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Our Old Friend Complexity: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

2014-06-10 (said on 2014-06-07 — implied: date said in the video; uploaded 3 days later) · review / recommendation · John · 3:45 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development (also: Books & writing) · mode: Explainer · tags: recurring series, timely hook, self promotion, heavy topic

John opens the Nerdfighter Book Club discussion of Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, arguing that its first four chapters complicate easy ideas about poverty, corruption, microfinance and charity, and that luck drives the narrative.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Filmed on Saturday before vacation, the day after the TFiOS film opened in America: likely number one movie, 93% on Rotten Tomatoes

00:00:28 — Nerdfighter Book Club begins Behind the Beautiful Forevers (first four chapters): diversity of class and status in the Mumbai slum Annawadi; not all poverty is equal

  • ★★★ John begins the Nerdfighter Book Club conversation on Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the summer's book, starting with the first four chapters; he calls it a book that should be a movie. — 00:00:28
  • ★★★ John says outsiders imagine slum residents monolithically, but the book shows much diversity of class and status in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum: not all poverty is equal. — 00:00:45 · extreme poverty, perspective-taking

00:01:15 — Further complexity: corruption as a way out of poverty, abuse of microfinance loans (and Kiva in India), a charity-funded college of CliffsNotes graduates

  • ★★ John says government corruption, often a cause of poverty, is for Manju's mother Asha also a way out of poverty. — 00:01:15
  • ★★ John says microfinance loans to women can drive social and economic change, but in the book Asha hoards and abuses microfinance loans to get ahead. — 00:01:23
  • ★★ John tells Nerdfighters who lend through Kiva that this is why Kiva did not work in India until very recently and now operates there only with many restrictions. — 00:01:34 · Bank of Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John says funding schools is good, but Manju attends a charity-funded college where one can graduate basically by reading CliffsNotes. — 00:01:44
  • ★ John jokes that graduating by reading CliffsNotes is also possible at some American universities. (playful) — 00:01:54 · United States

00:01:57 — The book denies rich-world readers the shields of microfinance and charity: roses and manure, the rich need the poor; yet almost no one is officially poor and growth has lifted millions; the book resists reductive readings

  • ★★★ John says the book's brilliance is refusing to let people in the rich world hide behind shields like microfinance and charity. — 00:01:57
  • ★★★ Reading a kid's 'roses' line and Boo's image of rising condominiums, John infers that for cheap consumer goods the rich need the poor to stay poor, a discomforting idea not to look away from. (hedged) — 00:02:05 · economic inequality
  • ★★ John, citing Boo, says almost no one in Annawadi is officially poor: garbage collector Sunil smokes discarded cigarettes against hunger yet lives on more than $1.25 a day. — 00:02:32 · extreme poverty
  • ★★ John says the hundred million people said to have left poverty in India in recent decades include, in part, residents of Annawadi. — 00:02:45 · extreme poverty
  • ★★ John says that by many measures life in Annawadi is better than it would be without global capitalism and the growth of the over-city. — 00:02:52 · capitalism
  • ★★★ John says Behind the Beautiful Forevers resists reductive readings and challenges every ideology. — 00:02:59

00:03:05 — Luck as the greatest mover of the narrative; Abdul's father's boat-and-wind saying

  • ★★★ John says that in the first 100 pages the greatest mover of the narrative is luck or fate, such as losing a hand as a child at a recycling plant or being falsely accused, rather than corruption or ambition. (hedged) — 00:03:05 · just-world hypothesis
  • ★★ John cites Abdul's father: when your boat goes west you praise your own navigation, and then the wind blows you east. — 00:03:23

00:03:31 — Asks viewers for their takeaways and thoughts on luck; sign-off

  • ★★★ John asks Nerdfighters what they took from the first four chapters and what they think of luck: how to make sense of a world where luck shapes triumphs and tragedies. — 00:03:31 · Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Annawadi · Behind the Beautiful Forevers · economic inequality · extreme poverty · just-world hypothesis · Nerdfighter Book Club

Also: Projects: Bank of Nerdfighteria

Works: The Fault in Our Stars (film)

Organizations: Kiva · Rotten Tomatoes

Concepts: capitalism · consumerism · microfinance · perspective-taking · political corruption

Places: India · Mumbai · United States

Products: CliffsNotes

Only in the description or credits: Katherine Boo

Also centred on Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Walking the Red Carpet: Thoughts from Los Angeles · Influence, Airports, and the Nerdfighter Book Club · Exciting Announcements and Mosquito-Borne Illnesses · Ambiguous Victories and Real Progress: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Also centred on Nerdfighter Book Club: Brotherhood 2.0: January 8, 2007 · Week 2 Condensed Highlight Reel · March 22nd: Book Club and Business Cards · September 6th: The Book Club Returns · Flinching in the Shower · The Physics of Book Clubs and Vidcon

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