Lottery Tickets
Mar. 31st, 2012 02:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueWatching a Clinton Global Initiative event, it occurred to me that every month, there's at least one story about Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter doing something amazing, something that saves lives, gives dignity, creates opportunity. More stuff that I can keep track of. Hero stuff. And if Obama were to lose in November - which I don't think he will - I don't think anyone believes he'll disappear; he will be out there, knee deep in the mud, fighting the good fight from a thousand places at once.
In contrast, the Bushes aren't doing squat. (Clinton roped Bush Jr. into helping with Haiti briefly, but he faded into the woodwork again.) I don't remember ex-Pres Reagan doing much, or Ford. Democratic presidents, it seems, remain engaged in public life when they retire. Republican presidents retire.
It puts the lie to the idea that Republicans are compassionate people who believe in charity, but think it needs to come from private citizens instead of the government. The most prominent Republicans, once they're out of government, with wealth and time and influence, do not help. The Democrats do.
I think it's not about where help comes from. I think the Democrats believe it is possible to help people, and the Republicans do not. The Republicans are fatalists. It might even be accurate to say the Republicans believe you should not help people, because helping fucks with God's plan.
American Christianity was perhaps irredeemably perverted by the Cold War, which set up a dualism between Christian Democracy and the Godless Communists. By the book, Christianity follows the notion that the strongest are called on to work the hardest, and that we are obligated to look after the poor, weak, or outcast, and indeed liberation theology has taken firm root in South America. In the U.S., since Communists are Godless, it follows that the God-fearing among us must be the opposite of Communist, and must oppose any kind of social program or redistribution of wealth. Tithing should go to the church, not the needy. People are poor because God is punishing or testing them, and if they haven't gotten themselves out, it's because they are sinners.
This line of thinking takes us back to Divine Right of Kings. Government of and for the 1% indeed.
In contrast, the Bushes aren't doing squat. (Clinton roped Bush Jr. into helping with Haiti briefly, but he faded into the woodwork again.) I don't remember ex-Pres Reagan doing much, or Ford. Democratic presidents, it seems, remain engaged in public life when they retire. Republican presidents retire.
It puts the lie to the idea that Republicans are compassionate people who believe in charity, but think it needs to come from private citizens instead of the government. The most prominent Republicans, once they're out of government, with wealth and time and influence, do not help. The Democrats do.
I think it's not about where help comes from. I think the Democrats believe it is possible to help people, and the Republicans do not. The Republicans are fatalists. It might even be accurate to say the Republicans believe you should not help people, because helping fucks with God's plan.
American Christianity was perhaps irredeemably perverted by the Cold War, which set up a dualism between Christian Democracy and the Godless Communists. By the book, Christianity follows the notion that the strongest are called on to work the hardest, and that we are obligated to look after the poor, weak, or outcast, and indeed liberation theology has taken firm root in South America. In the U.S., since Communists are Godless, it follows that the God-fearing among us must be the opposite of Communist, and must oppose any kind of social program or redistribution of wealth. Tithing should go to the church, not the needy. People are poor because God is punishing or testing them, and if they haven't gotten themselves out, it's because they are sinners.
This line of thinking takes us back to Divine Right of Kings. Government of and for the 1% indeed.
Part 2
Date: 2012-04-02 12:41 am (UTC)That opinion makes people really angry. But I can't get around it. I'm not actually saying that people shouldn't go on mission trips, any more than I'm saying people shouldn't go on wine tours in Napa or travel to visit museums or practice a language. I think going on mission trips is great, actually, and spiritually sustaining, and a way to help reinforce tolerance and tolerance in yourself, to remember your gratitude for what you have.
But I'm not impressed with your charity when you go on a mission trip, because I think it's about you, not the people you're helping. With, for instance, building houses, the best way to help the locals would be to hire them to build the houses; they're not any more untrained at carpentry than you are, and you've put more money into their economy, given them some usable skills, and haven't wasted money on your flight and lodging. Or with a school, wouldn't it be better to help fund a full-time teacher who can stay there all year? It would. You're visiting because you want to visit, and you can feel really good about it, and can make a limited commitment of time, because hey after that you're leaving the country.
There's also, let's be honest, an unsettling amount of imperialism at work, an idea that you're helping innocent animist savages. If there's a language barrier that makes them seem stupider than they are, all the better. Charities capitalize on this stuff. You're not transferring resources to them - oh no, that would be bad. You're training them in your superior culture. It's pretty infantalizing.
(I think culture is important, obviously, as explicated in part 1. But if I have access to clean water and you don't, culture doesn't enter into why or why not. Knowing how to sterilize the water does nothing for me if I don't have the water to sterilize or a way to do it. And, frankly, I have a limited idea of how to sterilize water that is largely hypothetical, because when would I have to do that? Somebody else should be teaching people how to sterilize their water.)
In many respects, I think mission trips go hand in hand with the same problematic assumptions that make conservatives dislike federal aid programs. Once the people you're helping start thinking they're your equals and should get to have a say in how the resources get used - once they are "uppity" and insufficiently grateful for "my" money - I want to take my toys and go home. Because I don't really think they're unlucky and I'm lucky. I really think I'm better than they are.
That's the divide. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2012-04-02 01:44 am (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2012-04-02 03:08 am (UTC)And you know, because I've said it frequently, that I think dentists are the under-sung heroes of our age.
I think it's not practical for me to go back and retrain for the amount of time it would take, but I've thought often in the last year of going into family medicine or obstetrics. I pretty much think I shouldn't put Ciro through that, since on top of how generally difficult that would make anyone's life, we're collaborators and I'm still paying down student debt. But in general I feel like if I really wanted to make a difference, that's what I'd be doing. I have the aptitude.
On the other hand (and I have to emphasize this so that I don't feel so bad about not being a doctor), I probably wouldn't feel this way if I was having more success as an artist. Probably. And I'm qualified to teach, but you don't see me rushing into that and romanticizing that, since I'd actually have to act on it.
I want to switch and be a doctor, though.
RE: Charity balls, indeed. And charity runs. I don't believe you're doing that run for charity. I believe you feel like doing a run.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2012-04-02 03:21 pm (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2012-04-03 02:44 am (UTC)