A lot of different thought processes and other threads on this board have led me to create this topic, namely, the pet-care thread in IMHO and the foodie thread here. By what process do people justify the spending of money for non-essential items when there are people suffering for the essentials? This can also be applied to time: why is it okay to spend time watching TV or reading books when you should be volunteering at a hospital or food bank or something?
Before you think I’m being morally superior, I do the same thing. I waste money on things that I don’t need to survive. The difference is, I guess, that I feel bad about it, whereas a lot of other people don’t. And I don’t think I’m as exorbitant as other people; I don’t spend $100 on a steak or $50,000 on a necklace. But when you think about it, isn’t spending $7 on a pizza (when you can just make condensed soup for 50c a person, and give the rest to charity), or $50 on a pair of shoes (when you can spend $10 at Target and give the rest to charity, and weren’t those old shoes of yours good enough anyway, with a little duct tape?) the exact same thing?
Most people, it seems, don’t think about these things, or even think they are important. And I’m wondering, why is that? How do people justify spending time and money on things when there are people worse off than them without feeling horrible amounts of guilt and the desire to make things right? Was Ayn Rand right? I hope not, because if so we are all completely fucked, but I’d still like to get to the bottom of the mystery of consumption.
And no, I’m not a humanitarian. I’ve only contributed my time a few times, and it was always for something I would have wanted to do anyway. I’ve given money to charity, but not all the money I have, which would be the only way to be ethically clean. But it seems that a lot of people don’t care about being ethically clean. And I’m wondering why that is. How can some people live with themselves? Because I sure can’t.
I don’t have to justify the way I spend the money I earned to anyone else. I spend money on non-essential items like books, movies, games, etc. because my enjoyment is more important to me then donating that same money to people in need. I will occasionally give money to charity and I even volunteered to help Katrina victims who ended up in Little Rock but I wouldn’t have felt guilty if I didn’t help.
I think much the same way as the OP. I would despise myself if I spent a hundred buck on a steak or bought something insanely ostentatious, like a sports car or a McMansion. At least I like to think I would, since my income would hardly support that kind of thing.
Yes, I give to charities, probably not as much as I could if I never ate out or bought non-essentials, but I do try to give a regular amount per month to various causes, and a little extra in disasters. I don’t give my time much; my schedule is irregular and I’m selfish about what spare time I have.
How do I not feel guilty all the time? Well… When I buy books for myself I am supporting either my favorite authors and or bookstores, both excellent and worthy causes. And people who cook seafood and wait tables and deliver pizza, they deserve to make a living, right? I try to stay out of WalMart. I try not to buy anything that I know supports sweatshops, child slave labor and money making for terrorists.
There is, in your (very interesting) question, the implication that we have only the right to the marginal amount of resources required to sustain life and that any expense beyond this is ethically suspect. That, in turn, begs the question of whom an individual is responsible for providing and protecting. Should you be held accountable for the misfortunate of your neighbor? Are you responsible for providing sustanence to the subjects of some despot in Africa? Are you wrong to spend $10 to see a $150M movie instead of giving your Hamilton to the Salvation Army?
Obviously, there’s no simple demarkation; some people believe themselves responsible for the plight of the world; others are so selfish and insular that they won’t hold open the door for a neighbor with an armful of groceries. Rational and ethical behavior clearly falls somewhere in the middle. There’s a healthy balance between spending resources to enjoy life, and offering charity to those less fortunate; sometimes, those two segue nicely, as one can often enjoy the act of doing something charitable. Indeed, I think the greatest conflict comes when organizations or institutions attempt to place an ethical burden upon you to “do the right thing”; think Sally Struthers screeching at you to “feed the children!” I’d pay real money if she’d shut the hell up, but cutting a check doesn’t really make me feel like I’d done something worthwhile, particularly in the knowledge that most large charities eat up a majority of donations in administrative costs. (See Paul Theroux’s sour observations on the motivation of NGOs in Africa in Dark Star Safari.)
