Ecstasy and Ethics of Poverty

Abstract

"Poverty, essentially, is a basic lack, means, a deficiency, generally of resources for subsistence. In the non-human animals such poverty is only found marginally in the "pecking order" for distribution of resources in society.

The lowest ranking member of a group may be inadvertently, or intentionally deprived of meager resources. In the human species, inequitable resource distribution is the rule rather than the exception. Food, shelter, healthcare may be described as minimum human needs for bare subsistence. Deficiency in these spells material poverty, which has plagued "civilized" man since pre-history, the condition still with us even as the twentieth century draws to a close. Among humankind, to whom we shall confine ourselves to the rest of this article, poverty can also be of the spirit, emotions, ideas, and knowledge. Humankind continues to be haunted by these vicarious poverties since times immemorial, the situation by no means much improved due to the much-avowed technological advances. Poverty or deficiency/ absence/ denial/ negation of material requirements for sustenance of life at even subliminal level is the more universally prevalent and poignant. Indeed, today poverty (any of the above types) may be found coexisting with, or sometimes even as a small island/pocket/cancer in affluence."