One size fits all shoes - charity and shame

[erol]

It was mentioned in a different thread about the forum and how it is structured that 'like shoes, one size does not fit all'.

Which got me thinking and googling, which in turn led me here

https://theshoethatgrows.org/index.html

Not quite a 'one size fits all' shoe - but pretty close - A single shoe that can expand to up to 5 shoe sizes. All in all a great idea and a great charity in my opinion.

Which in turn got me thinking about another thing that has been mentioned on various threads at various times, this idea of 'being ashamed' to be 'whatever', though usually it's 'British'. Well as a member of a 'species' that can and has placed men (but not yet women) on the moon, can and does split atoms, can and does splice genes from spiders and place them in goats and yet seems unable to ensure that an estimated 300,000 children have shoes, I do feel a sense and degree of 'shame' at this, merely for being a part of such a 'species'. Do I think that I am personally responsible for these children having to grow up without shoes ? No I do not but that does not mean that I do not also feel some sense of 'shame' at this situation. Some may write me and my professed feeling of shame off, as the whining of a 'left wing, pampered liberal'. I personally think the sense of shame I feel in this regard is less about any 'political' views I may hold and more just an expression of basic humanity of a (relatively in my case) normal and (relatively in my case) functioning member of our species.

[Hedge-fund]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

[Ragged Robin]

As a teenager, like all teenagers, I probably distorted my feet by wearing shoes that were fashionable against the advice of older and wiser people. It never even occurred to any of us that there were people who went without shoes and probably half a dozen could have been shod for the price of one pair of silly, ill made fripperies that were probably thrown away in a few weeks.

I do now feel a sense of guilt that I spent money stupidly when others needed it more, but my personal guilt is mitigated by the fact that I among millions gave in to the pressure of commercial interests and advertising.

The same still applies when I am unable to finish a good meal, and am reminded that there are people who would be glad of the food I reject but have no way of getting it to them.

Now that I am older and I hope wiser and in need for medical reasons myself, I spend more carefully, I work on the Charity begins at home theory and donate what I can spare of food, money , clothes or anything else to the local charity that ,, with my own physical limitations, I can most easily access!

[niceone]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

easy for us to say, but if you had no access to contraceptives and you needed children to support you in old age?

Our society has no idea what it is like to have no support system, we work we pay into a system and at the end of it we get a pension, so many countries do not have this, imagine being too old or too disabled to work and you have no income

[£eagle]

In many parts of the world shoes are simply not needed. What other animal, in nature, wears shoes? For a good part of the summer here I need no shoes but, if I do wear them, it is more through "societal expectation" than need. There are, of course, physical and weather conditions that make it essential for we bipeds to have good footwear. Put a good sole where it is needed and you will not feel like a heel.

[erol]

In many parts of the world shoes are simply not needed.

https://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2014/01/22/ ... -of-shoes/

[Groucho]

Well as a member of a 'species' that can and has placed men (but not yet women) on the moon

No atmosphere and loads of dust! Little wonder then that women have no wish to go there...

[Groucho]

As a teenager, like all teenagers, I probably distorted my feet by wearing shoes that were fashionable against the advice of older and wiser people. It never even occurred to any of us that there were people who went without shoes and probably half a dozen could have been shod for the price of one pair of silly, ill made fripperies that were probably thrown away in a few weeks.

I do now feel a sense of guilt that I spent money stupidly when others needed it more, but my personal guilt is mitigated by the fact that I among millions gave in to the pressure of commercial interests and advertising.

The same still applies when I am unable to finish a good meal, and am reminded that there are people who would be glad of the food I reject but have no way of getting it to them.

Now that I am older and I hope wiser and in need for medical reasons myself, I spend more carefully, I work on the Charity begins at home theory and donate what I can spare of food, money , clothes or anything else to the local charity that ,, with my own physical limitations, I can most easily access!

When we were young we cursed our mother for making all wear sensible shoes... and often we chose to go barefoot... particularly to the consternation of the Sally Army whose marching brass band we would oft stomp along behind as they marched down the road.... boom boom boom...

Now - not one of the six of us suffers with foot related issues... Thanks mum!

[erol]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

Not surprising that someone with a username of "Hedge-Fund" would subscribe to and promote a 'deserving poor' argument I guess. It may be comforting to believe that the reason such large numbers of people go without such a basic need as shoes in our world is solely down to their own irresponsibility or laziness or ignorance or some other failing of theirs but as comforting as this argument is, I personally just do not believe it is actually true.

It seems to me that it would perfectly possible to have a world where, reportedly, the wealthiest 8 families in the world can own as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people and where no one had to go without such a basic necessity as shoes. That we have created a world and global structures that allow the former without seemingly being able to address the later is to me an 'indictment' of us collectively and one that should in my view generate a degree of shame in any normal functioning member of humanity.

