Director Renzo Martens‘s fascinating and controversial documentary Enjoy Poverty “investigates the emotional and economic value of Africa’s fastest-growing and most lucrative export-product.” That is: poverty. As he travels throughout the Congo, Martens instructs wedding photographers to try earning more money by photographing malnourished children; he posts a large neon sign reading “Enjoy Poverty” in various villages; and encourages locals to capitalize on their poverty. Blog reader Patrick Pearce, who brought the documentary to our attention, asks an interesting question: “What other benefits can be found in poverty? Obviously there is a difference between the regular poverty of say, a good chunk of Western college students versus the extreme poverty of many people in Africa. Depending on the situation, I am thinking there could be a connection between poverty and with things like creative resourcefulness and happiness.” Your thoughts? [%comments]
Is There an Upside to Poverty?
TAGS: poverty
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Uh, I don’t think you have the point of the film correct. I went to look up a few reviews because the films premise seemed so stupid that it couldn’t be real. The title is a satire, it’s not about how much enjoyment you can get from povety. When we says “exporting poverty” he is referring to, for example, how a photographer can make $50 from a poor, malnourished child in Africa and how we pathetically buy that. The entire film is about how we, the West, exploit Africa’s poverty (whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant, that’s the point of the film). It’s about the tragedy of places like the Congo and how, in the directors view, the West just uses the poverty -hence making it a great “export.” So, asking the question what benefits come from poverty has nothing to do with the film, at least the way the reviews and trailor look to me.
And no, there are no special benefits to poverty. That’s a ridiculous statement. Being poor doesn’t correlate with happiness, just ask a homeless guy. It also doesn’t make you creative. Nothing about poverty would make you creative, unless you think you have more time to spend thinking about stuff but that seems absurd to me.
Relatively certain if one does a cost benefits analysis for those actually living in poverty, one would find there’s no upside.
The upside for those of us not living in poverty is that we don’t have compete with them for the stuff we want. This does not, however, mean that we are being moral and ethical when we ignore their poverty.
I’m just, you know, sayin’
Benefits of poverty? As Diogenes quipped, “True freedom is the minimum of needs.”
The only upside to poverty is the motivation to not have it. That, however, is a big upside.
Agree.
Poverty changes priorities in your live. Not having to much time to get new stuff you end up enjoying what you already have. I encourage people of the first word to visit south-america where (mild) poverty makes people more interesting as individuals.
–Omar
The only benefit of poverty that I can think of was vitiated with the advent of polio vaccines. Polio is a disease which affected (primarily) countries with advanced sanitation practices. Infants in countries with poor or no sanitation practices were infected with mild versions of the disease in infancy which immunized them against later more serious cases.
Other than that, only the old saw “Sweet are the uses of adversity” comes to mind, and that is a Pollyanna-ish idea.
The question is ridiculous. “What OTHER benefits can be found in poverty?” The only benefit I see in a photographer taking a picture of an impoverished child rests in the photographer (who can afford a camera and is not impoverished). There is no benefit to the child at all.
In fact, there may be an advantage to dying of poverty. If the photographer could get $50 for taking a picture of a child LIVING in poverty, imagine what he could get for one who died of it!
In a recent commencement speech at Harvard, J.K. Rowling praised the character building benefits of experiencing failure. She correlates that to her own personal struggle with poverty, but Rowling carefully qualifies that statement by saying, “Lifting oneself out of poverty is to be admired, but there is nothing admirable about being poor.” [sic]
The speech is posted on the TED site here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html
I think the concept of “nobility in poverty” is a fallacy, made up by people on the other side of the fence who aren’t quite satisfied with the colour of their grass.