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| -Short Attention Span Theater- | |||||||||||||||
| Liberal attempts to deal with guilt, fails | |||||||||||||||
| 2012-11-20 | |||||||||||||||
| Too good not to fisk. Hattip: Ace: Someone is drowning in a lake and you are watching. She is sinking lower and lower, her head tossed back so that she can just barely manage a gulp of air. You can save her. Most people would argue that ethically you must save her. In his 1971 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," ethicist Peter Singer compares the general moral obligation to help the drowning to every privileged individual's moral obligation to alleviate global poverty.
I don't own an iPod, haven't purchased a new car since 1987 and I have never been to Disney. Does that make me a humanitarian? I can't claim that reading Singer's essay was the reason I joined the Peace Corps, but it definitely instilled in me a sense of... duty? No, something more uncomfortable than that. The scratchy sand pressing all over you under your bathing suit on the way home from the beach. I hate that...
I'd been to Disney World. I'd gone on very expensive trips all over the world. And -- the horror! -- I had an iPod.
Go to hell. Quite a solution. Ask me and I would have suggested the same thing... I tell people I joined the Peace Corps to understand what it means to be poor, but that´s just part of the story. I joined the Peace Corps to figure out how to escape the guilt of having so much while other people have so little. Well, now I'm in the Peace Corps in Paraguay and surprised to find that it was not the way to go for moral masturbation. Ewww. But, tell me, was it good for you?
1) Taking time for ourselves We feel guilty for staying in the house all day, or for being out of site and missing our neighbors' birthday sopa. We feel guilty for watching a movie alone instead of with some Paraguayan neighbors. We're servants of the community, right?
Peace Corps volunteer day out? 2) Not sharing personal possessions Just this week I was called a bruja for not lending my computer to someone. And maybe I am a bruja. Families share with me whatever little food they have and I share nothing.
3) Being too chuchi (fancy) How can we live in a house with a modern bathroom if no one else has one? How can we buy the chuchi chocolate from America when our neighbors can't afford a bag of rice? How can we be paying someone to wash our clothes, how can we go on vacation, how can we have hot water, how can we have running water, arrrrghhhhhhh! Watch me, darlin'
Apparently the whole point of this helping others thing is sustainability. Don't give stuff to the community, get them to work for it themselves! So, that sounds awesome... until you have the opportunity to get 40 free pairs of reading glasses from America. You can nix the freebees or you can help 40 impoverished ancianos to read again. But then you have to accept the hot-headed guilt that comes with it, the possibility that you jeopardize your community's motivation because they realize the truth that their lives would be so much easier if the first world shared some of its money. For the uninitiated, "unsustainable" means top down economic controls, AKA socialism. It was invented as a term to browbeat brown folks into not using fires to keep warm at night while liberals feel good about doing something about global warming 5) Failing to save the world A couple weeks ago, a 9-year-old girl showed up at my house for the first time. I was surprised by the visit and amazed -- MarÃa had come a long way since she first joined our girls group six weeks before. She was the girl who smiled but rarely spoke, and even then rarely in Spanish -- only in the indigenous language Guarani. And now she popped by just to hang out. But something struck me as odd, as I glanced at my pizza in the oven and then at my watch. The time was 11:50. Almost lunch time... the holy hour of the only meal that really gets eaten in Paraguay. ¨MarÃa, what time do you have to be home?¨ I asked her. ¨No, my mother isn't cooking today,¨ she replied. ¨What?¨ I was shocked. Even the poorest families I know eat something for lunch, even if not very much. ¨Aren't you hungry?¨ She told me no, she'd had tortillas at 5AM. It wasn't a question of feeling generous and tossing a dollar at a beggar child on the street. This was MarÃa. My MarÃa. Her immune system, her literacy rate, her confidence level and her general growth rate all depended on me in that moment. I shared my pizza with her. She ate every bite. Even the green pepper and onions sprinkled on top... and you would be hard-pressed to find a child where I live who would eat a vegetable you can see. Then she asked me what I was making for dinner. I immediately felt thrown into a moral crisis. All my guilt -- for leaving site, for being too chuchi, for not sharing and for being unsustainable -- charged forth dressed for battle. I can't feed her every single meal. I can't be responsible for this little girl. Stop being selfish. Yes, you can. You make more than enough on your Peace Corps stipend to feed another person. But what about her eight siblings? What about her neighbors? What about everyone else who is falling through the cracks? How can I do this just for her? You took a vacation to Peru. You did that instead of feeding a little girl. It's not even sustainable to buy her food, I should try to develop the soup kitchen at our local community center instead. You know that is unrealistic. The soup kitchen is open for three lunches a week and is already a strain for the women who cook. You are going to stand back and watch this little girl fall.