[kerry 6138]

Growing up we always had a "shoe box" full of shoes with wear left in them waiting for my feet to grow into them, sneakers and pumps with holes in the soles would see the start of winter with the judicious use of Dads origami skills and newspaper.

[Sallywebstersnipples]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

HF: Don't be so bloody sensible!

[erol]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

HF: Don't be so bloody sensible!

The following are just my views and opinions, shared not because I think everyone should think as I do but in a spirit of discussion and discourse by which I might change someones opinions but also may change my own as well.

Hedge-fund's assertion only makes sense, in my view, if you accept the truth of that which is implicit within it. Namely that the sole cause, or even the dominant cause, of there being children without shoes is the irresponsibility of parents having such children in the first place. I do not think this assumption is actually true or holds up to even a cursory enquiry in to it.

Britain today does not, in any comparative sense, have children living without shoes. It used to in the past and does not today. So did it manage to go from a situation where there were children without shoes to one where there are not because people who could not afford shoes for their children either voluntarily or by force did not have children ? Or was some other mechanism the cause of this change from no shoes to shoes ?

You can take this false (imo) idea of Hedge-fund's to it's logical conclusion and doing so also shows the fundamental flaw in it (imo). According to this 'Hedge-fund' view poverty can be solved very simply. Just make sure that poor people do not 'irresponsibly' have children and in a few generations there will be no more poor people. Everyone will be wealthy once this is done and problem solved for ever. When put in these terms I think the lack of 'sense' in such an argument becomes very evident ?

As I said originally it is very comforting for someone who is 'not poor' to believe that the sole reason they are not poor and others are poor is because they are more hard working or more responsible or more intelligent or more determined that those who are poor. As comforting as this idea may be I still do not think it is actually true. Such things can be and are part of the 'story' but to pretend that they are the only story is to me obviously not true. Hedge-fund may believe that his ability to 'not be poor' is solely down to his own individual abilities and attributes and if he were born as an orphan in a third world country living without shoes on a refuse dump, these abilities and attributes of his would mean he would still none the less find a route to 'not being poor' regardless. Conversely he may also believe that if a young adult that is today a shoe-less orphan living on a refuse dump in a third world country were to be adopted by a successful Hedge Fund manger and her husband living in Chelsea, this young adult will still end up 'poor' eventually. An average person's ability to 'not be poor', apart possibly from truly exceptional people that 'prove the rule', is not solely defined by that individual alone but is also significantly a function of the environment and structures that they exist within that control and shape the potentials available to them, to provide shoes for their children or to 'not be poor'.

[Hedge-fund]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

Not surprising that someone with a username of "Hedge-Fund" would subscribe to and promote a 'deserving poor' argument I guess. It may be comforting to believe that the reason such large numbers of people go without such a basic need as shoes in our world is solely down to their own irresponsibility or laziness or ignorance or some other failing of theirs but as comforting as this argument is, I personally just do not believe it is actually true..

That's an unfair statement and I wish you'd take it back. I grew up poor in a poor area of London. When we were planning kids we did hard sums and couldn't afford them so we put it off and continued saving. As soon as we thought we could feed and clothe children we had them.

My subsequent studying, skill, hard work and good fortune came years later. My username on here is very tongue in cheek ( I'm sure you don't think sallywebstersnipples is a tit).

My thoughts on shoes for children remain the same as my early years. If you can't afford kids don't have them - and if you ignore obvious advice and go ahead and have them - don't ask me for shoes. (Ignoring the parents' stupidity I would then gladly help the innocent child)

That's not hedge-fund speak it's plain common sense.

[Hedge-fund]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

HF: Don't be so bloody sensible!

The following are just my views and opinions, shared not because I think everyone should think as I do but in a spirit of discussion and discourse by which I might change someones opinions but also may change my own as well.

Hedge-fund's assertion only makes sense, in my view, if you accept the truth of that which is implicit within it. Namely that the sole cause, or even the dominant cause, of there being children without shoes is the irresponsibility of parents having such children in the first place. I do not think this assumption is actually true or holds up to even a cursory enquiry in to it.

Britain today does not, in any comparative sense, have children living without shoes. It used to in the past and does not today. So did it manage to go from a situation where there were children without shoes to one where there are not because people who could not afford shoes for their children either voluntarily or by force did not have children ? Or was some other mechanism the cause of this change from no shoes to shoes ?

You can take this false (imo) idea of Hedge-fund's to it's logical conclusion and doing so also shows the fundamental flaw in it (imo). According to this 'Hedge-fund' view poverty can be solved very simply. Just make sure that poor people do not 'irresponsibly' have children and in a few generations there will be no more poor people. Everyone will be wealthy once this is done and problem solved for ever. When put in these terms I think the lack of 'sense' in such an argument becomes very evident ?