There’s also the notion that money is a zero sum game; if you spend it on yourself, it benefits no one else. The truth is that, while it’s not as simple as Reagonomic-style trickle down economics, spending money on “frivolous” items does stimulate the economy and creates jobs. When you go and catch a film, for instance, you’re paying the theater owner and his employees, the film distributor and studio and their people, all the struggling actors, production assistants, carpenters, gaffers, caterers, transportation captains, et cetea in addition to the big stars (who themselves maintain large staffs of assistants, PR flacks, private cooks, illegal immigrant maids, et cetera). Never mind that a film isn’t going to change anyone’s life or create food out of nowhere; it creates “value” from the creative efforts, people are willing to work more or harder to support those efforts.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the vast majority of widespread poverty and hunger in the world in the latter half of the 20th Century and today is rooted in politics and corruption. There’s money and wealth in Africa, but it’s in the hands of a few very corrupt people (and not just the DeBeers family). There’s plenty of good farmland in Southern Africa, and more still that could be made ariable with modern technology. There is no technical reason anyone in Africa should be starving; all hunger there is due to logistics and politics. Sacrificing your lifestyle isn’t going to fix that problem, nor is aid (real or phantom) from European NGOs; the solution for that has to come from within.
I get a good feeling out of helping people at times. This feeling is generally greater then whatever I would have otherwise spent my time and money on. Not infinate though, while I didn’t mind giving up a few afternoons to help Katrina victims it wasn’t something I was willing to do for the needy on a permanents basis. Likewise I might give a few bucks to a charity but I’m not going to give them 30% of my income.
This is an interesting question, as it is really questioning rampant consumerism. As a sidebar, would it be okay to not wastefully consume, but not give the resulting savings to charity? i.e. Is it okay to keep the difference for the purpose of preventing your own suffering from shortage at a future date?
But to answer your question, I think it’s important to wonder why those particular people are suffering for essentials. Are they all honest, hard-working people who are down on their luck? I doubt this is the case.
In fact, some of them are victims of their own uncontrolled consumerism. By failing in the past to save for a rainy day, they are now out in the cold. IMHO.
I have no idea who the OP had in mind when he was talking about people who are suffering, but I’ll be happy to tell you who I think about: people born in crushing poverty, people with disasterous medical problems, and the children of those irresponsible layabouts you point out with such self-rightious indignation. Do they deserve to be left out in the cold? Do people who never did a day’s work in their lives but inherit wealth(or inherit the connections necessary to aquire it, then inherit more) deserve to loll about in preposterous luxury, drinking wine that costs what the average blue collar worker earns in a week, owning three or more multi-million dollar homes and just going well out of their way to spend money on things like diamond studded, gold plated toliet seats(I kid you not, I’ve seen photos).
I work hard for my money, but I never forget that I’ve been very lucky all my life. I was born in one of the richest and safest countries in the world, to parents who were not poor, not crazy, not substance abusers, not mean or negligent. I had a large family/friend support network that was willing to keep an eye on me and keep me out of trouble as a kid, provide free childcare and hand-me-down clothes and things, and gift me with presents when I graduated and when I married and set up a home. They were there to help me get loans and credit. They would have been happy to help me find jobs if I’d allowed it. They’ve helped with housing and paying bills, and buying cars and fixing things up around my house. And I’ve always been relatively healthy, as has my husband, thus far. That is LUCK. I did nothing to deserve it; it’s just where and when I was born. I try now to be worthy of it, but I won’t close my eyes to the fact that a lot of other people have not had it so good.
Yes, this is one of the things I meant to say but didn’t. Just by living in America (or other Western country), we have opportunities that 95% of the world can only dream about. Yeah, you can try to justify your luck by saying “those Africans might have been lazy anyway,” but the fact is that they are not even given the opportunity to show their laziness. They’re not going to have the opportunity to show anything. And I for one feel bad about my lofty place in the world order.
Yes, but does that value really matter? How can things like art and music matter when there are starving people in the world (even if those starving people are really victims of their and other governments instead of bad land)? This is something I have major issues with since I am a (serious) writer. I like writing, it gives me “pleasure,” yet I know that at the end of the day my writing doesn’t count for shit. Sure, it might make people think in a different way or increase the beauty in the world or whatever, but that is only the case for the richest 5% of the world who would have access to my writing (see above). And it makes me feel sort of guilty and hypocritical. Because even though contributing to the entertainment industry through buying books and tickets and such helps out a lot of people, it just keeps all these unneccessary wheels turning.
