the money tree (was also washed away)
At the risk of experiencing immeasurable wrath, I have something controversial to put to you.
Society, or if I was to be incredibly cynical, civilised society, is giving so generously to Asia at the moment to appease their guilt about their own self-interest, greed and neglect of fellow humankind.
We know that we carefully craft our lives to benefit ourselves and our very immediate relationships only. We know that this is wrong and it disgusts us. We know the detrimental effect this has at a micro and macro level on our immediate and greater communities. We believe we can relegate all of this negativity if we release at appropriate points in time.
Thankfully a disaster like this comes along every now and then, admittedly not always at a scale that is so easy to buy into, and the ideal outlet is provided for us to repent and wipe our slate clean. The good news is, it works. For a while.
Whether or not people's motives are true in this case is largely irrelevant to me insofar as the ultimate good that will come from the money far surpasses the issue of guilt and the greater public's moral and emotional health. That said, it raises for me a much larger issue that does need addressing.
The world is clearly in need of help, continuously. Whether it is plain old famine and disease, impossibly damaged infrastructures, or debt from under which poorer countries can not climb out, a lot of people need greater help than is currently given for them to have a shot at a bearable life. Not a life of Mercedes' and roe, a life where they can just be, in peace and good health.
We, the privileged few, can make this happen - this Tsunami has shown how. If we all, consistently, contributed $100 p.a. to organised charity, the problems of the world would very quickly move from being insurmountable to considerable and from there into a state we can actually process. It would take, presumably, decades, but right now the timeline doesn't even have a start point.
However, donations from individuals is one thing, donations from groups that profit from us all, churning out millions and billions of revenue, year after year, that's another. At an individual level it's very human to take care of your immediate needs, and necessary at times. To the corporation, though, who does not have children to feed and the rigidity of highly stacked consumer finance, what's your excuse?
I find it a wretchworthy experience to watch companies competing with each other at the moment to show who has the biggest wallet. Some of them, hopefully the majority, are donating because they care. Some of them are engaging in a highly cynical public relations exercise, and this is just plain fucking psychotic, to paraphrase the excellent The Corporation.
The point here is that if they can do it now, why not regularly? More specifically, corporations should be legally bound to investing in the nations from which they profit. Nike should, for example, be giving an absolute container-load of cash to Thailand right now. They have raped their citizens for so long that the very least they can do is help them rebuild the meagre lives they already had. Maybe they are, though I'd be shocked into a near death state to find this was the case.
The whole concept of the corporation coming into a country that is alien to them, where they are the guest, and just taking, without ever giving, is grotesque, and demonstrates the inherent sickness of our society. We let this happen - we're the shareholders. How about a percentage of your profits go to charity - would it really be that bad? I think everyone would sleep a lot easier at night if we did so.
The solutions to the problem of an inequitable world are many, and some hijack this fact and use it to obfuscate progressing change. But we need not complicate issues immediately. We're talking about money here. Some of the ideas I have advanced require more than money, to be sure, but money is a start, and something you can get on today. If you put away $2/week for a year, and hand it over every January, you've gone a very long way to making a better place for everyone.
Do it. Pass it on.
Society, or if I was to be incredibly cynical, civilised society, is giving so generously to Asia at the moment to appease their guilt about their own self-interest, greed and neglect of fellow humankind.
We know that we carefully craft our lives to benefit ourselves and our very immediate relationships only. We know that this is wrong and it disgusts us. We know the detrimental effect this has at a micro and macro level on our immediate and greater communities. We believe we can relegate all of this negativity if we release at appropriate points in time.
Thankfully a disaster like this comes along every now and then, admittedly not always at a scale that is so easy to buy into, and the ideal outlet is provided for us to repent and wipe our slate clean. The good news is, it works. For a while.
Whether or not people's motives are true in this case is largely irrelevant to me insofar as the ultimate good that will come from the money far surpasses the issue of guilt and the greater public's moral and emotional health. That said, it raises for me a much larger issue that does need addressing.
The world is clearly in need of help, continuously. Whether it is plain old famine and disease, impossibly damaged infrastructures, or debt from under which poorer countries can not climb out, a lot of people need greater help than is currently given for them to have a shot at a bearable life. Not a life of Mercedes' and roe, a life where they can just be, in peace and good health.
We, the privileged few, can make this happen - this Tsunami has shown how. If we all, consistently, contributed $100 p.a. to organised charity, the problems of the world would very quickly move from being insurmountable to considerable and from there into a state we can actually process. It would take, presumably, decades, but right now the timeline doesn't even have a start point.
However, donations from individuals is one thing, donations from groups that profit from us all, churning out millions and billions of revenue, year after year, that's another. At an individual level it's very human to take care of your immediate needs, and necessary at times. To the corporation, though, who does not have children to feed and the rigidity of highly stacked consumer finance, what's your excuse?
I find it a wretchworthy experience to watch companies competing with each other at the moment to show who has the biggest wallet. Some of them, hopefully the majority, are donating because they care. Some of them are engaging in a highly cynical public relations exercise, and this is just plain fucking psychotic, to paraphrase the excellent The Corporation.
The point here is that if they can do it now, why not regularly? More specifically, corporations should be legally bound to investing in the nations from which they profit. Nike should, for example, be giving an absolute container-load of cash to Thailand right now. They have raped their citizens for so long that the very least they can do is help them rebuild the meagre lives they already had. Maybe they are, though I'd be shocked into a near death state to find this was the case.
The whole concept of the corporation coming into a country that is alien to them, where they are the guest, and just taking, without ever giving, is grotesque, and demonstrates the inherent sickness of our society. We let this happen - we're the shareholders. How about a percentage of your profits go to charity - would it really be that bad? I think everyone would sleep a lot easier at night if we did so.
The solutions to the problem of an inequitable world are many, and some hijack this fact and use it to obfuscate progressing change. But we need not complicate issues immediately. We're talking about money here. Some of the ideas I have advanced require more than money, to be sure, but money is a start, and something you can get on today. If you put away $2/week for a year, and hand it over every January, you've gone a very long way to making a better place for everyone.
Do it. Pass it on.
posted by W at 1:16 am
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