For another, when I wrote a column on gun control not too long ago, Messieurs Noonan and Robert L. Rosebrock each took aim at me. If I didn’t bother to respond, it was because neither of them actually read what I wrote let alone addressed my arguments. I fear this is very much the case again with Mr. Noonan’s response.

*Tilting at Cartoons and Straw Men*

“The first hint lies in the headline,” writes my Fearless Editor before warning readers to duck – there are victims being tossed around. And what was that headline? “A Voice for the Invisible.” I shouldn’t have to explain what the headline means, but it’s a good example of how Mr. Noonan, in his zeal to spear liberals real and imagined, has an affinity for straw men. So here’s a question. Be honest. How many times a day do you, dear reader, think of the beggars on the street, children living in run-down hotels, or war Veterans abandoned by the very people who sent them to war?

Exactly.

Hence, before even getting into politics or social policy, the title describes what the play “does”: It makes us think about people we don’t normally think about. It gives a voice to the invisible.

But that’s a minor misinterpretation compared to the heart of Mr. Noonan’s rebuttal, namely, confusing my perspective in reviewing “Somebody’s Children” with a cartoon view of liberalism that sees:

* “The poor of the world… impoverished because the greedyrich (one word in a liberal’s mind) gobbled up all the money before any could dribble down to the beggars. The rich should give their wealth to the poor because, by golly, the poor, by golly, have suffered enough and the well-to-do have not.”*

For one thing, I clearly stated in my review an opinion that “[poverty] isn’t a question of personal accountability vs. social justice, but a mutual influence of the two.” I also critiqued the play for “the sheer number of issues raised [that make] ‘Somebody’s Children’ seem like a whiny victim’s litany of excuses to avoid doing anything,” even though I think the play does succeed to some extent in getting beyond this. My review, then, was hardly written from a perspective that ignores the responsibility people have for their own actions.

*The Myth of the Self-Made Man*

But what I wrote hardly matters, because my views on poverty – real or perceived – fly in the face of the myth Mr. Noonan and many of his fellow non-liberals adhere to: the self-made man. This is the view that the rich get rich through the sweat of their brow and the fruits of their labor. If a person is poor, it’s his or her own fault for being stupid, lazy or deficient in some way. With that view in mind, it’s easy to scorn the poor for reaping what they (don’t) sow. They deserve what they get, right?

This condescension (along with the mistaken belief that envy drives the clamor to address poverty), however, relies on a serious misunderstanding of how economies work. To use “The Pursuit of Happyness” as an example, while it’s true that Chris Gardner is bright, persistent and willing to make sacrifices – the ideal candidate for a self-made man – none of these qualities would have amounted to anything if the folks at Dean Witter hadn’t let him into their internship program. He also wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if investors hadn’t agreed to become his clients. In other words, Chris Gardner’s success didn’t occur in a vacuum: While his hard work was an important part of his success, he also needed other people.

In a similar vein – and keeping in mind that the profit in capitalism comes from getting more out of an economic transaction than you put in (price vs. cost) – wealthy business people would be nowhere without customers, not to mention employees whose labor costs don’t take away from those profits. The rich really are rich because of other people. Does this mean we have to confiscate, Robin Hood-style, the wealthy’s money? No. But it does mean that “why” the few are far wealthier than the many is an important factor in any discussion of poverty.

Since economies are “social” systems, an individual’s circumstances certainly play a role – beyond an individual’s own power – in how he or she can function within that economy. Black slaves, as a result of a racist society supporting slavery, could not hold a job like white people. Anti-Semitism in Europe and America prior to World War II made it difficult for Jews to find jobs, join social organizations and so on. Similarly, there are many barriers today – from a lack of childhood healthcare and education to disabilities – that make it necessary to reject the view that poverty is strictly the fault of the poor. In the end, it stems from a failure of both individual and community manifested through the cultural apathy “Somebody’s Children” criticizes.

While I aim for pragmatism rather than ideology and reject both liberalism and conservatism as hopelessly passé lenses through which to view the world, I’ll say this: Today’s liberals and pop-liberals at least acknowledge there is a problem and display compassion for those among us who suffer. On the flip side, Mr. Noonan’s regret over my sympathies with “liberal” causes fits in neatly with the Pragers, the Malkins and the O’Reillys of the punditry world. He demonstrates very well John Kenneth Galbraith’s observation that the “modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”