Beaubear (to borrow from Ebbie) don't get sidetracked by things that don't really matter to this discussion.

You and I, and others posting here, Wordsmith for example, have seen it up close. But others here have lived it.

There is nothing cut and dried, nothing straight forward, nothing black-or-white about any meaningful discussion or exploration of values.

Most of us are familiar with the term 'value-judgement.'

A more accurate phrasing of the way most of us often operationalize that term is 'moral judgement passed on those whose values appear to differ substantially from my own.'

People also tend to pass moral judgement on themselves when their lives, for myriad reasons, don't measure up to the values they have internalized.

Now, I ain't sayin' that we should nver make moral judgements. However, many of the moral judgements we make on others or ourselves, are made on the basis of insufficient information or evidence. When one realizes that, those jedgements tend to be more tentative.

I think, to at least some degree, poverty does cause poverty. Or rather the conditions that accompany poverty and are the result of poverty do contribute to the perpetuation of poverty. I hope we all agree, however, that the conditions that create and perpetuate poverty are extremely varied and complex. In addition, to borrow a term from psycholigical concepts, the factors involved are more oten than not overdetermined. (Means like the layers of an onion. Identify one valid cause. Peel it away. There is another layer beneath it. And another, and another, and another.) The number of layers varies from one place to another, and from one individual to another.) It would not be acurate at all to say that a prime cause of poverty is poverty.

Values are one ring of the onion. Remember that any one ring of the onion consists of many thin layers that can also be separated and examined.

Janie