When Indifference Equals Acceptance

As of Friday, February 10, 2012

After reading Gene Nichol’s reprinted article from the News & Observer (North Carolina’s Shame: Poverty, Right Before Our Eyes,” Feb. 5), I send a resounding thank-you to The Pilot.

It reminds me of a book I recently came across, “Invisible Cities,” by Italo Calvino, written in 1972. In it a fictional story frames our state’s and country’s situation quite nicely.

An aging Kublai Khan sits in a garden with Marco Polo, lamenting the demise of his empire. Marco Polo makes an astute observation: “Yes, the empire is sick, and, what is worse, it is trying to become accustomed to its sores.”

Dr. Nichol has pointed to our sores. When we show indifference to your sores, we give acceptance to them. This accepting them gives permission for your sores to continue on and on.

In the end, it lessens us as to who we are as a state and nation.

Bill Newton, M.D.

Southern Pines

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Easygoing 3 months, 2 weeks ago

so true

wdd101st 3 months, 1 week ago

If you are talking about the war on poverty that has going on for at least 50 plus years and cost several trillion dollars. Just think, if they had taken that much money and given it to the poor they would have spent it. Some might have improved their lives. Others would stll be in the same mess.

buskwon 3 months, 1 week ago

A very nice book , and a good read but , as they say ,Marco Polo and Kublai Khan do not speak the same language. When Polo is explaining the various cities, he uses objects from the city to tell the story. The implication is that that each character understands the other through their own interpretation of what they are saying. They literally are not speaking the same language, which leaves many decisions for the individual reader.

JER 3 months, 1 week ago

And so it is with poverty. Viewed through the eyes of Mitt Romney, it is one thing, viewed through the eyes of an unemployed factory worker on welfare, something completely different. They don't speak the same language either and the guy on welfare has a much shorter term view of the problem and the solutions.