Tag: altruism

If we were to be fair with ourselves, we would admit that, compared to most of the rest of the world, we really do have it good.  As I say this, I recognize that statements such as these have been set forth multiple times to scold those who feel no desire to contribute to some worthy cause or endeavor.  I’m not really out to highlight an issue or to request a donation, nor do I seek to appeal to your latent sense of guilt.  Rather, I do ask for your sober contemplation.  What I say now is designed to encourage discussion and discourage argument.  We have enough back-and-forth as it is and we waste so much of our energies and ourselves in the process, passion better spent focused on different avenues.  

All of us live in one bubble or another.  The wealthier and more privileged we are, the greater and more exclusive the bubble.  Growing up in the South, as I did, my parents and the parents of my peers most often had been born into solidly working class families.  It had only been through their hard work and a resulting favorable economic climate that they’d had the ability to achieve social mobility, and in so doing scale one class up the proverbial ladder.  Now that I live in a city where I encounter on a regular basis people my own age who have come from a long line of relative wealth, their views and mine are often as different as our priorities.  I find it quite difficult to not be jealous and envious of, for example, their multiple trips abroad to Germany or their ability to attend an elite institution (or two) of higher learning.  Still, I recognize that compared to many who live in the state of my birth, I had it very easy.    

When we talk about Haiti, Darfur, or the Middle East, all the usual conduits to direct money and financial assistance fall easily in place.  Yet, it is rather telling that it takes a catastrophe before we give even half a second to contemplate what life must be like for those in the Third World.  Whether we admit it or not, a hierarchy of need exists, and the simultaneous blessing and curse of having our  own basic needs met on an almost constant basis is that we can afford to have trivial, tedious arguments of insidious intent.  And what to what overwhelming question does this lead us?  It’s tough to say, really, but whatever it may be is frequently useless and thoroughly counter-productive.  

As for our friends in dire need, their daily thoughts tend to be whether they have enough food to eat, or whether their lives will be in danger tomorrow, or how they’ll manage to raise their children in a harsh, unforgiving environment.  To them, our arguments would seem not just ludicrous but also completely incomprehensible.  Many have talked about this concept before, too, I recognize.  If I believed we had gotten the message before now I wouldn’t bother reintroducing it.  To be sure, I am aware that some do take this matter to heart.  These are the ones who jump at the chance to volunteer to serve the less fortunate in other countries.  I admire and appreciate their devotion.  I do also take to heart the often-conservative criticism that we spend so much time and energy temporarily boosting the stature of devastated foreign countries while simultaneously neglecting our own poor and downtrodden.  We would certainly go far to document the lives of our own needy beyond the occasional human interest story or anecdote.  It’s not so much where we devote our energy as it is a question of our general mindset, which must not just be a single-minded and highly time-limited desire to cross off the phrase “humanitarian effort” from our Socially Conscious™ checklist.    

The problem with bubbles, of course, is that bubbles isolate.  They are impermeable.  They keep information from getting out and in so doing keep necessary strategies and potential means of assistance in the hands of and for the use of a small, fortunate few.  In discussion with those of other nationalities, I note that they have at times expressed no small frustration with us that we in this country seem to believe that nothing happens of much importance unless it happens here, or has some direct relevance to America and Americans.  If our ultimate goal was complete equality, as we say it is, then we’d make a general effort to take into account the unique stories, news, and issues of other regions and countries of the world.  Put this way, these very pertinent topics wouldn’t have to be consolidated into a tab labeled “World News” on one’s browser, or reduced to a niche interest targeted to a niche interest group.

What we deal with primarily is a discrepancy involving money and means.  Here in Northwest DC, for example, some have spent years bickering about the location of a new library and whether it should be granted zoning rights and the ability to finally break ground.  Common sense alone would have dictated that the existing temporary library space is much too small to accommodate the number of patrons who use its services, meaning that the construction of the building can’t get underway soon enough.  Whereas, if I turn my attention towards the Southeast in the direction of Anacostia, I am faced with the blight and decay of dire poverty—with it a lack of basic services.  Here, where I live, there are many restaurants and grocery stories I encounter on even the most modest of walks up and down the main thoroughfare.  There, one is hard pressed to find more than one restaurant, and grocery stores are either severely limited, or nowhere to be found.  This underscores how finding common means of comparison is difficult enough between people of similar interest, but in this way, both residents speak completely different languages.

I fail to take into account that many of us genuinely try to do the right thing.  I’ve seen it for myself, many times.  I’m not stating that one ought to drop everything, give all one has to the poor, and move to an impoverished country.  But what I am saying is that once we leave the bubble, we don’t need the novelty of a country or region in crisis to recognize that until our efforts here on these shores are a success, we simply won’t have the infrastructure and the methodology in place to give better aid and assistance to foreign countries in need.  If that on-going War on Poverty is ever won and won forever, it will start here, then spread to other places, not the other way around.  Speaking American English in all its varieties and variations is tough enough, with so many regional, ethnic, and economic distinctions.  Speaking the native tongue of another place is a daunting, if not completely impossible task until we’ve found our own means of translation.  

During the State of the Union address, President Obama noted what a slew of other previous Presidents have noted–that the United States of America needs to start exporting goods again.  Few people can disagree with a statement like this, but what Obama, nor any of his predecessors have ever discovered is precisely what one would need to trade with other countries and in what form this new invention would take.  If were wise enough to know, I’d probably be well on my way to being a very wealthy man, so I don’t underestimate the challenge in front of us.  However, though I believe that the capitalist system caters more to the selfish side of us more than the altruistic one, with selfishness does come innovation for the sake of maximum material gain, and in that regard, perhaps our basest instincts might come to everyone’s aid, at least for a time.

