capitalism and money again. isnt it beautiful?
Gosh, this story makes it seem like there’s a sucker born every minute!
I think right-wing voters are humans – when they see someone suffering, they think “I could afford to give something up to help that person” – but they’re signed up to a free-market-fundamentalist cult that tells them that the answer to this feeling is individual charity. That if you give to good causes, that is a reason not to feel guilty about voting to slash welfare.
There are a ton of serious problems with this idea, but the most politically relevant point is that if it hurts you to see people needing charity, giving to charity over and over again will not relieve that pain; what you are feeling is the desire to support socialism.
When UK Tories and US evangelicals rhapsodize about charity, that’s what’s really motivating them. Of course they want you to help the poor! Just not as much as they want them to stay poor.
5 Likes
I tend to agree, which is pretty much the opposite of a GoFundMe on the internet based on a viral story.
1 Like
I completely agree with you here. Many of the politicians who propose, as a political philosophy, that charity can take the place of social programs, are hoping to paper over their cruelty. Half of them probably do little to nothing for charity themselves, or (like Trump, say) have elaborate schemes that make it look on the surface like they give to charity when really they are just enriching themselves with financial engineering.
I don’t think that people who give to and do a lot of work for charity do so because they have calculated that the positive feelings they get are worth the time/money. But anti-social machiavellians represent only a very small percentage of the population, while they seem to represent a very significant percentage of English-speaking right wing politicians.
5 Likes
It’s why Romance scammers are all Brave Christian Marines. Affinity fraud works.
5 Likes
No, acts of charity are pretty much an unqualified good – certainly, committed charity workers aren’t just in it for the ego boost. But I think they’d be first to agree that it would be better if their efforts had secure funding, or better yet, weren’t needed in the first place.
The cynical ploy of the right is to take our common desire to help, and neutralise it politically it by binding it up with some of our less attractive common instincts. It tells us that instead of welfare – a basic, morally neutral utility which goes to whoever needs it – we should think in terms of “charity”, which implicitly requires us to first sort ourselves into Citizens and Wretches. Once you buy that line, it’s easy to persuade you to think like a Dickensian miser.
4 Likes
And we are in full agreement!
4 Likes
I smell Oscars for screenwriting and supporting male come spring 2021.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
