What is Your Life Worth to You?

I never watched one episode of the Wire by David Simon, so I walked into the lecture he was giving, not knowing what to expect. I knew that the television drama consisted of tales that that portrayed the life on the streets in Baltimore. What I did not know, but what I soon found out, was unlike many other television shows, the Wire did not feature happy endings. But that is what makes the Wire such a great show. It comes as close to representing the truth as a fictional drama can; it portrays the grim truth of Baltimore city through not providing a false happy ending. In the lecture he gave, Simon remarked on his reasoning behind the Wire, and why he choose to represent it in the depressing manner he does.
Simon began by saying that he may be a cynic, but as a journalist, it has almost become his job to represent how things in the world are no matter how much people may not want to see them. One of the main problems that have erupted in the world Simon says, is that “every single moment people are worth less..we are living in a transitive period where humans have lost their value.” This problem Simon argues, is what is contributing to the growing poverty and homelessness in the U.S. From being a journalist on the streets of Baltimore, Simon has experienced what life is like in some of the worse neighborhoods in Baltimore. From this Simon remarks that because the value of people has gone down, in some parts of our cities people are living like many do in third-world countries, without electricity, running water, proper nutrition, and many of the necessities that many other Americans seem to take for granted. Ironic how in America, one of the leading or as many believe, the leading world power, many citizens are being left behind, forgotten, because to society they are worth nothing. To Simon, a person’s worth is how necessary they are in society, and to him it seems that many people’s lives are less and less necessary, and institutions, where they serve are indifferent to their presence. Why is it that society has come down to this? Why do people matter less? Simon’s answer to this astronomical question is capitalism. Capitalism, he says, is “the only viable way to generate wealth on a large level, it marginalizes people everyday in a social way.” Having a capitalist economy has resulted in a larger gap between the rich and the poor, the middle class is diminishing because expenses are increasing, and those who are being lost in this gap are not missed, for they are no longer needed.
In a matter of about forty-five minutes, Simon presents the world as it is. As grim as it may be, it’s the truth. I am not upset by what he said, because I know it is the truth. I have seen it first hand volunteering in the projects of Baltimore, and living on the edges of New York City.The poor are being forgotten, and instead of being helped, they are beign pushed aside and far out of the view of the public.
But for many, Simon just crushed their world in such little time. Many people were upset about his lecture not because of its depressing and pessimistic tone, but because Simon presented such a big problem, with nothing close to a solution. But that is not Simon’s job. Simon needed to present this problem, because for many it did not exist. Too many people are stuck in their own worlds, and tend to doubt that there is worse out there than what they see on a daily basis. The only hope Simon presents is evident in the Wire, the belief in the capacity of the individual. For many, this is only a start in attempting to fix the world’s problems. Here it is almost as if Simon is saying, that to begin to lessen poverty, people need to first realize that everyone has a worth, but before even that, that as a person yourself you can make a difference, which is what gives you a worth.
Simon’s ideas, as depressing and pessimistic as they may sound have hope behind them, just people need to really look into what he really is saying to find even a glimpse of hope. This is the same in Flannery O’Conner’s A Good Man is Hard to Find. As a writer O’Conner is known for trying to teach lessons and morals through her stories, as eccentric as many may be. O’Conner portrays the main character of A Good Man is Hard to Find, the grandmother as a selfish, self-centered person, who only becomes aware of the importance of others at the point of death. Here O’Conner is asking the reader, “what way are you living your life…up until you are faced with death.” Simon would interpret this as, “what makes you worth something, and why.” But the answer, like the question is hard to find and figure out. It is the road to understanding what makes one find the answer.