Boobies?

Boobies

Now I just tried the link and it doesn’t work, which, I guess, is some sort “firstie” poetic justice.
But seriously–great post, and I look forward to the second part.

One thing you have to consider when it comes to comparing lending today with lending in ancient times is investment and inflation. Thanks to the currency being taken off the gold standard and modern investment possibilities money today is worth far more compared to money tomorrow compared to how it would be in ancient times

Boobies! (minus the &lt /br &gt that messed up the previous link).
In the same vein as some of the other groups Fred mentioned, you could also lend through Kiva.

lol christians.
Did you have a similar crisis of faith about eating shellfish?

You realise that the interest Grameen charges could not – by any stretch of the imagination – be called a modest rate, don’t you? While I wholly support the microfinance concept (used to work in the area somewhere else in asia), and compared to other rates of interest charged to this particular demographic it’s low (moneylenders can b 500%pa, even 150% a month is not unheard of), loans are still 25%++ per year (we had a product that worked out at 58%pa). Utterly necessary to cover costs, yes – but modest? No way. That’s a really high rate.
I suppose my question is, when does it stop being “modest”? Is modest a comparative rate? Is modest a “we’re not making much money off this” rate? And more over – the interest was being used to create capital for further onlending, solid, right? Coupled with the said rate, is it morally objectionable or not?

This was a beautiful post.
That said, I must admit I still mostly think that trying to hold on to the text while rejecting the text is an unnecessary exercise in fighting with yourself.
But given that you’ve set yourself that exercise, I like where you’ve ended up with it… and I very much enjoy how you’ve expressed it.

I liked this exploration of your personal journey and pointing up the usefulness of a moral message contained in the Bible while avoiding the straightjacketing problem of requiring that a word-for-word reading be taken as-is with no nuance allowed.
The Bible is also a very nice indictment against the Paper Economy, which contributes little to the ongoing process of economic growth in real, physical returns for people (better houses, better cars, better food, etc) but contributes a lot to enriching a small segment of the population at the expense of others.
Parking your money with a credit union or other very local bank which is fully-insured and commits to transparency in its internal operations is a very good idea.
Not only does this mean local savings drives local investment (thereby making the local economist boffins happy), it also means local savings can’t go chasing global will-o-the-wisps, leaving you stuck holding the bag one way or another. You may get your money back if a big national chain fails, but your taxes may have just come back to your pocket if the FDIC’s coffers aren’t large enough.
/OT driftage

Others acknowledged those passages were in there, but worried I had been in danger of becoming some kind of wild-eyed zealot by trying to take the more idealistic passages too literally. (That phrase — “too literally” — was jarring to my young evangelical ears. First time I’d heard it. I made a mental note of that, about which more later.)</blockquote.
"Too literally". I love it when Biblical literalism trips over itself and admits that it's very own conceptual basis is unsustainable. Now if only the people who do the tripping would notice that it happens and drop the whole pretense of the idea…

…Gah! Forgot to close the blockquote, and now the whole thing is run together…

lol christians.
Did you have a similar crisis of faith about eating shellfish?

Thanks for contributing to the tone of the conversation, namedguf :/
And I will tell you this: Shellfish are not nearly as important as caring for the poor. I’m not even Christian and I know that.
Anyway, some interpretations of the New Testament argue that Christ overturned the old contract between God and humans and thus shellfish were no longer forbidden. You can look at it as a paradigm shift: the values and strictures that define(d) the ancient world are no longer applicable and we have to find a new way to keep what is important.
Which is what Fred said in his post, and it is deeper than shellfish and “lol christians.”

If you’re actually curious, namedguf, Fred covered that pretty well already. Why don’t you try reading it and then coming back with an actual question?
(Not to give you a swelled head, Fred, but, yes, I do still remember posts that you did more than 5 years ago because they were just that good.)