Two words: American Airlines... I feel like the go-to answer is to try drop it behind somewhere on our two year journey. Just throw that heavy sack in the arroyo. Remind yourself of the hours of work you put into that project, the tears you shed as you squatted homesick in your host family's overflowing latrine. The opportunity cost of doing the Peace Corps, all those tens of thousands of dollars you like to think you could have made if you were employed these two years in the U.S. But unfortunately, that reasoning doesn't do it for me.
I'd tell her save your money. She doesn't get enough to eat, can't read and lives in a wooden shack with no water. It´s not about how hard she tries. And I don't really believe the people who say that helping others is not morally obligatory, just a praiseworthy act. Because in that case, allowing that person to drown in the lake would be the norm. And I don't think that is the world we live in. The only comfort I can give myself -- for now, while I continue to search for the answers -- is the last place I would ever expect to find consolation. Peace Corps goal 3. Something that a year ago didn't really seem part of my PC experience, just something that naturally happens when you go home and don´t have anything exciting to talk about anymore. Peace Corps goal 3: To bring our life drinking terere back to the United States of America. I went back to the States in July and was not very astonished to hear a lot of people say narrow-minded things about global poverty. I'm not sure what bothered me most: the couple who thought they understood my community in Paraguay because they took a vacation to China once or the students who didn't care because we have to help our fellow Jews first. The old man who asked me why Paraguay's own government couldn't provide for them? Or the girl who asked me if I cook or order takeout in my site?
Let me guess: he decided not to buy that NFL Red Zone package... It wasn't his compliments that encouraged me nor was it his reminder of opportunity cost of doing the Peace Corps. It was just the simple fact that someone I barely know said that my actions give him inspiration to give up money to do something he loves. That he wanted to have coffee to hear about what I've learned in my experience. I couldn't read the word "inspiration" with a straight face, but his openness to hear from my experience made me see the value in Goal 3. I have -- we have -- a real opportunity to help others back home understand the amazing culture of Paraguay, the complicated nature of development work, and the lives of those who fight for their communities. For me, this is the solution to the heap-ton of Peace Corps guilt clamping down on my shoulders. Or antidepressants... Goal 3: to help people back home understand human need and realize their responsibility to throw that lifesaver. In a sustainable way, of course. Because the guilt that we are allowing people to drown is not mine. It is ours.
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| Posted by:badanov |
| #25 As P.J O'Rourke pointed out all mass starvation in the world is government caused. We could do more to eliminate poverty and starvation by sending the Marines in then we do by giving to NGOs who generally hand the food/cash over to the person who has created the problem in the first place. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-11-20 23:57 |
| #24 #19 And, finally, the developed world HAS shared the most important aspect of our wealth -- the secret behind it. Rule of law, equality before the law, property rights, hard work... those four things will build a wealthy, healthy society faster than you can blink. Actually, there are six according to Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity. (it's a TED talk, and yes, the TEDsters tend towards hipster douchebaggery, but this guy is an economist. And no, not a Paul Krugman economist) He adds a couple to your list. But you are right, Rob. It's no big secret, just that nobody wants to hear this. Much easier to blame FILL-IN-THE-BLANK. As for the article, that was the stupidest thing I've read all day. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2012-11-20 21:49 |
| #23 LOL |
| Posted by: badanov 2012-11-20 19:58 |
| #22 Sounds like she heeded this man's advice... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2012-11-20 19:38 |
| #21 "And, finally, the developed world HAS shared the most important aspect of our wealth -- the secret behind it" An enormous pile of money borrowed from the Chinese? Or Ben Bernanke running a printing press? Germany tried that in the 20s - doesn't work. Led to war. Avoid. |
| Posted by: HunWithGun 2012-11-20 19:11 |
| #20 One way she should be able to get over her guilt is to give away everything she has, renounce her US citizenship, and live the rest of her life as a peasant in Paraguay, with no hope of return to her life of privilege. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2012-11-20 18:04 |
| #19 And, finally, the developed world HAS shared the most important aspect of our wealth -- the secret behind it. Rule of law, equality before the law, property rights, hard work... those four things will build a wealthy, healthy society faster than you can blink. Is it our fault that the third world prefers comfortable lies? Is it our fault that deluded idiots with "urban studies" degrees think they know better than 10,000 years of human history? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2012-11-20 17:14 |
