Justify your Righteousness - Do you think you're a good person?

[YLN]

Homelessness in America could apparently be solved with the money that Americans spend on Christmas decorations. The invasion of poor people into the UK is seen as a very negative thing. I bought a tablet that cost £350 the other day. I might use it occasionally. That money could have been used to feed and educate a number of people in the Third World, but I spent it on a trinket. How can I justify this? Just because you were born in the UK you're entitled to live here over another person who was born in Pakistan. Because you won the nationality lotto you want to protect yourself from this foreign invasion of people who are in search of a better life, once you ignore the fallacy that these people are somehow malevolent and coming over to claim welfare.

 

I find it very confusing that, although it has been nothing short of a lottery to determine where I was born, I have these beliefs that it's OK, and I'm glad, that people from Africa can't freely come and live in my country, and that someone in India will die of an easily curable disease, because I chose to spend money on some toy rather than try to get medicine to them. This is of course without even considering the human misery that went into the product itself, where factory workers jump off the roof because it's such a nightmare to work there. Somehow I manage to ignore all these things, yet when I see a woman put a cat in a bin, or hear that a homosexual man has been beaten on the street because of his sexuality, I get all this righteous indignation.

 

Well I'm selfish. That's the answer. But I couldn't possibly be THIS selfish. This is cartoon super-villainy levels of selfishness. The misery and death and suffering that I contribute to by the choices I make in how I live my life has just been so normalised for me. I don't have an answer to this. I suppose it's ignorance and it's also constructed ignorance. The bliss of forgetting where this tablet has come from and what its existence in my hands means around the world, from the person who made it, to the people who will die because instead of giving the price of it to them so that they might get access to medicines, I spent it on something I don't need.

 

It was a choice I didn't even consider. In the same way I'm happy to ignore any suggestion that my access to the benefits of living in a first world country should be extended to other people on the planet indiscriminately. Or that the homeless person I walk past every day is undeserving of my money because he'll spend it on drugs, despite the nature of the situation he was born into. The decision he made to try heroin for the first time certainly did not have the implicit maleficence that my decision to buy this tablet had, and yet I got a tablet and he can't get 50c off me. 

 

So how do you manage it? How can you get righteously indignant about anything, when the creature comforts you enjoy come at a very certain and obvious cost of human suffering all over the world? What part of the globe does your righteousness cover? Is your moral outrage an all white affair? Can you justify it because you have worked hard for your money? Harder than the sweatshop workers? You don't see the top 1% donating their enormous wealth to charity, so that makes it OK for you to watch a dog dancing while a child dies of hunger. I don't really understand the word meritocracy. I'll look it up after I post this. I know that some children in the UK need treatment that costs £100k+, and there is fundraising for it and people donate money. UK parents with the internet are more likely to get £100K+ for their daughter's operation than an African mother without the internet is to get £10 for a medicine that would save her son's eyesight. I don't understand that either.

 

We ignore our complete lack of humanity so we can sleep at night. We're far too good at it. The world would be far better if we weren't.

[Dodgyknees]

I'm a clearing in the woods. Simple.

[dAVe80]

It's a hard question to answer, without looking like a word removed. To be totally honest about yourself and admit your own short comings, while at the same time justifying it by listing your virtues is something that would make a lot of people uncomfortable.

 

I have a lot of liberal guilt, and don't do as much as I could to address the big world issues. I'm aware of some of the injustices in the world, and if I sat and dwelt on them, they would make me very angry. Although still not angry enough to live a completely selfless life.

 

I try to be humble where possible, and shy away from materialistic goods and services. If I can still use something and it works OK, I very rarely buy something just because I want the newest model, or fancy something different. Where ever possible I use an item till it no longer functions or is useful to me, before I purchase a new one.

 

I also don't think it's possible to judge your righteousness, without asking how you impact other people's lives? 

 

Anyway, It's gone past 3.30am, and I've probably had at least one too many glasses of red wine to be thinking about stuff like this now, and should probably just go to bed. I'll revisit this another time. 

Edited November 16, 2014 by dAVe80

[Awol]

Yes, it's all your fault. I recommend you donate your worldly goods to a charity for lepers then beg forgiveness (forever) for not being born in some corrupt third world hell hole.

Or you could just buy the band aid thirty single and thank your lucky stars.

[kurtsimonw]

I've suffered with depression my whole adult life and while that's a very minor issue in comparison to what others go through, it's also taught me a few things. First of all, I come first. Second of all, don't care what others think of me. I don't need any justification to do/buy something that makes me feel better. If it makes me a word removed, I'm a word removed, I'm also fine with that.

