Believing the worst
by digby
Things are getting a lot better on a big picture global basis but people are convinced we’re going to hell in a hand-basket:
Did you know that, in the past 30 years, the percentage of people in the world who live in extreme poverty has decreased by more than half? If you said no—if you thought the number had gone up; that more people, not less, live in extreme poverty—you aren’t alone. According to a recent Barna Group survey, done in partnership with Compassion International and the new book Hope Rising by Dr. Scott Todd, more than eight in 10 Americans (84%) are unaware global poverty has reduced so drastically. More than two-thirds (67%) say they thought global poverty was on the rise over the past three decades.
Similarly, while both child deaths and deaths caused by HIV/AIDS have decreased worldwide, many Americans wrongly think these numbers are on the rise: 50% of US adults believe child deaths have increased since 1990, and 35% believe deaths from HIV/AIDS have increased in the past five years.
Despite the very real good news, more than two-thirds of US adults (68%) say they do not believe it’s possible to end extreme global poverty within the next 25 years. Sadly, concern about extreme global poverty—defined in this study as the estimated 1.4 billion people in countries outside the US who do not have access to clean water, enough food, sufficient clothing and shelter, or basic medicine like antibiotics—has declined from 21% in 2011 to 16% in 2013.
This seems like good news to me so it’s worth wondering why people don’t believe it.
I suspect Americans are generally in a bad mood, still shaken by the financial crisis and reeling from massive social change. There is good reason to have lost faith in our system in a million different ways. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that something important like extreme global poverty is improving quickly and could actually be eradicated in our lifetimes.
I feel as if people are afraid to admit that because it would make some of our political arguments sound hollow.
That’s not a good reason.
.