On Charitable Giving as Farce
I can’t say enough about the RSA Animate series. If you haven’t checked it out, I strongly urge you do so. Fantastic speakers, helpful visuals and provocative topics.
I am deeply conflicted about the existence of nonprofits as a way to treat the symptoms of a problem (the underlying system). And I’ve worked with nonprofits for decades. And throughout those decades I’ve been increasingly uncomfortable about focusing on the results of a faulty system rather than on the changing of the faulty system. Now, that’s probably because that’s the way our system is set up. It creates problems, injustice, inequality and suffering, and the built-in, socially and culturally acceptable way we deal with that is by creating nonprofits to do “charitable” work.
But I wonder . . .
And so does Slavoj Zizek, who has some memorable lines, including:
“The remedies are part of the disease . . . . The worst slave owners were those who were kind to their slaves. . . .
It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property.”
The transcript is here.
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
regarding the quote, does Slavoj Zizek regard slave owners who regularly beat and lashed their slaves then as the ‘best’ slave owners? Was Slavoj ever a slave? just curious, cause I think from a slave’s point of view, the kindest would probably be considered better.
BTW I agree 100% with what Mary says before that
@Candice – My interpretation was that he was looking at the macro (abolition of slavery–and let’s say also our desire to have us cease using sentient nonhumans) and saying that those who approached the ownership in a “humane” way were “worse” because they claimed to care but were ultimately benefiting from the use of others and betraying them regularly. When I think of “humane” farmers, the first thing I think of is their dishonesty – their claim that they “love” the animals they will kill, regardless of what happens in the meantime. At least factory farmers don’t make such claims.
With that said, from the point of view of an individual human or nonhuman slave, less suffering is always better than more.
I liked this a lot. I think where it errs is in the end, calling for authoritarian socialism as an answer to the systematic issues at hand. Replacing capitalist oppressive authority with socialist oppressive authority is going to cause the same problems, just under a different regime. Taking a look at social democracies and authoritarian communist or socialist countries across the world- the same oppressive leadership and hierarchy is there and thus, poverty still exists and the people are still harmed by the state.
Remove the state and all oppressive hierarchies and create communities based on cooperation and mutual aid (anarchism) and therein lies the answer.