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Changing the Dialogue on Social Welfare | |
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< | -- By JulianAzran - 08 Apr 2013 | >
> | -- By JulianAzran - 21 June 2013 | | | | |
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< | A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my grandfather, Leon, that disturbed me. I have a deep and profound
admiration for my grandfather, whose family traveled to this country when he was 11 after escaping from a concentration camp in Nazi occupied Poland. Throughout my life, he has always offered me guidance and I cherish our relationship very much. We were speaking about social welfare, a topic that we have always disagreed upon. Like countless others, his political views have been largely shaped his own by his own life experiences. | >
> | My grandfather is undoubtedly my single most important role model, but there is one topic we cannot discuss - social welfare. I have always been dismayed by his harsh views on how people should "help themselves." He always implied that they should do as he did. However, as I've gotten older and learned more about his life, I've come to respect how his experiences have made him feel this way. | | | | |
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< | Learning English | >
> | Changed Views and Early Impressions | | | | |
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< | As we discussed entitlements and social safety nets, he recounted sleeping on a couch in a one-bedroom apartment with his parents, as he struggled to learn English and succeed at his Brooklyn high school. Leon had the good fortune to learn this new language from a fiercely dedicated uni-lingual teacher. His father, a master tailor in Poland who was unwilling to be extorted by the local unions, had trouble finding work and eventually resorted to doing stitch work at a local dry-cleaner’s. Leon worked hard in school, and enrolled at the Pratt Institute. Years later, he was the chairman of a multi-million dollar company, making ties and socks for Pierre Cardin and Calvin Klein. The embodiment of the American Dream. | >
> | When it comes to politics, my grandfather, once an active member of the liberal grassroots organization Common Cause, is a hard-nosed conservative. He maintains "liberal" views on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion but on entitlements: “I came from nothing, and nobody helped me." To a great extent, he is right, and in the face of his uplifting true story of what hard work can accomplish, it is hard to rationalize "helping those who can't help themselves." I believe his family’s experiences in Nazi Europe and Brooklyn played the largest role in forming his worldviews. | | | | |
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> | Before the German invasion, my great-grandfather, Jacob, was a successful tailor in Poland. He was a friend of the Polish government and designed uniforms for military officers. Even after the German invasion, Jacob was able to use his political connections to buy some time for his family, but his entire life’s work and extended family were eventually taken from him. Leon does not like to discuss this part of his life; most of our family did not survive. Over the years I have only been able to glean bits of information about what happened to him and his family while they were still in Europe. The sum of those fragments presents a family torn apart by war, and a boy whose world views were formed by those events and their aftermath. | | | | |
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< | Changed Views | | | | |
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< | When it comes to politics, my grandfather, once an active member of the liberal grassroots organization Common Cause, is a hard-nosed conservative. He maintains "liberal" views on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion but on entitlements: 'I came from nothing, and nobody helped me." To a great extent, he is right, and in the face of his uplifting true story of what hard work can accomplish, it is hard to rationalize "helping those who can't help themselves." On the other hand, my grandfather had lots of help. | | | | |
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< | Outliers | >
> | In Brooklyn | | | | |
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< | Malcolm Gladwell has argued that the story that is usually told about extremely successful people is one that focuses on intelligence and ambition. Gladwell says that the true story of success, however, is very different and that we should spend more time looking at what is going on around very successful people if we want to understand how they people thrive. | >
> | During our discussion on entitlements and social safety nets, Leon recounted sleeping on a couch in a one-bedroom apartment with his parents. While he struggled to learn English at his Brooklyn high school, Leon had the good fortune to learn from a fiercely dedicated uni-lingual teacher. His father, Jacob, refused to be extorted by the local unions and had trouble finding work before eventually resorting to doing stitch work at a dry-cleaner’s. Leon worked hard in school and enrolled at the Pratt Institute. Years later, he was the chairman of a multi-million dollar company, making ties and socks for Pierre Cardin and Calvin Klein. | | | | |
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< | Was my grandfather imbued with intelligence and ambition? Absolutely. Did he happen to enter the garment business at precisely the right time? Yes. The 1960s, 70s and 80s were a time when men still took pride in the clothes that they wore and invested in their wardrobe the same as they would in their education, both playing a pivotal role in their professional careers. Did having a father who knew how to make a perfectly tailored suit by hand from start-to-finish have anything to do with his success? Yes. How about that sympathetic teacher who stayed late after school to help him learn a second language when she only spoke one? All of these things contributed to his success, and as Gladwell would argue, it was most likely not improbable. | >
> | How is it that my grandfather, a man who struggled for most of his life, does not see a place for helping others through government welfare? In order to better understand how social context affected his views, I had to look inward at my own experiences. | | | | |
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> | Inter-Generational Comparisons | | | | |
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< | This is the sort of
thing that Malcolm Gladwell might write: it's charming nonsense.
