Too Proud to Beg?

In the middle of reading this New York Times article about the sad story of a town whose workers lost their pensions, I stopped at this quote, about one of the people who was affected and ended up dying, because he was also too young to collect Social Security:

“When they found him, he had no electricity and no running water in his house,” said David Anders, 58, a retired district fire chief. “He was a proud enough man that he wouldn’t accept help.”

There is something so sad and deluded and kind of American about the idea that someone who does not try to get help from the government when in a dire situation is being proud or honorable. I hate to say it, because this man’s situation was awful and could happen to any of us in these tenuous times, but it is stupid not to try to get help from the government if you have been rendered destitute. This country’s largest automakers recently got help from the government, as did its largest banks. Individuals get help from the government every day, in the form of disability checks, welfare, unemployment benefits, tax exemptions on home mortgage interest, free school lunches, etc. We pay taxes in part to insure ourselves if we fall into hard times, so we can collect say, Medicaid or disability. I don’t consider this man “too proud;” I consider him sadly deluded about how things work in this country.

Another way to think of it is that Americans — even those who are too proud to go to the government — do go to banks to borrow money in hard times. Most people are not too proud to do that, and many of them, even if they feel like they will eventually pay down the debt, are frankly not in a position to do it. So maybe it is best for someone who considers himself or herself above collecting government welfare to think about whether it is better to be psychologically indebted to his or her fellow Americans or actually indebted to a bank that charges an 18% interest rate.