and one can see it in Nick Kristof’s New York Times column today.
Allow me to offer a framing, if I may, before getting to the column.
And this will NOT be about limiting the influence of excessive wealth upon our political processes.
That is an argument for another posting.
Rather my framing is this — excessive wealth leads to obscenely gross conspicuous consumption whose purpose is merely to flaunt wealth, and in the face of those who lack the very basics of life and health, that is immoral, obscenely so.
Kristof’s column is titled The World’s Malnourished Kids Don’t Need a $295 Burger and has a subtitle of “A quarter of the world’s children are stunted from inadequate diets.”
One quarter.
The column interlaces examples of the impact of malnutrtion with exemplars of the gross conspicuous consumption. Kristof starts with a 9 year old boy named Raul, in Guatemala, who seems normal sized for a 5 year old, but with a more mature face.
Then comes these three paragraphs:
Sure enough, Raúl turns out to be 9. Malnutrition has left his body and mind badly stunted. He’s one of almost one-quarter of all children worldwide who are stunted from malnutrition.
Here in Guatemala, almost half of children are stunted. In some Mayan villages, it’s 70 percent.
In another world, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the restaurant Serendipity 3 offers a $295 hamburger. Alternatively, it sells a $214 grilled cheese sandwich and a $1,000 sundae.
When I first read that, I found myself taking a sharp in-breath, and stopping.
After some background from experts on malnutrition and related subjects, we encounter another set of contrasts in these three consecutive paragraphs:
Studies find that malnourished children do less well in school, and the mental impairment is visible in brain scans.
The implication is that billions of I.Q. points are lost to malnutrition, and that the world’s greatest unexploited resource is not oil or gold but the minds of hungry children.
For the diner who has everything, restaurants offer gold in food. A Dubai restaurant, for example, has sold a cupcake enveloped in gold leaf. The gold is tasteless (and nontoxic), so its only purpose is extravagant novelty and a glittering price — in this case, more than $1,000 per cupcake.
I am not going to go through all of the illustrations offered by Kristof, not merely because I would be violating fair use, but because you really should read tne entire column.
Some will dismiss this as a problem of other countries whose governments fail them. But might I point out that Kristof is writing about a child in Guatemala, one of the countries from which the people coming across our Southern border are coming. There are lots of reasons for those people to travel North from their country into Mexico seeking asylum and more — gang violence is certainly an issue. But the dysfunction of the governments makes it impossible for people to care for their children. And yet because of the apparent racism and xenophobia of some in the administration — including apparently the President — rather than address problems at their source we imprison people, separate families, and hide from the American public what we are doing to people who are only seeking a decent existence.
Think about some of the statistics Kristof offers from experts. School meals cost about $.25 each. Deworming for children, which costs about
50 cents per child per year to improve both nutrition and health, yet pets in the U.S. are more likely to be dewormed than children in many other places.
But some will claim these are not our children. We should not care.
We have politicians who have offered programs of great benefit to our country and have posited that a wealth tax could easily pay for them. I don’t argue that.
But what if we used some portion of that to address the statistic that caught my attention, that ¼ — that one fourth of ALL children in the world are malnourished.
What if instead of arguing about MAGA we confronted what most religions, including Christianity, teach about our responsibility to our fellow human beings, that as we can read in Matthew 25 whatsoever we do to these the least of our brethren we do unto him who Christians believe to be the Incarnate God. Or if it is put somewhat differently, what if we merely recognized for this most basic of needs that the humanity of these children should be equal to that of our own — that is, our humanity and that of our offspring.
I am not a parent. For a variety of reasons we chose not to have biological children, although some years ago we seriously considered adopting. My wife is a doting aunt to nieces and nephews, and has multiple god-children both from within and without her family. I have now devoted more than two decades to educating young people from a variety of setting.
We both understand the importance of nutrition I know that a hungry child cannot learn as well. But in America in public schools we can be sure that get at least one meal a day and sometimes more. Other nations may not only not have nutrition programs in schools, in countries with serious conflict they may not even have schools.
I will not go through all of the obscene examples Kristof offers. You should read the column.
I will offer one more three paragraph contrast, from the end of the column:
If some distant planet sends foreign correspondents to Earth, they will be baffled that we allow almost one child in four to be stunted, even as we indulge in gold leaf cupcakes, $1,000 sundaes and half-million-dollar bottles of wine.
“In 2018, an estimated 60 percent of cats and 56 percent of dogs in the United States were overweight or obese. Pet obesity remains a serious health threat.” — Association for Pet Obesity Prevention.
Something’s wrong with this picture.
Indeed it is.
And clearly we would be morally justified in taxing the excessive wealth of those at the very top to help address this issue.
Now go read the entire column and pass it on to others.