Ben Carson's Romanticism; 'Poverty is a State of Mind'

HUD Sect. Ben Carson in an interview recently said that ‘poverty is a state of mind’. Yes the remark had a context in which it appeared such as a given ‘mindset’ inertially exists as a cultural characteristic, however it is a useful comment for illustrating the point of view of certain German romantics of the mid-19^th century.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/24/ben-carson-calls-poverty-a-state-of-mind-during-interview/?utm_term=.3e20a7fcad4a

Those romantics exploiting the concept of irony or subjective detachment from the objective social world-establishment to the point of abnegation and nihilism regarded social conventions as of little worth. There is another way to use the detachment or subjective perspective associated with Socrates and his saying ‘know thyself’ that isn’t nihilistic. Instead it is analytical-critical of society and culture while introspective and moving on to comprehend what is right and wrong, good or bad, true or false about society upon reflection rather than just dismissing it all.

It is somewhat ironic that the conservative Dr. Ben Carson personified the relativism vilified by conservatives who prefer objective facts and established empirical reality over subjectivity and detachment favored by the left. Obviously the truth is somewhere mid-way between the two extremes. The extreme subjectivity reaching unto solipsism favored by Schlegel and somewhat less so by Goethe can dismiss objective reality and say that for the individual everything is just a state of mind-even when it is pouring cold rain it would be nothing more than a state of mind for the romantic being drenched. The coefficient of adversity keeping one in poverty is not just one's own thought; it has reciprocals in the thought of others.

Poverty like slavery is not just a state of mind. When wealth concentrates and plutocracy controls and totalized the econom and when computer quant programs control 70% of Wall Street transactions at least in part, or when a city burns down with incendiary bombs dropping in from the sky it is more than a state of mind experienced or even constructed by an individual.

Saying that poverty is a state of mind reflects the poverty of realism drifting in as a cloud of optimism around the heads of those who have made it good rather easily who have no experience of social resistance to making things better.