Merry Xmas For All? Hardly. 40% Believe The Poor Should Not Have Holidays

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Well-to-do but losing track of who you really are?

There are apparently significant consequences for those trapped by economic circumstances away from human pleasures we all might cherish — such as Christmas, or Hanukkah, or a well balanced diet, or a day off work every now now and then.

But a UK survey suggests that while some of us are impoverished in a financial sense, there are others who are feeling a different kind of impoverishment even though they may be financially secure. What sort of impoverishment, you ask? People of means are  losing the their sense of compassion towards their fellow human beings.

How does this come about? It might be argued to be the result of a collective determination in current society, manifest worldwide, to use financialization as an acceptable measure of human worth. Those who succeed and prosper in a world of buying and selling deserve all the riches they can accumulate. For those who fail to capitalize on this supposed equality of opportunity, human compassion is shrinking.

A YouGov survey provides some United Kingdom details. The following article discusses the consequences for those less financially successful, making a case for a corresponding erosion of humanity by those who imagine themselves as ‘better off.’ Read more in in The Guardian: Britons have become so mean that many of us think poor people don’t deserve leisure time

The disapproving 40% may be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Evidence is emerging that celebrations and other forms of joy are necessary to personal health and well-being. And going without them contributes to higher health costs and lower economic productivity. To learn more about these emerging ideas, check out this podcast with Ingrid Fetell Lee at Ten Percent Happier: The Science of Joy: Why You Need It and How to Get It