call C? The Forgotten Man.
Image Credit: Scale (via mesosyn)
Wow, this is a really interesting concept. It truly is important for us to help the poor and needy, as we so often hear in church, but it's really important for us to find the right way to do it. I think this definitely shows that there are plenty of wrongs ways to go about doing something right.
ReplyDeleteI think that the rise in the monopolies and the drastic poverty gap had a big impact on the rise of communism. People were trying to find a way to end poverty, but not without gaining total power first. I think the only way to end poverty is when each person has an individual desire to help, not when they are being forced to.
ReplyDeleteI think it's fascinating how many policies we have that are predicated on these beliefs we're still debating. The Church's United Order had the radical notion that we could always just expect Group C to share with Group D without forcing them. For me, the fact that the commandment was withdrawn for now is indicative that we aren't ready to live in that kind of society.
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