Social Interaction Differences Between Rich and the Poor
I wanna share one or my two bits about social differences that has been bogging my mind after I watched Agung Hapsah’s video and the like. Perhaps a lot of you actually have this kind of lifestyle, so bare in mind that I do not want to directly attack or mock you in any way, because this is only a comparative study between the one that has more wealth with the one that has minimum to average income rate. Also take notes that this is not a holistic study, this is only from my perspective as one of the insecure individual that overly analyze stuffs like this. Here goes:
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Open-mindedness vs Insecurities
Within my experience as a nit-picking observer and, sometimes, a grueling judgmental asshole, what I’ve learned from the differences of money that someone possess is the ability for you to see everything in a bright light. Take a look at the past of each rich individual vs the poor individual.
Perhaps you may say that this individual will have racist statement because the one that dominates usually becomes a bully that sneer at the ones at the bottom, but lets just assume that what we’re talking here is the one that has less racist or bigotry view from their parents, thus making them non-racist bigoted individual that relies on their richness for the sake of a good comparison solely on the wealth inequalities.
The rich one, i presume, is the one that gets it all, be it an object, achievement, relationship, and such. Since they were a child, they did not have any paywall that blocks them from exploring their mind to countless stuffs because their parents pay for what they wants and only restrict them to several bad wishes that may harm their future. It means, when they are inside bookstores, they can get any picture books that they want no matter how much it is. It also means that they can go to school with complete equipment for art & craft class, making them an object of awe to other kids that only packed a glue and scissors. From all the experience that they had in the past, I can safely assume that these kids never feel a pang of insecurities that most of the lower-class society have everyday. The no-paywall-block leads them to a mindset of winners and achievers, while they have no ill-resentment or judgement to others because they’re the ones at the top, viewing everybody else at the bottom.
Insecurities that the poor people have are the inherent features of a human being, in which they will never feel that they have is enough to make them happy. Human beings are created in order for them to dominates, and to have it all. That’s why one of the reason Earth was dominated by humans so quickly is because they are hungry for domination, and they did win the fights between climate change and over-powered Mammoths. When the fights between non-human and human were over, the humans were scattered to dominates one another, creating wars, differences and hatred to the other kin.
Therefore, poor kids will feel more of that hatred, in a form of insecurities and scared mindset. The middle to low class citizen are the ones that struggle to get food on the table and a place in the society that doesn’t mock their existence. They’re struggling to remain human by utilizing the moral code that they grips so hard it’s saddening, such as criminal action is not justified because it steals from other kin and it’s a sin, or about the value of religion so that your life is not as shitty if you follow the guidelines of God, which is not inflicting unnecessary harm to other individual. In a way, their value is so justified, and yet they’re the one that suffers more. It’s ironic
It leads them to feel scared and insecure to the other that has more wealth. The rich one is oblivious towards the environment of the poor, or maybe has a normalized perspective that the poor exist because they simply there because of the media reporting countless times to them. The poor will see the improvement speed of the rich and began to ponder: “Is this how life will be like forever? I cannot catch up with them!” The endless thoughts scared the poor, and they began to judge the rich one, thinking that they has stolen their rights to be as same with them. Most of the time, our mind tend to revolve around several prejudice of rich vs poor in terms of racial features, that the one considered “Keling” or black is the one that has less nutritional value in their everyday meal, making them poor, and the white ones are considered rich because it is a clean color without the impunity of darkness.
What I’m trying to say is that, the poor will eventually have the prejudice of hatred no matter how kind the rich person is, because it is inherent to our instinct that the one that suffers more will hate more. The insecurities will be hard to dispel in the future, yet the poor one is the individual that need to struggle more and more to get the food in the table and defeat those rich ones. That’s why, bigotry and judgment will mainly come from those who is poor, and we cannot escape from that circle of hell that capitalism creates.
Achievement vs Failure
This is pretty much sensitive. By logic, the one that already have so much advantages will have a lot of chances to achieve lots of thing that they want, and the one that lags behind will unable to follow, no matter how hard they’ve tried.