It’s kind of like having a pet. I have a pet, I like my pet. I support the pet industry by buying food and shots and such. But deep down I know that my pet is a biological and psychological dead end, and I feel guilty for continuing to support an industry that is basically frivolous just because I like having a cat on my lap while I’m watching TV. What would happen if everyone gave up their pets tomorrow and used that money to support disease research or farming projects or literacy drives? I know that is not going to happen, but still, it’s something I think about. If all frivolous industries were wiped off the planet and the money invested in humanitarian ventures, the world would be a very different place.
And I would never give money to Sally Struthers or any other big-name charity. They have CEOs that make 100 times more than I ever will. Non-profit my ass. Although that leads me to another tangent: Is it right to support a charity when there are possibly charities doing even more important work out there? For instance, I only give to places that I know are truly nonprofit, which means that usually they are domestic. I also like to know at least one person associated with the charity, in a friend-of-a-friend kind of way, which curtails it even more. My last donation (and before you think I’m bragging, it was only $10) was to a psychiatric facility in the south which had a FOAF working as a volunteer. But then I got to thinking, these people are Americans, they might be poor and sick but they are not going to starve to death, at least, their starving won’t be as definite as that of some mentally ill person in the third world. This can also be extended to charities like Noah’s Ark or inner-city art projects, if you like. Isn’t giving to non-total life or death situations morally just as bad as buying a new TV set? After all, we’re all still rich Americans.
Davenportavenger, interesting question. I’ll try and strictly answer your OP.
I don’t feel I have to be a better person then average. Most poor people, even the " guiltless poor" that XaMcQ describes, aren’t better persons then I am. If, by a stroke of luck, they would become prosperous, and I would become homeless, they wouldn’t give away all of their new-found prosperity for me, either. So I kind of give tit for tat in advance.
Helping the poor is serious business. Amateur intervention by people trying to be “good” almost always does more harm then good. Like Stranger said, just you giving your resources just won’t help. I know: I have a father who is very, very serious about trying to save the world. I’ve studied the subject extensively, and there’s so much evidence of idealism creating adverse results! I guess the bottom line is: what can YOU do, really, that will help the guiltless poor in the long run?
I feel people like Paris Hilton serve a valuable psychological goal. She may not mean to b be, but she is, in a way, like a walking work of art. She’s creating strong emotions in most Americans, (Envy, disgust, contempt, amusement) and getting them ot think about poverty, wealth, vanity, true values etc.
Lastly, if I would try and be as uncompromisingly “good” as ethics would strictly demand, there is a very great risk I might become a mean sourpuss. I experienced some of that when I was a strict vegetarian, although I liked the taste of meat very much. I was in danger of becoming the person you’d avoid if you planned on eating a ham sandwich, and, as most people don’t really make the distinction between an idealistic sourpuss and a general sourpuss, I was in danger of becoming avoided by many alltogether. If I had kept it up, I’d have liked to avoid myself, too. And that certainly wasn’t helping anyone, and it was most definately hurting my own (immaterial!) interests.
Given all this, I have ethically settled for putting all my money on a bank that gives out micro-credits to people in poor countries. I get a lowish interest, but my money helps people who can be helped. Works for me!
This question, like most questions that can’t really be solved, seems hugely important when you’re under 25 and somehow becomes less important when you get older.
I don’t mean to belittle either your question or your ethical struggle–it’s a serious, introspective, and complex issue–but the answer to your question lies within the question itself. What do you value? Is human life–any life–more precious than pleasure or enjoyment? Is it wrong to enjoy a nice steak dinner for a cost that could keep an African village in rice and porriage for a week? Should the expectation be share and share alike, that everyone gets the same opportunities, the same privileges, the same benefits? Is there not room both for charity and material enjoyment (if not excess) without grave ethical and moral conflict?
Consider this: the amount of liesure time enjoyed by developed nations in their turn–China during its dynastic eras, the Middle East following the rise of Islam, Europe during the Renaissance, Western Europe and North America today–has led to the developments of professions that don’t immediately provide food and shelter but which contribute to the development of human knowledge–the hard sciences, mathematics, applied economics, psychology, et cetera. This in turn has allowed us to develop the underpinnings of Industrial (and if you like the term, post-Industrial) civilization; it has given us greater health, longer and more fruitful lives, better nutrition, greater educational and occupational opportunities, more equitable distribution of wealth and knowledge, and so forth.
