"All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil"

Arguments that attempt to portray poverty as harmless or irrelevant often reveal, unintentionally, the depth of the hardship it imposes. Samuel Johnson’s statement highlights the irony that efforts to downplay the difficulties of poverty tend to prove its seriousness. When people try to argue that poverty is not a true deprivation, they must acknowledge the numerous circumstances and sufferings someone in poverty faces, such as lack of basic necessities, exclusion from social participation, diminished respect, and the daily anxiety about survival. Every justification or reasoning to excuse poverty as a minor setback brings to light additional aspects of what makes the condition so painful.

These arguments sometimes rely on suggesting that poverty teaches virtue, humility, or resilience. Such claims, rather than comforting, underscore the toll poverty takes in shaping an individual’s character out of necessity. Discussions that emphasize how the lack of material wealth leads the poor to appreciate simple pleasures or to seek spiritual instead of material fulfillment, only serve to point out that the potential for comfort and opportunity is missing. The justifications people raise are so numerous and elaborate that they betray the truth: poverty is a significant disadvantage, and its effects permeate through physical, emotional, and social dimensions.

Further, the impulse to rationalize poverty as a “lesser evil” can be seen as a way for those not in its grasp to distance themselves from responsibility or empathy. Such rationalizations illuminate the widespread recognition that poverty brings suffering and deprivation, and that attempts to cast it in a positive light ultimately confirm its harshness. Johnson’s observation is a critique of these rationalizations, exposing their hollowness and redirecting attention to the tangible, often severe, realities faced by those living in poverty. In the end, all the rhetorical flourishes used to mitigate the perception of poverty’s severity end up acting as testimonies to its true, and often overwhelming, adversity.