Deborah Stone, a professor at Dartmouth and one of the founders of the American Prospect, has a fascinating book out that lays to rest a lot of the anxiety I've carried with me about good works and unintended side effects since I first stepped into a political science classroom as a wide-eyed undergrad. She writes, "I wrote this book to challenge the attack on help and to reunite politics with doing good. I started from the intuition that what real people care about is not what social scientists by and large tell us we care about. We care most about relationships with other people."
She goes on to examine the many theories that privilege self-interest about altruism, that attempt to naturalize meanness and cruelty, that essentially make even the most tender of us become skeptical of people's intentions. The most obvious and universal example, which Stone uses often, is that of the homeless person you walk by on the street. He or she asks you for money, and you feel an initial, natural impulse to help--because you are human and have the capacity for empathy. But then, if you're like me and so many other strategic progressives, you think, "Well, maybe they'll use the money for liquor. I should just donate my money at the end of the year to an organization that does this work systematically." Sure, you may have won on strategy, but you've lost on humanity. You feel like shit. The potentially good and hungry homeless person doesn't get a slice to eat that night.
The book isn't actually focused on these interpersonal exchanges, but rather on the macro picture of government and public morality. Stone masterfully lays out the ways in which the GOP has turned government assistance and social programs into evil over the last few decades, and in so doing, has stripped citizens of one of their most natural and basic instincts--to want a government that helps us all live sustainable, healthy lives, maybe even with a little help. "Mutual dependence," she writes, "is the essence of democracy."
I can't tell you how much I LOVED this book. Reading it was one of those experiences where all of these lurking suspicions that I had trouble articulating were brought to light in the most eloquent, sensical, passionate words. I leave you with some of her best:
We need to untwist our notion of personal freedom by acknowledging that dependence is the human condition. Genuine freedom can't be had by denying our individual limitations. Freedom comes from understanding them and working around them, and from building a community where bonds of loyalty compensate for the things we can't do ourselves.
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Thanks for the heads-up; I think I'll have to read this! There's so much debate about government "hand outs" and whether they actually benefit the people they're supposed to. I guess it goes back to that old adage about teaching a man to fish-- but is it really so bad to give them a fish in the meantime? I think not.
The only problem, Kate, is that in giving the fish you are really teaching people that the only way the likes of them will be able to eat is if someone gives them something. Plus, if people actually learn to fish, the fish/education program's budget might be cut and that would be horrible!
Coming from multi-generational poverty, I've seen that most social programs are built to be sustainable, which means they shouldn't really be too successful. They want people to keep coming back for the handouts, not to not need them anymore.
Reading this post makes me so mad. I've had to accept charity from people for the majority of my life, before I woke up and saw that all these good people were doing was creating dependence in my neighborhood and that the only way for freedom was to ignore them -- pretend they don't exist even if it means working three jobs to pay the rent and take an evening class while eating Ramen noodles.
I'm sure it makes people feel good to do such nice, charitable things. Feeling superior and subconsciously wallowing in your privilege would make anyone feel good. The underlying motivation for handouts is seldom altruism. It is making the givers feel nice and big and socially progressive, even when they don't realize it.
As they smile happily, smuggily, and cowith the complete certainty they are doing good things, they are really murdering hope.
That's an interesting perspective, nestra. But do you not think that that's in part a flipside of our particular, unique culture, that those in poverty are told (from multiple sources) that taking handouts makes them inferior humans? I wonder if it just goes back to the high value our culture places on independence.
I'm coming from a different experience, of course, because I haven't needed charity for very long periods at a time. But in instances when I really, really did need it -food, etc., I didn't feel bad for taking help from someone else.
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