When you spend money on a book, for instance, you are just entertaining yourself with Ian Fleming’s fantastical stories about an infantile goverment agent; you’re supporting the whole mechanism that keeps civilization turning. If no one purchased books and magazines, the printing presses would cease to be used, would fall into disrepair, and ultimately, we’d lose our literacy and devolve into sustanence-level savagery–and despite the notions that some have about the nobility of such a life, the truth–that living hand to mouth–is as Hobbes observed, “poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” for the majority of the human population that doesn’t live in an idealic subtropical climate.
The impoverished citizens of the Third World still enjoy the benefits of the developed world; not just in medicine and food-charity, however irregular it may be, but also our popular culture. You may consider Sylvester Stallone movies to be the dreck of American filmmaking (I certainly do) but they’re exceedingly popular around the world, which underscores the fact that enjoyment of “art” and culture is a universal human trait, one might even say it is a need.
Could we, the developed world, do better at helping the rest of the world? Absolutely. There are people who live in desperate, hopeless poverty. To blame it strictly on the developed world is a misapprehension, though. In no small part, populations have grown to such a size because of the benefits modern science and medicine has brought to the world; improvements in prenatal care and reductions in infant mortality have lead to mass increase in populations that would otherwise be governed by Malthus’ dire prinicples. And the ignornace, bigotry, provincialism, and superstition enjoyed by much of the Third World serves to fight against any efforts at offering improvement and education; witness the vain efforts to reduce the incidence of AIDS in Africa. No amount of charity is going to help resolve that problem. The people have to want greater education–it can’t be forced upon them–and in order to accept that, they’ll have to let go of old superstitions, something even many people in the Western world have a difficult time doing.
There is no simple answer to this question, but depriving yourself of any luxury, pleasure, or material benefit in life isn’t going to improve anyone else’s lifestyle over the long term. This isn’t to justify excessive, crass materialism in the guise of “supporting civilization”, but it is our financial largess and liesure, combined with some measure of self-interested charity, such as publically-funded education, scholarships, art endowments, et cetera, that create the economic and intellectual world which encourages people to better themselves. And this is understood no better than by the very people you’d seek to lavish charity upon. Immigrants who come to the US or to Western Europe do so in seek of better opportunities and fortunes, so that they and their children may enjoy the material items and economic stability that we have.
The best thing you can do–as a writer, an artist, a scienstist, a teacher, whatever–is to encourage within someone else the desire to better one’s self, and then to provide the opportunity. Creating great–or even shitty but popular–literature, art, or whathaveyou, is an integral part of that effort.
Oh, I’ve been there. Am there. I’ve dealt with the negative effects of stridency on this very board. But then, isn’t saying that being totally self-abdicating makes one sour a statement about one’s very nature? I mean, if we were all good people, we would all be able to handle being strict vegans, or giving all our free time to service, without becoming sour and hateful. So is the moral “we’re all terrible people”? The fact that we’re not able to handle it seems to show that.
I won’t be replying for awhile because I’m going away for the weekend on a completely frivolous trip that makes me feel kind of bad, but I do want to pick up this thread at another time.
Simple answer: the answer to human misery is not the eradication of joy. There’s nothing wrong with being happy, just don’t pursue your own happiness at the expense of others. Buy that album you like. Go to the movies. Have a steak. Set aside a reasonable amount of your time or money for charitable activities. Giving away everything you own to the more needy isn’t going to make them happy, it’s just going to make you miserable. And how does that make the world a better place?
In simplified terms, anybody I haven’t directly interacted with or whose actions do not directly affect my life don’t really exist. Therefore I see and feel no compulsion to aid, help, save, or acknowledge their existance in any way. Harsh, but at the core true. I am an extremely selfish individual. Me and mine, then people I know, then people who can do something for me. The rest can bark at the moon for all I care. I can’t save the world, so why try? I’m busy enough just trying to save my little corner of it.
That’s an immoral point of view – strictly speaking, within an utilitarian framework, that is. (YMMV,etc) [1]
That $12 spent on a movie and popcorn would have done a lot more good if it was redirected towards mosquito netting in the third world or expanded vaccination, even after the benefits accrued to movie makers and the expenses involved in first world fund raising are considered. [2]
Ah well, so much the worse for utilitarianism some say. As Rawls and others have pointed out, the demands of this moral framework are essentially boundless. So what to do?
