How does poverty in poor nations compare to poverty in the United States?What affects do you think that this has on most Americans world view?

Phenomenal question. Truly, this is an insightful question. I think that poverty in America is different from the rest of the world. Part of this might be in the fact that much of America sees itself as “middle class.” Most of us realize that we are not Bill Gates or Carly Fiorino or Warren Buffet in terms of wealth. Yet, in its assertions of egalitarianism and theoretical equality of opportunity, we are not, as a predisposed, to utilizing the term of “poverty.” Perhaps, lower middle class or “going through hard times,” but “poverty” seems to bring about a whole other realm. This vision is one of rural and completely isolated America or the depths of our urban centers, both domains having been the result of the experiment of systematic neglect for a prolonged period of time. Poverty in other nations, in particular poorer ones, completely inverts this. The term “middle class” is actually a class of people and individuals don’t use that term as lightly. The poverty experienced in other nations might actually come close to the way the term was meant to be envisioned. In traveling around the world and speaking with others, I am fairly convinced that poverty in other nations reconceptualizes the term because the poverty these individuals experience is one where there is not only financial depletion evident, but also a withering of the human soul. These individuals who fit the term “poverty” are ones that experience the result of institutional inequality and a lack of fundamental opportunity. This is not something that is so openly apparent in America. For example, the child born in the poorest of conditions in America can still afford to go to some type of public school. With a great deal of hardship, no school door is brazenly closed in their face because of their impoverished condition, helping to facilitate the vision that education can be a way to alleviate their own state of being in the world. I don’t see this as much with children who are impoverished in other cultures or nations, where education is more of a privilege instead of a right. The concept of public education as it is in the States is not something shared worldwide, where a child who is impoverished does not have the vision or illusion to believe in the promises and possibilities of education for this door, sadly enough, has also been closed. I think that this creates a disquieting effect in Americans. It creates a very challenging view of the world, whereby one has theoretical promises open to them. The reality of these being fulfilled might vary, but the theory is present. When seeing in other nations this theory being shut down to others, there is a question that emerges: At what point does faith in theory become something akin to “fool’s gold” or something where complete immersion is needed? The impoverished in other nations do not have this vision, making the American who is impoverished filled with a new set of anxiety.