| #18 BTW -- a lot of the people who work at Disney World, particularly in the resorts doing the less "glamorous" work, are immigrants. Going to Disney World, you help employ these people and give them a good start in the US. This "urban studies" major would prefer they not be employed, not be in the US. She'd prefer they were left in poverty back home. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2012-11-20 17:11 |
| #17 Dang. Snowy beat me. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2012-11-20 17:08 |
#16 You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it THINK. No, it's "you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think". |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2012-11-20 17:07 |
#15 Best way to help poor countries is free contraceptives. No -- the best way is to kill the leftists. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2012-11-20 17:06 |
| #14 That's what this letter is about, brothers and sisters, about you learning of your deep inner guilt. And its incredibly poorly written. That is, if you are an educated person who knows how the world works. Target is suburban pre-18s who, like the author, are more likely to understand how to make frozen pizza in the 3rd world than know how to prepare rice or dry beans. In fact, I think if there is much truth in here, the bulk is a bag of crap. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2012-11-20 16:02 |
| #13 "Someone is drowning in a lake and you are watching. She is sinking lower and lower, her head tossed back so that she can just barely manage a gulp of air. You can save her." But you don't since she'd destroy your career if she survived, and you can't have that! You're a BIG MAN! You're Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy, Senior US Senator from Massachusetts and she is Mary Jo Kopechne. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2012-11-20 13:29 |
| #12 I think you need to be a guilty liberal to understand the whole liberal guilt thing. They feel guilty for all the unearned stuff they have, and atone for it by taking YOUR stuff and giving it to some underprivelaged proxy for whoever they wronged. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2012-11-20 12:16 |
| #11 I don't understand the Liberal Guilt thing. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2012-11-20 12:10 |
| #10 I forget who came up with the original version, you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. Google sez Dorothy Parker. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2012-11-20 10:45 |
| #9 @6 -- You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it THINK. I made that up! |
| Posted by: Bobby at the kids place. Albemarle McGurque9750 2012-11-20 10:15 |
| #8 "...the charity that unmotivates the beneficiaries..." Huh...? Why is it that this type of language is permitted only when a lib is engaging in self-flagellation...? |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2012-11-20 09:47 |
| #7 The whole liberal 'sustainable development' thing is about reducing (eliminating?) the human footprint on the planet, by reducing the number of human beings on the planet by a couple of orders of magnitude. Of course, being so superior, they get to choose who is eliminated (not them.) In real life it cannot work; life forms are programmed to resist being eliminated. Besides, if they eliminated all the poor people who would pick their organic arugula? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2012-11-20 09:28 |
| #6 There will always be poor among us as long as there is human free will to choose. Some will choose behaviors known to afflict man for thousands of years and codified to some extent in the West under the titles like the seven deadly sins. No government program or funding will alleviate that to which people are willing co-conspirators to. We've provided education. We've provided opportunity. They must act themselves to save themselves. All else is wasted. Best summed up in the American colloquialism - you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Remember that for every victim condition there are others who exist in the same state who 'choose' to act otherwise to end the deprivations they found themselves in. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-11-20 08:38 |
| #5 I love this - the answer to her guilt is to come back to the US and talk. She doesn't have to give up anything and gets to feel good about herself (for once). |
| Posted by: Spot 2012-11-20 08:18 |
| #4 Of course a good proletarian convert like Agee would never come and an really state the proletarian dictatorship's attitude toward hoards. That being: "What's yours is mine! What's mine is mine ... comrade". |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2012-11-20 02:21 |
| #3 In Agee's book after he defected He states Democrats are rich exploiters of the masses who feel a little bit guilty about exploiting their neighbors so they throw some pablum about paid for by the middle and working classes (heaven forbid they assuage their guilt with their hoard). |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2012-11-20 02:15 |
| #2 Best way to help poor countries is free contraceptives. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-11-20 01:18 |
| #1 some One once said: The poor will always be with us. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2012-11-20 01:12 |