I followed the link to ShoreBank and something struck me again — it’s astonishing that when I had a savings account in 1986, I got 5% interest on it, and 3.25% interest on my checking account. Now you can barely get 1% interest on a CD (certificate of deposit).
No wonder we keep feeling like we’re running in place. There’s literally no way for people to make money other than working or playing the stock market. The option of parking your money in a CD for a few years at 10% to 15% APR to build some income just doesn’t exist anymore.

Interesting.

@Mnemosyne: The flip side, of course, is that I’m not worried about the interest rate on the house I’ll be buying this year.

Perhaps it’s all just a trick. Put your retirement money in the stock market, and the market will have a “correction” once a decade. Then financiers get the money and you get to never retire.

At first I thought “ShoreBank” referred to the local bank on the Delmarva Peninsula. If it were possible to require all banks to be member-owned credit unions, what would be the effects, both positive and negative?

I want to thank you again Fred; reading you and many of the commenters here always makes me feel good about humanity in general. I’ve read a lot about micro lending and using social networking to help the poorest of us and I’ve seen the good work they have done in Laos, & Cambodia.
I’m not a Christian, but I can agree that helping the poorest and weakest of our brothers and sisters is what we all should be doing in life. I’ve always liked the hippy version of Jesus much more than the warrior version.

Mnemosyne: No wonder we keep feeling like we’re running in place. There’s literally no way for people to make money other than working or playing the stock market. The option of parking your money in a CD for a few years at 10% to 15% APR to build some income just doesn’t exist anymore.
Some days it seems like working isn’t a very good way to make money, either. Meanwhile, the Smart Guys who wrecked our economy make more money in an hour than most of us will see in a lifetime. If only people who did real work could get paid that well…

I could use some help.
Grameen Bank: is it even possible for foreigners to open accounts? Do I need to go through the Dhaka stock exchange to buy into “Grameen Mutual Fund One”? How exactly do I invest/deposit? It’s not clear (to me) from their website.
You realise that the interest Grameen charges could not – by any stretch of the imagination – be called a modest rate, don’t you?…25%++ per year…I suppose my question is, when does it stop being “modest”?
Fred’s test seems to apply. Thanks to Grameen, the poor are fed, clothed, housed, educated, united as communities and made more prosperous. Interest rates are high, but it seems that they do that partly because the default rate on their no-collateral loans is significant and partly because they want to be able to lend more money to more people. Skimming over their site, they seem legit: both doing a lot of good and consistently making a little profit.

Abide by the general principles and try not to get derailed by the legalistic details.

That’s a point that I hope people of any religion or no religion can appreciate. In the broadest sense, it means that principles exist for the purpose of the general well-being of individuals and of society. Focusing on the legalistic details takes the focus away from people and places it elsewhere, perhaps on perfection or order, or on the placating of authority.

Ian – you’re right Fred’s test prob does apply – ie feed and clothe the poor. On the default rates: they’re actually much lower than for collateral loans in the US. The interest rate is usually a result of the expenses of operation (ie: actually driving into villages each day/week and picking mup money presents far higher overheads than direct deposits once a month/branches).
anyway.

Oooh, this means that my Fred Clark number is 4! (see: Kevin Bacon number, Paul Erdos number)
(I know someone, who knows someone, who knows Mohammed Yunus)

Bravo on the post, Fred. I am looking forward to the others in this series.

That’s a point that I hope people of any religion or no religion can appreciate. In the broadest sense, it means that principles exist for the purpose of the general well-being of individuals and of society. Focusing on the legalistic details takes the focus away from people and places it elsewhere, perhaps on perfection or order, or on the placating of authority.

I’ve actually been doing some thinking lately about what to do with some of the money in my checking account, seeing as I barely ever make withdrawals from it. The guy from my bank I talked with on the phone recommended I invest in a CD. Thanks for this post.
(I’ve also been advised to get a credit card and start building up a credit rating, but that’s a separate matter. Yeah, I know; I’m not gonna buy anything I can’t afford to pay for when the bill comes. I have no intention of spending any money I don’t have. Problem is choosing a card…)

Thanks for the links, Fred. I will look into putting some or all of my tax refund money into something like these.

