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“America’s Shame: The Chronicle of Higher Education” is an article that was written by Peter Singer in 2009. The primary focus of the article was global poverty, the flaws in the educational system, as well as the U.S. government’s role in resolving the problem. According to Singer, education can be one of the tools for eliminating poverty; therefore, every educational discipline should include studies on how poverty can be mitigated on a global scale (Singer, 2009, p. 7).
Singer’s Approach
Singer’s approach suggested that every educational; discipline should include specialized courses focused on poverty elimination and global development. For instance, the issue of poverty should be connected to economics, anthropology, sociology, and other studies.
Apart from integrating poverty into the educational curriculum, there should be programs developed to teach not only students but also the general public on the topic of global poverty.
Singer urged his audience to start giving out more to the charity organizations for helping eliminate poverty. He used the “drowning child” reference for underlining the fact that there are far too many people in the world that are “drowning” and are in extreme danger of losing their lives to poverty.
Thus, every person in the world is equally responsible for saving the “drowning child” through donating monetary means wherever one may be in the world. The global issues of poverty, pollution, and overpopulation are the ones that the global community is responsible for.
Main Themes and Ideas
Interaction between the rich and the poor
Despite the fact that the modern global community interacts with each other more frequently, the poverty rates do not decline. According to the report by Keeley (2015) for OECD, the poorest ten percent of the poorest U.S. population earns 9.6 times less than the richest (p. 11).
Corruption
The problem of corruption is what stops the global community from eliminating poverty. Furthermore, it is hard to deal with corruption because of the non-governmental organizations that do not allow returning the funds back to the government.
Misconception
Singer underlined the problem of the U.S. population not being aware of how much the government gives out to help fight poverty. To illustrate this theme, it is important to mention the report by Giving What We Can (2014) that stated that the U.S. gave $131.6 billion to the OECD while invested over $2 trillion to fund the Iraq War (para. 3).
Therefore, the priorities of the U.S. government are not focused on battling poverty despite the population thinking that they are. Such a misconception greatly damages the efforts to eliminate global poverty.
Ignorance
The ignorance of the U.S. population on the need to help the poor is withstanding issues. According to the Gallup survey by Winseman and Min (2005), the majority of the general population did not contribute anything to deal with poverty (para. 4). Only eight percent thought that the government donated ¼ of the national income to fight poverty while forty-two percent thought that the U.S. gave even four times more (Singer, 2009, p. 5).
Therefore, the ignorance of the U.S. population stops people from contributing to eliminating poverty since they think that the government already does enough.
Critique
Singer is a great advocate of giving out surplus monetary means to help fight poverty. In my opinion, one can be charitable even without contributing to relieving poverty. For example, a person may engage in promoting awareness of the issues like poverty and global pollution, take care of the elderly, and participate in programs of relieving discrimination.
Singer does not identify any moral ideals despite writing a lot about moral decency and the extensive actions of self-sacrifice.
Despite Singer’s proposal to give more to the charitable organizations there is a view that some of such organizations lack enough capacity to resolve any complex issues.
There is some inconsistency between Singer’s actions and statements (Fan, 2009, p. 18). If he believed that people should give out the surplus money to charity, he, himself, would give out this surplus that was not necessary for fulfilling the basic life needs. Therefore, there is some hypocrisy in Singer’s statements regarding giving out to charities.
Current Statistics on Poverty
According to the recent reports, the number of global poor is continuously on the decline
(Next Big Future, 2011, para. 2). However, the issue is in the gap between poverty in the Western countries and regions like Africa. It is very easy to confuse poverty in a region that provides a lot of accommodations to the population with the region that does not. Therefore, the issue is in not in reducing poverty overall, but reducing the gap and improving the quality of life in regions that need it.
Dealing with Poverty
Global
Because misconceptions and ignorance have been identified as greatly contributing to the lack of effort for battling with poverty, one of the primary steps is raising awareness of the ‘real picture’ of the issue.
Singer’s proposal of integrating the problem of poverty into the educational curriculum should be taken into consideration when it comes to dealing with the problem. However, the integration should not be extreme, for example, there is a lack of effectiveness in integrating poverty issues into subjects such as physics. Economics, anthropology, and sociology are studies that could potentially benefit in eliminating poverty.
Global poverty is greatly affected by the lack of quality health care system and low-quality products in the areas stricken by poverty. In poor countries, it is crucial to improve the supply of clean water and the supply of accessible health care services.
National
Helping homeless families should become the duty of the community.
The government should invest into funding programs for the elderly, increase food benefits, low-income home energy assistance, social security, and other programs.
Conclusion
Singer’s “American Shame: The Chronicle of Higher Education” provided an insight into how the modern U.S. society views and treats the issue of poverty both inside and beyond the country’s borders. The ignorance of the problem is what makes the suggestion of incorporating the issue of poverty into the educational curriculum smart.
On the other hand, donating the surplus of funds to charity is not a solution that can be adopted by the majority of Americans. Therefore, it is suggested that the U.S. government invests more into both national and international programs at the same time with educating the public on how poverty can be diminished.
References
Fan, W. (2009). Ethical Problems in Connection with World Poverty.
Giving What We Can. (2014). Myths about Aid and Charity.
Keeley, B. (2015). Income Inequality: The Gap between the Rich and the Poor. Web.
Next Big Future. (2011). Poverty in Numbers: The Changing State of Global Poverty from 2005 to 2015 by the Brookings Institute.
Singer, P. (2009). America’s Shame. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(27), 6-10.
Winseman, A., & Min, D. (2005). International Polls Find no Shortage of Moral Discontent.
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