As I said originally it is very comforting for someone who is 'not poor' to believe that the sole reason they are not poor and others are poor is because they are more hard working or more responsible or more intelligent or more determined that those who are poor. As comforting as this idea may be I still do not think it is actually true. Such things can be and are part of the 'story' but to pretend that they are the only story is to me obviously not true. Hedge-fund may believe that his ability to 'not be poor' is solely down to his own individual abilities and attributes and if he were born as an orphan in a third world country living without shoes on a refuse dump, these abilities and attributes of his would mean he would still none the less find a route to 'not being poor' regardless. Conversely he may also believe that if a young adult that is today a shoe-less orphan living on a refuse dump in a third world country were to be adopted by a successful Hedge Fund manger and her husband living in Chelsea, this young adult will still end up 'poor' eventually. An average person's ability to 'not be poor', apart possibly from truly exceptional people that 'prove the rule', is not solely defined by that individual alone but is also significantly a function of the environment and structures that they exist within that control and shape the potentials available to them, to provide shoes for their children or to 'not be poor'.

I have managed to disagree with you without personal insult and wildly inaccurate sweeping assumptions - will you please try to do the same.

[erol]

If I couldn't afford shoes for my kids I wouldn't have kids.

Not surprising that someone with a username of "Hedge-Fund" would subscribe to and promote a 'deserving poor' argument I guess. It may be comforting to believe that the reason such large numbers of people go without such a basic need as shoes in our world is solely down to their own irresponsibility or laziness or ignorance or some other failing of theirs but as comforting as this argument is, I personally just do not believe it is actually true..

That's an unfair statement and I wish you'd take it back.

OK I take back the "Not surprising that someone with a username of "Hedge-Fund" would subscribe to and promote a 'deserving poor' argument I guess." I still am of the opinion however that, regardless of what name you post under, your position is based on the concept of 'deserving poor', that I do not agree with. That is the idea that those that are poor are so solely or overwhelmingly because of their own lack of 'effort' or other attribute and those that are not likewise. Of course one's own efforts play a part but what I object to is the idea that this is the only factor that determines the outcome of 'poor' or 'not poor', which is the point I am trying to make here.

I grew up poor in a poor area of London.

Which means that on any global comparative measure, you grew up 'not poor', relative to the world's population in general.

At the risk of upsetting you even more and 'insulting you' again, you say you grew up poor in a poor part of London. Is that because you parents did not have and show the same levels of studiousness, skill and hard work as you subsequently did to allow yourself to become 'not poor' ? Or was it perhaps that they did not have the same opportunities that you had ? It is not my intent to in any way insult you or your parents in asking this question. My only intent is to try and question this idea that a person's 'poverty' or lack of it, is not solely and simply down to how hard that person may study or work or similar but that there are also many other factors that determine such outcomes. Is it not possible that anyone, you, me or the parent of a child in the third world with shoe less children be in an environment such that no matter for how long and how hard they study, how hard they work or how much skill they acquire, they will remain poor none the less?

When we were planning kids we did hard sums and couldn't afford them so we put it off and continued saving. As soon as we thought we could feed and clothe children we had them.

Such behaviour is laudable and I laud you for it but what I am questioning is the simplistic notion that it is the lack of such behaviour and choices in others that determines if we live in world where an estimate 300,000,000 children world wide do not have shoes or not.

Personally I have and plan to have no children at all regardless of if and to what degree I may be able to 'afford' such and am lucky enough to have been born in to an environment where I am able to effectively make such a choice by means other than pure abstinence. Millions if not billions of others, through no fault of theirs, are not so lucky to have such choices. What I do not do however is concluded that therefore the reason why I live in a world where there are an estimated 300,000,000 children without shoes, or billions living in levels of poverty beyond anything the poorest of the poor in London experience, is because the parents of such children are not as 'responsible' as I am, or as 'hard working' or 'studious'.

My username on here is very tongue in cheek

As far as I have made assumptions about you based on your choice of that name rather than any other, I do apologise unreservedly and will try my best not to make or imply such assumptions in the future.

I'm sure you don't think sallywebstersnipples is a tit).

No I do not think so but I do think that them choosing such a name does potentially say something about them as a person, though I recognise that what it might say would be based on assumption and as such may well be wrong.

My thoughts on shoes for children remain the same as my early years. If you can't afford kids don't have them - and if you ignore obvious advice and go ahead and have them - don't ask me for shoes. (Ignoring the parents' stupidity I would then gladly help the innocent child)
That's not hedge-fund speak it's plain common sense.

As my thoughts remain the same in regard to the phenomenon that I live in a world where we as a 'species' have managed to split atoms and splice genes and yet seem unable to ensure that no child has to live without such a basic necessity as shoes says something about us all, generically as a 'species' rather than only says something about the responsibility or lack of such of the parents of such children. That to me is also plain common sense.