 

If being a "good person" is giving to those who have less than you, or similar, then the poorest person in the World would be the richest. But he's not. Because we're all selfish, this includes 3rd World people who have more than other 3rd World people.

Edited November 16, 2014 by kurtsimonw

[maqroll]

I'm listed as an organ donor if I die in a car wreck

[leemond2008]

I give to animal charities when I can and I will often buy homeless people coffee or breakfast if I see them near enough a McDonald's or a cafe (several times I have gave my breakfast away to them)

Other than that...nah I aint gunna sit here and profess to be some Saint

[mjmooney]

Excellent post, Yillan. The very same thought processes go through my mind on a daily basis.

I have no acceptable answer, other than at least I am aware of how lucky I am, and try not to complain about my comparatively trivial problems.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Another excellently written post that has me musing. It does occur to me yes and I am at times quite a wasteful human being. But I don't believe in sacrifice for sacrifices sake, I give what I believe is a justifiable amount back and try to take my trivial first world problems with a pinch of salt.

I am grateful, I am giving where I see a need, I choose not to live with the heavy weight of guilt as a result. If I were to I may fall towards a point where I can no longer afford to give, where I can no longer choose fair trade products or make purchases and donations based on moral choices. Who will that benefit then?

[MakemineVanilla]

The question arises from Christian theology's system of ethics, which is a game no one gets to win, but the guilt generated by guaranteed failure, definitely has its uses.

 

Then there is predestination, which means it has already been decided, so it doesn't matter what you do.

 

Sometimes you have to accept that the big things like global poverty are mostly beyond an ordinary citizen's powers to do anything about, even for well-intentioned humanists.

 

[Rodders]

I agree, but also recognise the pragmatic reality of where we are. Looking after oneself or one's family has been a survivalist imperative coded into us through our genese since we emerged from the proverbial primordial soup. So to think extensively and broadly about the fate of millions of people we cannot see or come into contact with involves an extraordinary effort against our biological instincts. Even with all the advances in education, self-awareness and what-not, intuitively we always need to look after ourselves first. It's both essentially suicidal to try and weigh the needs of so many others before your own. Yet, part of what motivates us in the world is the required self deception that we are inherently decent people who more often than not make positive contributions with our lives. Without that, everyone would kill themselves or be stuck in an annihilating crisis of existential misery. 

 

You have to accept your personal limits for affecting the world around you, but not use it as an excuse to do nothing. I've struggled with what you're talking about for years but the reality is, trying to take on the burden for solving the world's misery, and taking full responsibility for all your actions and their attendant consequences is exhausting. Why the hell do you think the invention of Super Heros or Religion came into being - a necessary way of equalising all the potential suffering by a fanciful and hopeful claim that God will sort it out in the end / well let's fantasise about a Superman or a Batman kicking ass, in doing so we've also implicitly accepted the impossibility of us normal folk ever solving it. 

 

As for the personal actions about consumer goods, the success of capitalism  / globalisation / whatever the right terminology is, that so much of our daily lives are so heavily intertwined and inter-dependant on a broad range of factors, that living an entirely "ethicallu pure" existence is from  - using absurdly high level of standards - impossible to obtain. There will always be something that "you're doing wrong" be it cheaply made clothes / products / general implicit consent to an economic system that favours the wealthy, deriving from human competitive spirit ( and denying that spirit is there is just absurd ) and there's always going to be a way for someone to call you out on being a hypocrite if you endeavour to be overly outraged about something - but not something else. 

 

All people can do is break down all the issues into component parts and try and act according to the golden rule - act as if you would wish everyone else to act. Which, given we're human we break too frequently and then comes the guilt / then the renewal of effort  / failure  / guilt / renewal etc. Within this world everything is relative though, and you can still consider yourself as being "better" than others, if you know that you're doing what you can, and others aren't.  

 

We can't solve world global hunger individually, but yes the money is there to solve homelessness or hunger if everyone changed their ways. You can't control other people, and whilst the perpetuating of inequality  / ignorance / suffering is intensely frustrating, you simply cannot withdraw into a self pitying self denying self - destructive sense of "we're all shit." All you can do / control is your own actions, if you do  the best you can with that, then psychologically, leave the anxiety at home ( so, so much easier said than done ). The world could do with a heck of a lot more humility and perspective though, appreciate the good fortune you have, and try and bring that to bear on others immediately around you. It's the simple gestures that can have great impacts - see any of the histories of those defying totalitarian regimes by helping people escape or hiding "undesirables" etc. 