Kiva.org, I gather, also has some good reputation when it comes to microfinance for the poor.

Yes, I have a Kiva account, and it seems like a good deal. I’m not sure if they charge interest, though — do they ?

Does “usury” in the Bible really mean any amount of interest? It looks to me like the Mosaic Law forbade lending to fellow Israelites at interest, but permitted it when lending to foreigners (Deut 23:20). And Ezekiel seems to equate usury specifically with “excessive interest” (Eze 18). Jesus does tell us to lend without expecting repayment, but also tells a parable which seems to approve of earning interest through banks (Mt 25). I haven’t done much research but it seems to me that even a “literal” reading of the Bible needn’t conclude that charging interest is wrong in every circumstance.
I question this because I do think usury is a promising hermeneutical case study, but only if I can convince a literalist interlocutor that the Bible unambiguously forbids us ever to charge any interest.

I have to ask – maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it sounds awfully like an ‘ends justify the means’ argument?

@4thofeleven.livejournal.com: “I have to ask – maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it sounds awfully like an ‘ends justify the means’ argument?”
Well, no, It doesn’t. “Ends justify means” is used when you do something that hurts some group, but you do it for the “greater good”. For example murder is bad. But what about murdering one man so hundred others could live? What about murdering two people for the same hundred? In case Fred presented, we have more a “tool” kind of situation. For example a knife can be used to kill people, but not using any knives because of that, even to slice your bread would be, well, stupid. The same case here. Loaning at an interest can be bad, but also can be used to help people who need it. And in modern times it seems like going through life without ever using a knife is easier than without ever taking a loan.

Jacob, you have done all the research necessary, your common sense is your guide. Consider, YOU ARE CRAZY!!! and you’re so crazy! I hope you understand that sometimes a word or phrase should be analyzed within context…spiritual discernment helps when reading the living word… now the caps in short text often signifies yelling and many consider it rude or feel that it is an expression of anger when it could just be a playful taunt with the CAPS Lock on.
So when I read the Bible I open myself up spiritually to comprehend, and sometimes it takes years before I have a revelation ..much like the author who was obviously well read and familiar with the Bible but suddenly it became alive within him.
Mosaic Law I believe is a guideline for us today but a necessary way of life for the time in which there was a different relationship between God and His people and just a different world. During that time there was a defined distinction between Gods chosen people and the rest of the world “Gentiles”.
The laws in many societal groups have changed drastically throughout time. Some people recall significant law changes within their lifetime!
Consider the Bible as a historical account of a series of events, although divinely inspired, written by different individuals for the human perspective and experience.
Ezk 18 Is referring to the consequences of straying from instruction, where boundaries were identified. The references used during that time cannot always literally translate into today and if it were present day some references still would make no sense if read by someone in another part of the world or even country who had no background knowledge of the physical and cultural conditions of the people. The message however is clear, it was a reminder .. Checks and Balances.
A lender is not the same as a loan shark!