I have managed to disagree with you without personal insult and wildly inaccurate sweeping assumptions - will you please try to do the same.

As far as anything I have written has made you feel I am insulting you personally then I apologise for my posts making you feel that way. My intent has never been to insult you personally but rather to try as bast I am able to address and challenge the ideas implicit in what you have posted, as far as I understand such 'ideas' correctly in the first place. I am sincerely sorry that such an attempt has made you feel I am insulting you.

[Ragged Robin]

As a teenager, like all teenagers, I probably distorted my feet by wearing shoes that were fashionable against the advice of older and wiser people. It never even occurred to any of us that there were people who went without shoes and probably half a dozen could have been shod for the price of one pair of silly, ill made fripperies that were probably thrown away in a few weeks.


Now that I am older and I hope wiser and in need for medical reasons myself, I spend more carefully, I work on the Charity begins at home theory and donate what I can spare of food, money , clothes or anything else to the local charity that ,, with my own physical limitations, I can most easily access!

When we were young we cursed our mother for making all wear sensible shoes... and often we chose to go barefoot... particularly to the consternation of the Sally Army whose marching brass band we would oft stomp along behind as they marched down the road.... boom boom boom...

Now - not one of the six of us suffers with foot related issues... Thanks mum!

I was talking about older teenagers Groucho: as a child I was taken to Clarks, which has a special person to measure and fit childrens shoes. And of course later there was school uniform which was very strict about footwear. It was late teens/twenties when the dreaded stilleto heels held sway (literally). Of course a horse standing on my foot didnt help either! oops sorry

[Hedge-fund]

Thank you Erol - I'm sure we can get back to the topic now.

To avoid parody of a monty python sketch I will not go into the detail of growing up in London with no money. What I will say is that there are still many penniless, homeless people in London with zero possessions that rely on charity for clothes - including shoes.

[erol]

What I will say is that there are still many penniless, homeless people in London with zero possessions that rely on charity for clothes - including shoes.

I could argue about 'many' but to do so would be churlish of me, for such people undoubtedly exist, be they a few, some or many. I could also say that the degree to which such people are in such a position is imo considerably more likely to be a consequence of their own actions and choices and failings, than the children around the world without shoes are so because of the actions and choices and failings of their parents but even then I would not claim such is the sole reason why they are in the position they are. For me that such homeless people are in such dire straits is just another 'indictment' of our failings generically as a 'species', that we can and have communally achieved the most wondrous of things in so many ways and fields yet still seem unable to ensure that no one should have to live in such extremes of poverty, in London or elsewhere. I feel a degree of shame, simply as a member of humanity, at their plight that is no different from that that I feel re the plight of the 100's of millions of children around the world having to grow up and live without shoes.

[erol]

as a child I was taken to Clarks, which has a special person to measure and fit childrens shoes.

Also totally off topic but I so clearly I remember the 'pull' the introduction of a 'high tech machine' in to Clarks stores had on me as an impressionable child, that 'replaced' the human element. If I needed shoes then Clarks was where I wanted to go and get them for no other reason than it had such a wondrous machine.

[Sallywebstersnipples]

Purely from my own opinion this has to be the most boring thread I have ever read let alone contributed too, what on earth was I thinking trying to be light hearted. That'll teach me in future.

Errol: If you think my user name might suggest something about me as a person god knows what you would think if you met me in the flesh, you'd have a field day with assumptions!

[Ragged Robin]

“I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." Buy my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.”


― George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

[Ragged Robin]

[quote="Sallywebstersnipples"]Purely from my own opinion this has to be the most boring thread I have ever read let alone contributed too, what on earth was I thinking trying to be light hearted. That'll teach me in future.

Do you really mean you prefer a board which is a totally boring three quarters internet version of Exchange and Mart to a serious discussion Swn? Well I suppose it takes all types.

Personally I salute Erol for starting and mainaining a sensible and reasonably polite discussion on a topic which when I tried it only drew spite and nastiness

Going back to the original post I think that - as with Health Care - we, meaning the less poverty stricken portion of the human race, need a more holistic approach to "Charity". Providing shoes is no doubt good idea which makes people feel good about themselves (to paraphrase Soner) but if you asked the recipients they might preferred a thick blanket - or a square meal.. Indeed most normally healthy people can cope with many privations so long as they are well nourished.

[Sallywebstersnipples]

RR: Your interpretation of my comments are purely your own views. Personally I like the exchange & mart, its been around for a long time and is likely to be remembered long after this forum has turned its toes up. There is room for lots of differing views and I stand by my comment about the thread being boring, if you found it a riveting read then good for you. As you say, it takes all sorts.

[trooper]

Erol; Well done that man. Your erudition, logic and commonsense has left your critics floundering, not for the first time.
Good for you.