Our BetterMost Community > The Polling Place
The Morality Quiz
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: garycottle on December 01, 2007, 01:10:49 pm ---I don't own a car, and I don't drive. So I know how difficult it is to get around without one. I imagine that it would be very hard to find and hold down a good job if you lived in a rural area without a reliable car, since you wouldn't have any public transportation to turn to. So if you gave up your car for charity, you might become a charity case yourself, and that certainly wouldn't solve any problems.
But the real point of this question may be how can you spend money on anything you can do without when you know there are needy people in the world? I don't have a lot of money, but I do spend some of it on things I don't really need in order to sustain my life. But books and movies and the internet, and little things like an attractive and comfortable sofa, etc., ...these things do sustain my spirit. I do believe that I would be miserable if I lived in a shanty, slept on a mat on the bare ground, and ate nothing but beans. I might get some satisfaction knowing I was able to give a few hundred dollars a month to charity, but still I'd be pretty depressed, and I'd likely soon lose my humanity and desire to help anyone. I might even lose my desire to live.
I spoke of how I believe that morality flows from love -- love in the greater theological sense, not emotion -- back in the death penalty thread. One of the things I learned while studying this form of ethics in school is that love comes from a possition of strength. You must first love yourself before you can love anyone else. And althought there are some saintly people who could love themselves and still force themselves to live in a shanty and eat beans, most of us couldn't do that without hating ourselves, and in short order we'd be hating the rest of the world, too. And no charity would flow from that.
Gary
--- End quote ---
The writer Isak Dinesen wrote once that one of the worst tragedies in life was poverty. It kept one from being one's self. Meaning, scrabbling every day just to find food and shelter and clothing kept humans from exercising their minds. All the great accomplishments of humankind have come from having leisure time.
So while $25K could save a child from starving - for a while at least - this is one of those give a fish or teach them to fish lessons - it's not going to do much in the long run, which is the goal.
There have been saints in the past from whatever religion, but I'm not sure their sacrifices - living in the desert and eating locusts and honey or living off the welfare of others like traveling monks/rabbis - actually accomplished very much other than pointing out to people that they could be happy and contented and peaceful still living in abject poverty because what came after whether a reward, resurrection or next incarnation would be better.
Basically telling people to put up with their circumstances.
Shasta542:
--- Quote from: garycottle on December 01, 2007, 02:10:09 pm ---And I'd like to point out that even if you don't have a lot of money to give away -- I don't -- you can still help people by offering them kindness and understanding. This has a ripple effect and it might end up helping someone who doesn't have the basic necessities. Like the boy in your story, his concern for an individual starfish might cause the man who questioned the efficacy of saving a few starfish when thousands were likely to die to view things differently. And he in turn may decide that it's worth at least doing what he can, even if it is a drop in the bucket. Isn't a full bucket made up of a multitude of drops? Doesn't someone have to start somewhere?
Be good to yourself. Give yourself what you need to sustain your life, and be happy. Then do something for someone else. :D
Gary
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;D
Kelda:
Wow - this took me a long time to read this thread. But to get back on topic.
I am of the Janice mindset. I think it would be hard but if it meant saving others - including children I probably would do it.
In a situation of life and death - instincts take over. Some people would fight for their life with every being of their body - others would just give up.
Obvioulsy i try things first, and I might accidently do it but I reckon I ould fight for my life. I would feel terrible about it and think about it every day of my life but at the same time - a la Private Ryan - I would make every day count.
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: garycottle on December 01, 2007, 02:22:09 pm ---Hi Del,
Thanks for this. This is just what I was trying to get it. You're not likely to help anyone by treating yourself like trash.
I have read Out of Africa, but I don't recall the quote that you refer to. Maybe I didn't notice it, or it's slipped my mind, or maybe it's from something else that she wrote. In any event, it's a great point.
I think Virginia Woolf made a very similar point in A Room Of One's Own. We don't need anything extragant, but we do need the space and the freedome that comes from some amount of affluence in order to create. If I recall she was writing specifically about how women need to have some amount of independence from men in order to be themselves. But the same principal is true for all of us. If our possition in the world isn't relatively secure then we won't have much time to even think about someone else's needs, much less have the desire to reach out.
Gary
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She didn't write it in Out of Africa, it came from one of her letters during that period. Virginia Woolf really pinned it down and I'm not surprised, they were contemporaries. Western women were just starting to roll on their emancipation and they understood how being in poverty - poverty of material goods or just spirit - was enslaving.
You're completely right. This holds true for all. There is no accomplishment, no charity for anyone when everyone is struggling just to live.
Kelda:
Oh and to add, although I don't know anyone personally that was involved directly in ther holocaust (My sisters ex grandad in law had his number tattoed on to his arm but I never met him and apprently he never EVER talked about it and she never saw that number) but having visited Auswitch - I had a very VERY strong emotional reaction to it - as most people do. If you have such a strong reactyion to it 60 years later, imagine what you felt to actually be there.
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