Follow-up on "happiness libertarianism" and poverty

It was a tough pitch to hit, but Nick connects:

UM: Helen:

"Suffering is either meaningful or not, either redemptive or simply unpleasant."

Helen, three paragraphs later:

"Alleviating poverty is a kind of anti-suffering policy I can get on board with; not all suffering is sacrificial/redemptive/awesome."

Which leads, I think, to the conclusion that poverty is unpleasant? Surely it's more than that, and the fact that it is motivates much thinking on social and global justice. Once one drops below a particular threshold, poverty becomes a combination of pernicious and preventable.* Thus the attitude "that the only way they can think to respond to suffering is to want it stopped as soon as possible" is a polemical and theoretical response to the fact that most people are happy to do nothing.

Poverty is more than something unpleasant, but not only in the way Nick means. To the extent that it is both systematic and unfair, it is more ethically problematic than something like a hurricane and we should pay special attention to the ways it can be softened. On the other hand, my suspicion is that for every person who doesn't give a damn about the poor there's at least one person who cares a lot but has political objections to various welfare policies, so the "rhetorical strategy" line doesn't strike me as very sticky.* (This says as much about me as it says about the argument, though, so take that for what it's worth.)

But while we're talking about poverty being more than a thing that makes ya go Ouch, there's also poverty as spiritual mortification, poverty as penance, poverty as ascetic discipline, and poverty as glory to God.

I don't want to overstate poverty's spiritual perks--I mean it; I really don't--but if "Poverty builds character" is one unattractive end of the spectrum, an equally unattractive extreme looks like convincing people that their station in life is something they should resent rather than find joy in.

Poverty is one instance where I'm not super-worried about this externally inflicted unhappiness since most of the unhappiness seems built into the whole poverty concept, but the bottom line is that I can't stand to see anyone talked into feeling bitter and unhappy. (Why do you think I hate feminists so much?) I worry that, by never talking about sacrifice's positive aspects, we've ended up doing just that for a lot of people who might otherwise be able to find a lot of fulfillment in taking care of a sick relative. Or being put through the humiliation of asking a neighbor for money. Or the heroism of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Or [whatever].

*Remember Burke's insistence that "if it should come to the last extremity...my part is taken: I would take my fate with the poor and low and feeble." Eve has said similar things about "viewing political questions from the vantage point of the needy, the oppressed, the unwanted, and the poor." I agree with them. So there.