There is something about Ben Affleck that I have found annoying, and I really hadn’t stopped to think about it until his recent public vow of temporary poverty:
The Oscar-winning director recently signed on to participate in the Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line, a campaign that challenges average (and above-average) people to live on just $1.50 a day for five days. The initiative is meant to simulate what it’s like for the 1.4 billion people worldwide who live in extreme poverty. Getting by on that pittance every day would actually mean spending just $547.5 per year — which makes $25,000 look like a pretty princely sum.
I’m reminded of my college days in Berkeley* when I was subjected to a shrill demand (by a very affluent female student government leader and activist) that I join her cause of not eating anything for 24 hours in order to stop world hunger by developing the proper consciousness. Her hair shirt posturing (“LAST NIGHT I HAD A WATER DINNER!”) was both annoying and silly, and she struck me as little different from religious proselytizers who are not content to merely have their own beliefs, but who publicly insist that others do what they do.
I guess Affleck believes that if he merely subsisted on $1.50 per day privately, no one would be “converted” to his cause.
Which is what? That many people in the world live in dire poverty? Are there people who didn’t know that? If there are, then I would submit that they are too stupid to be reached by Affleck’s sanctimonious antics.
As to his more intelligent fans, some of them might think it’s a cool experiment, and a good way to score points with the PC crowd.
And it’s seemingly not that hard. It certainly is possible to live on $1.50 worth of food per day for five days. $7.50 will buy enough beans, rice, and tortillas to do the job. The problem with sticking to that budget involves housing and utilities. I’m wondering where Affleck is going to live. How does he plan to stop paying his mortgage and utility bills for five days? Will he go without housing and live on the street? Because, even if he leaves his house and shuts off the power (and tells the bank he won’t pay his mortgage or landlord he won’t pay his rent), if he goes and stays with friends his share would still cost more than $1.50 per day, and I don’t think living off other people is the idea here. To honor his vow, he would have to live on the street with his container of beans and rice. And maybe wearing sackcloth. That’ll show the world how much he really cares. I’m sure the world’s poor will be deeply moved.
Ah, but Ben need not worry about having to live on the street, as I just checked the web site’s FAQ:
Do I have to count tap water in my budget?
No. Tap water is free for Live Below the Line.How do I keep track of how much I’m spending, and what can I buy for $1.50 a day?
We would recommend that you spend your entire budget of $7.50 at the start of the week. You can then use the cost of your portions to determine how much you’re spending per meal, to ensure you’re feeding yourself on only $1.50/day. We recommend doing research and creating a shopping list, sticking to generic staples such as pasta, lentils, rice, bread, vegetables, potatoes and oats.
Well that’s a relief! Just food! No rent and utility guilt! And to think I was starting to worry about Ben Affleck being homeless! This way, he can stay in his cool pad and have his significant whatevers cook up his cool Third World slumming diet.
And after the five days are over, he can hold a press conference and tell the world how much he suffered, and how he knows what it’s like to be poor.
* In an amazing coincidence, Affleck was born in Berkeley. And he attended the same high school as the Tsarnaev brothers. (Hey, there are different ways of reaching people if you care deeply about issues, and I don’t want to be judgmental….)
Comments
4 responses to “The world’s poor are about to be deeply moved”
Isn’t he missing a vitally important thing?
(Well, okay, he’s missing a lot of things, but I have one specific thing in mind.)
People in the third world living on “$1.50 a day” are doing so in the third world, where amazingly enough cost-of-living – especially the cost of the local staple foods – is lower than here in America.
He’s also ignoring that a whole lot of people in the world are subsistence farmers, who have a significant supplement to their meagre money income in the food that they grow (which is also the source of that income, typically).
It really sucks to be a dirt farmer in central Africa, especially compared to even being quite poor in America; there’s no denying that.
(Being a subsistence farmer sucks everywhere, which is why modern economics and capital investment are so vital to human prosperity!
I’d love to see Affleck spend a tenth the effort explaining that.)
But “spend $1.50 a day in America” still gets you nothing like an experience of those conditions; it’s both better – in that you still have all the desiderata of a modern industrial economy – and worse – in that you’re paying first-world prices and not getting the support of your own subsistence work.
how many would join the “shut the hell up for a week” project?
I was about to explain what Sigivald just explained, but I think he covered it. Put me in any 3rd world country under his conditions, and I’d not only manage to eat, I’d manage to eat WELL. He’d do better to tell people to try to live on 300 a month in the US – for everything.
P.S. You can live – very well, by third world standards – in the US on $300 a month. In a cardboard box or a lean-to – if you know how to build one – in someplace no one will evict you. No electric, no Xbox, no Kindle, no TV. No running water. But they don’t have those either. Has that boy ever actually lived in a 3rd world country? I don’t think so.