Problem Of Homelessness

4 Pages 1091 Words

Hardin vs. Kozol
In Garret Hardin’s Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor and Jonathan Kozol’s The Details of Life, not many comparisons can be drawn. Ideology plays a large part in a person’s opinion and bias, therefore each author is speaking according to what he believes to be true. Both opinions differ greatly, but even amongst great divergence, similarities spring out. One of the more general similarities is that they are both actually trying to make a difference in people’s lives. The fact that these two articles can agree to disagree is already a basis for comparison. Although Kozol makes good points in trying to show us the individualistic point of view, Hardin’s ideas seem to hold more substance and show the ability to reach a larger percentage. Hardin’s ideas are based on the greater good, while Kozol tries to view people as individuals rather than a larger mass. While Kozol talks about his experienced and small case scenarios, Hardin states his objections on a more global scale with larger probable reach. Hardin seems to focus more on the statistical research; Kozol rarely states any percentages, leading the reader to believe that what Hardin is saying is essentially more factual and well thought out than Kozol’s idiosyncratic point of view.
Hardin’s focus on poverty as a whole is on a scale of mass proportions. For this reason he is able to show poverty as a planetary problem, rather than on a smaller scale, such as a local city. If someone were to read Hardin’s essay in a country other than the United States, he or she would still understand the problem which Hardin was addressing. The reader from another country would notice that they could actually relate to or understand the situations that Harding was describing, rather than trying to understand Kozol’s issues on the local scale, such as individuals from a church in New York City. According to Hardin, the rapid increase in populat...