Lets take a look at competitive debating tournaments in Indonesia. Let’s say you are from a prestigious institution like UI or UGM, that has a governmental support as well as respectable community, making it the breeding of the successful individual. Their reputation creates an entry barrier for the new student acceptance. It means, the one that has farther starting point in knowledge-gaining process will have easier entry to the respectable community compared with the one that lags behind are not, because they need to fill their daily necessity first before investing in studying that doesn’t fill their belly. In the end, the debating community in those campuses will have more potential, as the one that joins are actually the privileged ones that has more exposure towards debating from their high school days with good coaches and good competitions. It’s non-questionable that this campuses will dominate the winning streak in all competitions across Indonesia.
Not to mention there are high barriers of entry when it comes to debating as a whole. Competitive debating demands you to be open-minded and has a vast amount of general knowledge, and also a framework of analysis to a certain extent. Those non-formal rules deters the normal individual to participate, thinking that they will not survive because they have lack of prior knowledge. The culture of arguing in Indonesia also prevails that statement, as the people around you may hate your guts when you starts talking in a persuasive manner about how world operates. They usually judge you as “Sok Tau” or the all-knowing-asshole, or “Cerewet” or the one that only speaks but with no action. It creates a bad discourse among the one that has less privileges, because they are included in the bigoted community that blocks their mind from exploring certain ideas, an echo chamber of slandering and bully that entrenched their insecurities, whilst the more privileged one has a good community that praises their achievement and interest in certain ideas, no matter how small they are.
What does it mean?
The poor ones will completely lose because of the status quo that exist.
Achievement will be solely given to the privileged ones. I can strongly argue that privilege and hard work works hand-in-hand and creates winners. The problem is that the poor will not have the privilege no matter how hard they’ve worked. Sure, I can tell you how many poor people have been successful because their tenacity overcome their hardships, such as Chairil Tanjung, Mario Teguh or Ippo Santosa, but comparing us with them is a sin in itself, because they have been lucky in their life, which none of us actually have those chance lottery. When the privileged ones work very hard, what’s left for the poor?
Failure and lamentation of the failure are the things remain for the loser. In competitive debating, the margin of winning and losing are sometimes only differs so little, yet so determining. When you lose, you will create a reasonable argument to yourself; that you do not work hard enough, that there are other chances that you might have broken to eliminaries; that maybe, eventually, you will prevail. Those mindset will normalizes your losing streak and calling it experience, while in reality you lose and that’s the end of your fight.
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There are so many example that I can bring to compare, but that will be saddening and demoralizing enough to cripple people.
The point in this writing is not telling you that poor ones are always placed as poor. From 23 years of living as a minimum-wage citizen, this is what I get:
THE JOURNEY MATTERS
Life is a journey, and the journey is shitty and crazy. Life is always gives you too many lemons that you can digest, thus you will be confused and don’t know what to do anymore.
My journey in competitive debating is a wheel between losing and lamenting the failure, winning once a while and then losing again. The insecurities that I’ve is enormous that I want to give up as fast as possible and try other thing that may give me success. Those thoughts swirled my mind even when I’m in the debating chamber fighting privileged high school kids that directly buries me because they have things that I do not.
That doesn’t mean that I do not enjoy the thrill of challenge.
There’s something that I can take proud of. I can walk a thorny path without flinching, that the privileged ones will not have any access to. The thorny path of scary and hurtful moments is exclusively owned by the likes of me. No other privileged ones will fell the pang of insecurities when they go to faraway debating community that costs you a fortune deemed to lose. I embrace that, and walked the thorny path of nothingness and despair with bravery in my chest. I take fun of it, and run with the wind, while bleeding.
The achievement that I got is not winning! My highest achievement is being an observer that claps my friends from a good institution that won many challenges ahead of them and seeing their smile on their face, patting their shoulder and saying “Congrats!” with a sincere laugh. Talking to all of the people with no reservation of being different. understanding my other spectrum more as I try to conserve with them more.
I can take pride of that hurtful moments. I am brave, strong, and confident. No one, including their rich-ass mind, will be able to walk in this path of grief with their heads held high and singing while at it. I can take pride of being adaptive and flexible, not judgmental and also empowering my self.
I don’t care anymore of losing and winning stuffs. What I can get is that I can do anything, I will survive no matter hard this challenges slapped my face, and I will prevail, while they may not in my stead.