Careworn phrases like “good old fashioned American ingenuity” have been utilized over and over again for at least a century, insinuating strongly that there was no problem beyond our grasp which would not eventually render a solution.  And, honestly, I don’t think that this mode of thought nor of rhetorical framing has ever really gone away altogether.  But what I do think is that we don’t often look for these signs so much for where they are so much as where we think they ought to be.  Everyone can drive by and see the looming, titanic mass of buildings that house a paper processing plant or a textile mill, but the more subtle evidence of, say, a software design firm is much less visible to our senses and our psyches.  Even though we may be headed towards a purely service-based economy, other developing nations are only now in the process of beginning their industrial phase of growth.  Though our example might be the means by which they set their sights and chart their course, one must also crawl before one walks.  

If we were all more or less on the same page the whole world round regarding economic parity, then exporting commodities would be a much easier task.  Right now we do retain some residual elements of an earlier day, but often our products can’t compete globally because they cost more to produce and thus they cost more to purchase.  I honestly believe that we can be indebted to one of two stances in this instance, but not both.  Either we pay people more in line of a fair wage, granting them adequate benefits— recognizing that this will ensure that many countries can always buy what they need at a cheaper price from another source, or we slash costs to the bone and with them salaries and benefits.  It goes without saying that I would never advocate the second position, but for the future going forward that model might be the only option that makes our products look attractive and compelling to another country or region’s buyer, based on the current state of affairs as they exist today.

Speaking specifically about food, for example, I note that our own cultural attitudes are often to blame for much of the disparity.  The more affluent among us can afford to be socially conscious by means of pocketbook and pay two times as much for products at a Whole Foods or a locally-grown produce Farmer’s Market.  The poorest, of course, simply aren’t afforded this option.  Americans might cut corners or scrimp to buy a wide screen television or to save up to take a vacation, but never towards food.  Food is always supposed to be readily available, unquestionably cheap, and supremely varied.  Organic food is a kind of innovation of sorts, since though its stated purpose is to use older methods of cultivation, it still combines elements of more modern technological strategies with the tried-and-true methods of a different time.  Though it would never willfully adopt this label, organic food is itself a hybrid concept—one that seeks the middle ground between old and new.  

These, of course, are previously established channels and instances.  As for what product or products would find favor among the consumers of the globe, one assumes upon first thought that the most likely innovation would come in the form of some new technological breakthrough, one perhaps tied closely to the computer or the internet.  However, like organic food, perhaps it would be best to seek for something with a foot in old ways and a foot in newer formulations.  The most enterprising soul would be wise to recognize that products can be designed purely with the intention of always having a reliably steady stream of buyers and demand, or that they can be modified in the hopes of both making money and pulling in less developed countries and regions more economically in line with ours.  Straddling the gap between the way it has always been and they way it needs to be is partially why we are at the impasse in which we find ourselves.  While I do believe that the phrase “ethical capitalism” is a complete oxymoron, I do also recognize that if we are left with a system unable to be discarded for quite some time, it would be much easier if we limited as many disparities and points of difference between people as we could, since then it would be able for us to better address the remaining and still quite numerous problems left over.  

We are still in the middle of a shift between an industrial economy and an information-based one, but at times our benchmarks and guideposts are indebted to a by-gone epoch.  Nostalgia is strong and so is the resistance to the way things were always supposed to be.  For instance, I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, a city which was forced to completely reinvent itself after the collapse of its native steel industry in the 1970’s.  In so doing, it embraced banking and a world-class health care center based around a university, both of which are the two largest employers in the metro area.  We might be wise to emulate their example, which is far from the only instance that a city teetered on a knife’s edge between survival and disaster and managed to righted itself.

It is a short-sighted, short-term gain over long-term ultimate resolution means of thinking that got us into our current mess.  American must learn that delayed gratification provides temporarily discomfort but eventual, eternal satisfaction.  Greed drives humans to go for the quick cash-in and the gravy train, instead of a more modest, but still very satisfying profit.  I don’t ascribe to a theory of American exceptionalism because I am too aware of the times at which we fall short, though I also recognize that we are far from the only country, society, or culture which has a tendency to opt for the quick fix rather than engaging in the soul-searching and introspection which leads towards true resolution.  Lasting success is based on hard work and research, not the accidental score.  

Neither do I count myself among the numbers of those who adopt a cynical tact towards American identity and greater purpose that seeks fault first and rarely gives room for success.  Somewhere between those who believe that our best days are yet to come and those who assert that we are soon going the way of the UK into second-tier country status is something close to the reality of the situation.  Still, what we require right now is a new kind of skill set, one willing to work with existing trends, rather than fight them, build up native industry without seeking salvation in the form of a foreign company with an open checkbook, pay a bit more than usual for household staples with the understanding that increased cost doesn’t always mean money wasted, and recognize that in a truly fair world, it shouldn’t matter who is number 1 or number 500.  If money is what makes the world go round, we can’t begin to get any other unfair construct in check until we ensure that monetary policy levels the playing field.  Real equality does not trickle-down and it never will.  

Earlier today, I was returning from meeting by bus.  After having boarded and taken my seat, I settled in for what I anticipated would be a relatively short ten minute ride.  Instead, the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue over by Embassy Row snarled to a complete halt.  The weather today in Washington, DC, had been dreary …

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Maybe I was born this way.  Maybe it’s a genetic mutation.

Maybe it happened when I was sitting on the dock of the bay in my hippie youth.

Maybe it happened because once upon a time it became clear that my life and my needs didn’t matter to the progress of this thing we call human society and its relationship with and survival on this planet.

Which means maybe Poul Anderson is to blame.

Maybe it happened because I’ve lived so close to the edge of death by my own hand so many times.  That could have singed away any real motivation for the self-interest that I have been told recently is at the heart of every human being’s motivation and that virtue is only enlightened self-interest.