You mention physical security, food availability, and shelter as this little boy's three major boons in life. But does he have access to an intellectual tradition? Does he have access to any figure who can teach him anything? Does he have hope? Does he have freedom?
Your caricature of a person with a "really" miserable life crucially forgets that in many ways this person might have had a much more rich than someone living in poverty in the inner city. Namely, in terms of freedom, in terms of connection to his family and community, and in terms of his independence. People (not just the impoverished) living in cities with high population density have a fairly unique set of psychological stresses, historically speaking. This set of stresses seems to be particularly crushing, for whatever reason.
I mean, what I really don't understand about your comment is the tone of it. That somehow this child has all of these benefits, but still fails? What are you proposing? Can you really not see that the child must ALSO have some deficits that cause him to fail? Are you proposing that he's a bad person? I just really don't get it. What's your answer? What's your idea? That he's just not "trying" hard enough? What's the difference between a person who tries hard enough and one who doesn't?
It feels to me that underlying your comment is a deep blindness to crucial elements of human psychology. You somehow draw an equivalence between humans existing in superficially similar circumstances and then throw your hands up in the air and say "I don't get it!"
Your caricature of a person with a "really" miserable life crucially forgets that in many ways this person might have had a much more rich than someone living in poverty in the inner city. Namely, in terms of freedom, in terms of connection to his family and community, and in terms of his independence. People (not just the impoverished) living in cities with high population density have a fairly unique set of psychological stresses, historically speaking. This set of stresses seems to be particularly crushing, for whatever reason.
I mean, what I really don't understand about your comment is the tone of it. That somehow this child has all of these benefits, but still fails? What are you proposing? Can you really not see that the child must ALSO have some deficits that cause him to fail? Are you proposing that he's a bad person? I just really don't get it. What's your answer? What's your idea? That he's just not "trying" hard enough? What's the difference between a person who tries hard enough and one who doesn't?
It feels to me that underlying your comment is a deep blindness to crucial elements of human psychology. You somehow draw an equivalence between humans existing in superficially similar circumstances and then throw your hands up in the air and say "I don't get it!"