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Chapter 1. Economy

#51: July - Aug. 2008 (Non-Fiction)
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Thomas Hood
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DWill wrote: His animadversion against philanthropy. I think I get his basic point--make yourself good first rather than doing good for others-- but it's surprising that he goes on at such length against it.
Will, as a practical matter I imagine you are aware of the self-interest, negativity, and irresponsibility of most so-called charity. Charity is the extreme opposite of self-reliance: If you want a helping hand you'll find one at the end of your arm. Thoreau's objection was, I believe, philosophical. Charity assumes a social definition of the individual. A person has worth only as he/she is active in charitable activity. Socialist societies hold that belief.

Tom
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DWill

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Tom,
I'd have to strongly disagree with you. It's true that while the words "charity case" conjure up a negative image, if we consider charity to be identical with volunteerism and philanthropy, what is wrong with it? It's not my sense, either, that volunteerism or philanthropy is any part of a socialist system. I suspect that America leads the world in volunteerism/philanthropy. That is one thing, at least, that is still right about the country.

I wasn't saying HDT didn't have a leg to stand on. There are excesses in everything, and anything, including philanthropy, can be overvalued or done for the wrong motives.

In A Week, HDT makes an interesting comment on the river dams tht have prevented anadromous fish from returning to their spawning grounds. He says we are well acquainted with the idea of philanthropy, but have no awareness that our love needs to extend to ths other species as well. It's a biocentric viewpoint.

DWill
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Thomas Hood
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DWill wrote: .. . if we consider charity to be identical with volunteerism and philanthropy, what is wrong with it?
Will, there's nothing wrong with volunteering if a person is truly volunteering, but 'volunteering' and 'donation' are often forced. Such may be an implicit condition of employment, and persons who do not cooperate are fired. In the past such 'contributions' were basically extortion, in which, for example, the United Way was especially skilled.

Collective action is necessary to get much of the world's work done, but volunteerism (physical contribution) and charity (material contribution) often have no relation to efficacy -- actually doing something for someone who cannot do for themselves. My experience is that people waste things they don't have to pay for.

Here's the quote I had forgotten from A Week:
Away with the superficial and selfish phil-anthropy of men, -- who knows what admirable virtue of fishes may be below low-water-mark, bearing up against a hard destiny, not admired by that fellow-creature who alone can appreciate it! Who hears the fishes when they cry? It will not be forgotten by some memory that we were contemporaries. Thou shalt erelong have thy way up the rivers, up all the rivers of the globe, if I am not mistaken. Yea, even thy dull watery dream shall be more than realized. If it were not so, but thou wert to be overlooked at first and at last, then would not I take their heaven. Yes, I say so, who think I know better than thou canst. Keep a stiff fin then, and stem all the tides thou mayst meet.

Tom
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DWill

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My experience is that people waste things they don't have to pay for.

Tom, my feeling was, and still is, that philanthropy is a good thing, despite observations such as yours above. A good bit of what people are given, through philanthropy, is the chance to keep their lives.

Will
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The Poor Man's Tomato Soup

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I think Thoreau would have liked this . . . a couple of weeks ago, I was involved in an online discussion about 'living cheaply' . . . somebody mentioned the poor man's tomato soup.

It was in relation to talking about 'bands' . . . an 'on the road' kind of economy - starving artists, kinda' thing.

I was curious about what this poor man's soup was and someone on that forum said he made it from catsup packages that you pick up in fast food places . . .

Well . . . I had to try it - I took a few packs I had in the fridge - don't know why I save them - when we picnic, I never think to take them along - anyway, I set about making the soup.

Click here for the results:

http://wildcity.proboards14.com/index.c ... hread=3075
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I've just finished 'Economy', all four parts.

Be back later in the day to finish reading through all your posts and make some responses.

Carly

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Thomas Hood
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Re: The Poor Man's Tomato Soup

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WildCityWoman wrote:. . .poor man's tomato soup. . . starving artists. . .
When I saw the cat I said, "Oh no! Not the cat too!" But no, the cat doesn't end up in the catsup soup, as it would have for a starving artist in Paris. But why can't these persons hold a day job? Many think themselves called, but few are chosen.

Tom
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Robert Tulip

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DWill wrote:about "Economy."...2. His animadversion against philanthropy. I think I get his basic point--make yourself good first rather than doing good for others-- but it's surprising that he goes on at such length against it. Either he was truly worked up over people telling him he should do charitable work, as he mentions they did, or there was some great emphasis in the day placed on charity work that just rubbed him the wrong way. He suspects in others a motive for doing good that is not so praiseworthy: "There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom." (1.104) We would be disappointed, I suspect, if Thoreau did not have a contrary opinion about most things. He seemed to delight in that, as Emerson mentions in his eulogy. I can certainly agree, though, with this statement: "I once heard a reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him, he elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the greatest of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of this. The last were not England's best men and women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists." (1.107)DWill
Good morning. Apologies that I have not found enough time for Walden, but I do want to comment on this philanthropy discussion.
By the way, I have been reflecting further on my affinities with Thoreau. When I was young I read a book "My Side of The Mountain" about a boy who goes to live in a tree in the Catskills, and I always found it inspiring and intriguing, and now wonder how much it was inspired by Thoreau. I saw my dad the other day, who was a professor of English with focus on American spirituality in poetry. He had four copies of Walden in his library and gave me one, which alas I have barely opened (after reading half the book from the internet). My mum owns a stone hut at Bullaburra in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, completely surrounded by bushland next to a deep gorge, and she always used it as a Thoreau type retreat. Once when I stayed there I read An Imaginary Life by David Malouf, which presents Ovid in exile as a sort of Thoreau type figure.

To philanthropy. I agree with Thoreau on this. My day job is managing the infrastructure program for the Australian Agency for International Development, in which we fund major World Bank programs in the transport and energy sectors in Asia. Overseas aid is often seen as charity, but to me this is incorrect, as it should be seen as an investment in security through poverty reduction. The trouble with philanthropy is that it is geared more to the needs of the giver than the receiver, so is often like the Pharisee who Jesus criticizes for praying in public, doing it to get kudos. If we are serious about reducing poverty, then Thoreau's comments deserve attention. The underlying issue here is one I can best present from the thought of Martin Heidegger in his analysis of care as the meaning of being. He says there are two types of care
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DWill

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Robert,
Welcome back, and really interesting perspective on the topic. I think it might be as I suspected: Thoreau sees in the word philanthropy a particular, and to him noxious, form of helping. He doesn't have an aversion, per se, to helping those in need, from fugitive slaves to the poorest citizens in the town. I didn't think that philanthropy is a separate category from other forms of helping. Maybe some consider it to be so. I can't see the negative in efforts to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, for example. Perhaps philanthropic organizations or NGOs go about it inefficiently; I wouldn't know.

DWill
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Every time I find myself reading the discussion of Thoreau's attitude toward philanthropy, I can't help but wonder if he was reacting to the "buy ones way to heaven" philanthropy. The doing of "good works" with the idea of working toward a place in heaven was very popular in Thoreau's day. I will go look for a citation or two, to back up that last assertion. It makes sense to me that Thoreau would find this sort of philanthropy repugnant.
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