You've just said that because his father was a "good" tailor, and
because his teacher taught him well, he succeeded. This is neither
true in the narrow sense (sons of good tailors well taught don't
always succeed, through absence of intelligence or ambition among
other reasons). Children of hapless parents ill taught sometimes
succeed too, because of superior intelligence or ambition, among
other reasons. | >
> | As I’ve gotten older and learned more about my grandfather’s formative years, I have been able to acknowledge the advantages that he had. This has caused me to re-examine my own life through that lens and realize that the some of the advantages that I’ve enjoyed were the result of his hard work. Leon would not deny that although his family survived tragedy and struggled to adapt in a new world, he had the skills and support system to succeed. He was intelligent and hardworking, with supportive parents and a patient teacher willing to help him learn English after school. He entered the tie business with some knowledge of industry from his father and at a time when men still wore suits outside of the office. He would certainly not deny that all of these things contributed to his success. I on the other hand denied that truth as it pertained to my own life for some time. In discussing welfare with my grandfather, I had always argued that he needed to consider the advantages that he had in order to understand why others might need welfare. In doing so, I realized that I had never examined my own life in that way. | | | | |
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< | But what's really being said here, under the flashy form of argument
that doesn't work? The social context in which people are embedded
has much to do with their life's arc, some portion of which has to
do with material success in supporting oneself. So? That doesn't
either validate or undermine your grandfather's belief in the
"fairness" of leaving people to fend for themselves. It explains
only that had he grown up in other circumstances he might well have
held a different idea. As you do. | >
> | Although my parents and teachers told me I was smart, I chose not to apply myself until the 10th grade when I realized I wanted to be a musician. For many others, such tardiness would be fatal to one’s future, but being from an upper-middle class enclave in Long Island gave me a second chance at success. My parents patiently spent much of my secondary education encouraging me to do better and saying that I would regret slacking through high school for the rest of my life. After I began to see dividends from my new work ethic, I gave myself all of the credit. | | | | |
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> | Thinking of my grandfather made me realize how foolish that view was, and how imperative my privileged environment was to my newfound success. But this misconception also helped me better understand my grandfather. Watching his father lose both his family and career was not only heartbreaking but humiliating. This shame was made worse when he could not practice his craft in his country and had to resort to hemming pants and sewing buttons after a career of designing uniforms for high-ranking military officers. But Jacob’s resolve in not capitulating to the union’s demands impressed upon Leon that one cannot rely on help from other people. Jacob had also relied on his political friends in helping his family avoid the worst consequences of the war, only to be betrayed. Leon’s success had to come from within. “I came from nothing, and nobody helped me." | | | | |
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< | Disconnections | >
> | For me, the opportunity was always there I was just ignorant to it. Only recently have I realized that I must similarly scrutinize my own views and advantageous circumstances. Many of the benefits I’ve enjoyed have been the result of his hard work. They have given me the luxury of being able to talk about all the ways we should help other people without realizing the sacrifices that must be made. My grandfather made those sacrifices, which is why I love him so much. | | | | |
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< | Being a successful product of one's environment has much do to with one's own ability to succeed, but just as importantly, one has to be at the right place at the right time. As I was arguing with him over the mechanics of welfare, I was unable to put together this argument together cogently. However, I suspect that he would not deny its truth. The problem in connecting this importance of environment to the need for social welfare, is due to the changed nature of the game, meaning that many people in this country and throughout the world are never given the chance to succeed.
My grandfather did not live in a government housing project, where security cameras keep watch of the hallways. He did not live in an area where the public school teachers were unwilling or unable to dedicate their time to students who needed extra help. His family did not live on food stamps, nor did they need to resort to illicit activities. His father was a trained craftsman who could provide for his family, although at times they scraped to survive.
Surely you have not forgotten that he also grew up in the Lager?
It is therefore unremarkable why he was unable to see the benefits of social welfare in this country. Although on the surface it may seem as though they, my grandfather and the poor, shared similar experiences in their formative years, the nature of the game has changed.
Which years are
formative? What about your great-grandparents? Why would we think
of your grandfather's character and outlook as unrelated to the
emotional as well as material circumstances of his parents? And why
no reference to the sociology of survivors of Shoah more generally?
There has been an enormous expansion of poverty and a likewise contraction of opportunity in this country. Income inequality has risen significantly since the early 1970s. The difference is that my grandfather had bootstraps to pull himself up by, whereas most of the poor living in America today have no boots to pull themselves up by.
Surely you do also
recognize that the material circumstances of "the poor" in the US
now are in many respects superior to those of non-poor Americans a
generation ago? There has been vast material progress affecting
everyone in every direction since the end of the Depression and the
War. Your argument seems to be based on an assumption of an
absolute worsening of conditions that is untrue.
Of course, Barack Obama is an excellent example of someone who was given the chance to succeed by the help of others. President Obama’s maternal grandfather, a veteran of World War II, was only able to attend college because of the GI Bill. The President himself was able to pursue higher education with the help of student loans and scholarships.
Going Forward
This is not about attacking the successes of the wealthy. Emphasizing the role that one’s surroundings played in achieving success is not meant to detract from the hard work and ambition of my grandfather and many others. But these necessary conditions to achieving upward social mobility are no more important than living in an environment where one has the chance to succeed in the first place. Modern social welfare programs serve as vital safety nets that allow the poor to focus on educating themselves, and other ways of self-fulfillment, rather than having to worry about where their next meal will come from. Perhaps if we are able to bridge this gap of understanding between the young and old, we can forge a new dialogue on social policy.
Maybe so, but the force
of the preceding argument was solely in the direction of having your
grandfather adopt your ideas. You didn't, in the end, propose to
budge by a millimeter from your own assumptions.
The problem is that you're trying to solve a problem instead of
understanding a person. That your grandfather's world and your own
are completely different is not primarily about a policy
disagreement: it's about the emotional and psychic structures that
he doesn't want to speak directly about, and that you don't
recognize as something you are afraid to approach. Put aside what
he thinks about whether we should take care of people neither of you
knows. His great meaning in the next phase of your life will come
from what you gain in understanding about him, as a human being,
while you can.
As a policy question, outside this particular human relationship,
why would you need to argue with someone who thinks that "takers"
should be left to take care of themselves? Such a view is never
going to prevail in a democracy, in the Aristotelian sense: the poor
want the poor taken care of, and when they rule, taking care of the
poor is not regarded as requiring a moral defense. The Ayn Rand
faction cannot actually rule in a democracy: Allen Greenspan could
never have been elected dog-catcher anywhere.
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