[MakemineVanilla]

Although most people claim not to believe in religion these days, they definitely have retained Christian ethics in much of their thinking.

 

One peculiar aspect of Christian ethics, is that a person cannot be given any credit for any good deed which benefits others but also benefits themselves.

 

In this example, it is assumed that the goods and services you provide for the benefit of others, and the taxes paid for the benefit of others, do not count and are excluded from the moral audit.

 

Just as buying a Big Issue would be counted as a morally laudable act but handing the government fourteen quid when you buy a bottle of spirits, to do good with, is not allowed to count.

 

It seems certain that the main aim, is still to produce guilt, by ensuring that just about every positive thing we do, is not allowed to count.

Edited November 16, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

I don't know if I'm a good person or not. It's for other people to judge.

 

It doesn't keep me up at night.

[useless]

If your going to do some good for someone/s I think should out of wanting to help them and not to give you a sense of being a good person. If your doing it just to make yourself feel better or less guilty then that's just wrongteous.

Edited November 16, 2014 by useless

[bickster]

Although most people claim not to believe in religion these days, they definitely have retained Christian ethics in much of their thinking.

You don't really think that the Christians developed those ethics do you? Most religions have the same moral code at their heart, its nothing to do with the branding of the cult

[troon_villan]

I never asked to be born.  I don't owe anybody anything and vice versa.

[saturdaygig]

Excellent post Yillan, and some powerful replies already.

How do we live with our privilege? I'm going pick up on something Rodders says; it's in our genes. We've evolved to the point where we are and in evolution, the only survivors are those who look after themselves. Creatures that don't look out for themselves don't survive, so there aren't any of those. This is also the reason why humans are so short termist, happy to take drugs despite the long term consequences, to take short term profit decisions, and elect governments a 5 year terms, forcing them to take short term views to remain electable. Maybe we are starting to enter a new phase of evolution, because in the western world you don't have to be 'fit' to reproduce, so the survival of the fittest doesn't apply here and now. Gives us some space to ask this sort of question.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

We certainly would do well to move toward a society wherein people are more empathetic and compassionate toward their neighbours, but seeing as we still argue over whether or not a small percentage of the population owning most of the wealth is OK, we've a long way to go yet.

[MakemineVanilla]

 

Although most people claim not to believe in religion these days, they definitely have retained Christian ethics in much of their thinking.

You don't really think that the Christians developed those ethics do you. Most religions have the same moral code at their heart, its nothing to do with the branding of the cult

 

 

I understand that in Jewish ethics there is no demerit for anyone gaining from doing a good deed.

 

So whether borrowed or not, it is a Christian innovation.

 

My guess would be that it came from Hinduism, where I am told, that good deeds consciously done, do not earn positive karma.

 

All that, 'don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing' stuff, sounds like the same thing.

[chrisp65]

Perhaps many in 'the west' are too hung up with material crap when trying to assess whether they are well off.

What happens when a society strikes gold (or oil or whatever) and leaps out of third world strictures? Do they immediately empathise with others and try to drag up their neighbours? Or do they try and emulate the west and buy as much shit as possible, as fast as possible then get their photo taken to show they are happy. It's so shallow it's scary.

 

I was with a couple of Chinese guys about a week ago and they were doing very well for themselves, when you think of the life they'd have had back in the 60's or 70's, their life today is incomparable. But they were utterly focused on acquiring stuff. They had magazines with them that weren't magazines in the sense I'd become used to, they were basically catalogues, a picture of a Chinese celebrity followed by 4 or 5 pages of describing where they got their shoes, the watch, what makeup they wore in the photo, the car they were taken to the photo shoot in.

 

Now, it's great for China that there is some more freedom of movement and it's great they don't have universal poverty as a means of equality. But buying as much shit as possible as quickly as possible isn't really sustainable.

 

So there is a double whammy. Not only are we selfish, but we need to persuade people poorer than us in Malaysia, India, Pakistan, China, Mexico etc., NOT to be consumers, not to burn coal and not to all buy cars and phones.

 

It's going to get tougher, this co-existence.

 

All I can say is, if I lived in Syria or Bangladesh, Albania or Mali, I'd be trying to get my family over here. Once over here, I'd want them to have what the others have.

 

We need to aim for less material shit and a bit more inner peace, man.