Re: Salinger's world

Sam Sundberg (stray@well.com)
Thu, 12 Aug 1999 01:54:29 +0200 

Um, I don't know exactly what you think my post said, Jim, but you seem to
have totally missed the point. This is probably at least partly my own
fault, so I'll make an attempt to elucidate things a bit...

First of all, I was merely acknowledging that there are big, important
issues that Salinger doesn't go near. My point, however, was that the issues
Jerry does deal with (viz. some of the 'sorrows of the rich') are
nevertheless worthwhile.

Secondly: No, I am not mistaking the world's resources for America's
resources. I don't see where you get that from at all. If anyone is guilty
of this mistake, it would seem to me to be you. You seem to agree that the
world's resources could in theory support its inhabitants. Well, I was
saying no more than this. Oh yeah, with the addition that in practice this
is not the case. (Surely we're not in disagreement here either?) Much of the
resources are instead used for other things, notably luxury and warfare --
in the rich countries (including but not limited to the U S of A) as well as
the poor.

Thirdly: I'm glad to see you get all defensive about your own affluence --
that's healthy, it happens to me all the time -- even if my post didn't
really much call for it. This defensiveness betrays, i hope, a lack of faith
in the neat picture of the world you then hasten to paint, wherein the
consumption of the western countries is totally unrelated to the dire
straits in which the majority of the world's population find themselves.

/Sam

>nah, Sam, this is naive.  You're mistaking the world's resources for
>America's resources, first of all (and don't bother quoting me percentages
of
>tuna consumption by Americans relative to the world market, I have the
>numbers in a book packed in a box somewhere -- "Rich Christians in an Age
of
>Hunger," Ron Sider).  And you're mistaking one person's affluence for
another
>person's poverty.  It just don't work that way.  The poor in Ethiopia
aren't
>starving because Americans aren't doing enough for them.  That's demeaning
to
>them and misrepresentative of their reality.  Most geographical countries
>have the means to feed their people, most geographical areas can sustain
the
>people living on it.  It's a matter of the people in charge THERE doing
their
>job.