IMHO, though utilitarianism can point us towards happier outcomes, it isn’t so great in delimiting one’s obligations. For example, I would say that one’s duty to one’s kids --including arranging for a college education in the first world-- outweighs the greater benefits that would obtain if these resources were shifted to the third world.
But what about that night out at the movies? Or rather, what about that last one or one thousand dollars spent on frivolous expenditures (again relative to, say, third world vaccination)? Justifications here range from the delusional (I really need to see 5 movies a year, rather than 4), to the plain mean (tough luck kids, looks like you’re coming down with measles.).
Personally, I prefer “mean”. And heck, I don’t want to be a Saint, just a decent human being. Utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer replies that you don’t have to be a Saint to give 20%(!) of your salary to third world development (assuming the reader has a professional salary). Such budgeting would still lead room for plenty of DVD rentals.
Most or all humans have a part of them that wants to be moral; other impulses compete with such inclinations. The function of religion is assure those who are quite a bit less moral than they could be that they really are, in fact, blessed. So we only need to have a relationship with Jesus, practice the five pillars of Islam [3], or whatever and we’re ok, notwithstanding of our actual material relationship with humanity. I think religions do a pretty good job of it.
[1] Sorry for picking on you Miller, but I had to start somewhere. Thnx for the feedback in the pit, btw.
[2] Though some charities such as Doctors Without Borders and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization have fairly low expense ratios. Visit here for a listing: Top Rated Charities | Charity Ratings | Donating Tips | Best Charities | CharityWatch
[3] Admirably, one of Islam’s five pillars demands almsgiving for the needy.
There are a number of empirical claims packed in there.
Suffice it to say that while governance is a formidable developmental barrier, that in no way implies that well directed spending on third world health would not substantially reduce suffering and deprivation. Sure, the latter is not sufficient to bring Zimbabwe up to Mexican living standards (never mind Europe or the US). But it doesn’t have to be.
I should plug the book I’m currently reading: Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty, described at Amazon as such - Celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education. The goal is to help these people reach the first rung on the “ladder of economic development” so they can rise above mere subsistence level and achieve some control over their economic futures and their lives. To do this, Sachs proposes nine specific steps, which he explains in great detail in The End of Poverty.
I’ll kick out a Christian perspective first, out of habit. There’s an interesting incident recorded in the books of Matthew and Mark. Jesus is about to be betrayed, and I’m pretty sure He knows it. One evening, a woman comes up to him with an alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume and annoints him with it. The disciples are upset with her for wasting so much money, saying “It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor,” but Jesus justifies this saying, “The poor are always with you.” Now, this is a special circumstance - Jesus also says she was preparing his body for burial and Judas betrays him immediately after this - but it’s the first thing that came to mind.
How do I justify not giving everything to the poor? Poorly, actually. I’ve got a bag of canned goods I’ll be dropping off at my church for a food drive later today. The problem is, I’ll also be going to a knitting festival later today (davenport avenger, please tell me you heard about this) which had a higher admission fee than the bag of canned goods, and that’s much less than what I spend on RG’s. I whisper to myself I give more than some, but even as I do, I also know that I give less than a lot of others. I’m aware that what I give to charity as a whole falls far less than the church would like, but I have a somewhat irrational horror of going broke. I try to do active, hands-on things, but life is busy and I fall short again.
I suppose what I should be asking is what would happen if I did take the money I spend on books and other little luxuries and used it to help others. Part of me finds that idea tempting, especially with Lent coming up. The little luxuries are often spur of the moment temptations or things done to stave off boredom, but I’ve got plenty of books to read. I live pretty frugally, but I’ll probably walk away from this festival with a pattern book or two.
I also use mental health as a justification for not giving more. It is something I have to be conscious of, and if my stress levels get too high, the results can be highly unpleasant. On the other hand, I’ve seen too many people who let their issues justify all kinds of behaviour I don’t agree with and, if I don’t like being treated like I’m fragile (I don’t), then I figure I’d better not act like I am.
I suppose I justify it by saying I do the best I can and I’ll continue to try to do better. As I said, Lent’s coming up.