Posted by Mnemosyne: I followed the link to ShoreBank and something struck me again — it’s astonishing that when I had a savings account in 1986, I got 5% interest on it, and 3.25% interest on my checking account. Now you can barely get 1% interest on a CD (certificate of deposit).
No wonder we keep feeling like we’re running in place. There’s literally no way for people to make money other than working or playing the stock market. The option of parking your money in a CD for a few years at 10% to 15% APR to build some income just doesn’t exist anymore.
Um…duh! Also, why do you think that there was (and to my knowledge still is, although you don’t necessarily hear it as publicly anymore) a huge push to “privatize Social Security”? (i.e. let people put their Social Security payments directly into investment funds.) Because the Wall Street robber-barons want access to that potentially huge pool of money knowing (or at least believing) that even if “investors” (the Social Security recipients whose money has been invested) lose *their* shirts in some future economic fiasco/disaster, the barons themselves will most likely be able to count on the Government bailing them out.* They’re basically trying (with alarming success) to socialize their debt (by making Social Security recipients “invest” in whatever new and bizarre schemes they can think up to make more money by pushing it around) and privatize the profit. (i.e. Paying themselves humongous bonuses for thinking up new and bizarre schemes to make more money by pushing it around.)
In short, Wall Street wants *YOUR* money; and in order to get it, they’ve blocked off access to pretty much all other legal means of high-interest-bearing investment. The best that anyone can probably do nowadays is either accept a revenue-neutral lifestyle, or put relatively small amounts of money into a lot of low-return investments. (Then again, of course, you’ll have to pay someone a good bit of that money to keep track of where it is and what kind of taxes you’ll have to pay on it…)
*especially if said fiasco/disaster occurs close to an election year and/or during a Republican administration.

“An abomination, but the win-win kind…”
Love it! And totally agree with it too – Fred is full of win, as usual.
For us non-Americans, Opportunity International is my micro-finance group of choice. My church created a trust bank with them and they were great at helping us (who know very little about money) get it all set up. I’m in Australia, but I believe OI are (as the name says) international. I’ve also heard very good things about Kiva, but don’t know if they are international or not.

Interestingly enough, the early Rabbis found that some of the laws in the Torah designed to help the poor, actually hurt the poor and loopholes needed to be developed to get around them. The Torah requires that all debts be cancelled during the Sabbatical Year. This led to a situation where the people with money refused to make loans to the poor because they would not get paid back in time. In response, Hillel developed a type of legal fiction called the prosbul to get around the problem.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosbul

Alrighty, Fred. I went ahead and linked this post on my blog, because even though I don’t always like or agree with where your “crazy, hippie, pinko-commie ideas” take you and am a little uncomfortable about what I sometimes feel is your constantly annoyed tone, I absolutely love, love, LOVE your clarity and the way you engender honest discussion from very disparate corners of the worldview universe.
I’m looking forward to where you take this, because while I have to admit I’ve decided ahead of time to disagree with you on what I assume is going to be your next point, I am still willing to listen and possibly even be a little less right than before (some things are too scary, given a lifetime of mind-training, to consider over less than, say, a ten-year period).
I also LOVED the bit about you being “22 years old, burdened with the moral clarity that comes from being that age and not having yet failed at anything important.” Having received in the past year incontrovertible evidence of my own failure at marriage, I have also found myself having to learn the beauteous and joy-inspiring lesson of being wrong.

I want to know in which universe Fred’s ideas could come across as “hippie pinko-commie”, even as a joke. His political views seem fairly representative of social democracy, as far as I’ve read.

Mnemosyne :

I followed the link to ShoreBank and something struck me again — it’s astonishing that when I had a savings account in 1986, I got 5% interest on it, and 3.25% interest on my checking account. Now you can barely get 1% interest on a CD (certificate of deposit).

In Japan, the interest you can get on a bank account goes to the dizzying heights of… 0.02%. I really thought there was a misplaced decimal there*. No wonder they only ever use cash.
*there might be one at that. It’s a really improbably number, and it isn’t like I checked recently. Or before posting.

I don’t think Fred has a constantly annoyed tone, either.
Of course, if I were holding a weekly analysis of Left Behind….

I want to know in which universe Fred’s ideas could come across as “hippie pinko-commie”, even as a joke. His political views seem fairly representative of social democracy, as far as I’ve read.

I guess those are considered the same thing now!

Oh, you silly, silly peoples.
First of all, I really don’t think Fred needs your defense, because he seems like a smart chap… and I wasn’t really attacking him. However, it could be that my use of self-mocking irony is too subtle and comes across as mean-spirited. Ergo, let me ‘splain. I call Fred a “hippie pinko-commie” because the ways in which my journey has paralleled his are exactly the things that have led many of my own friends to call ME a “hippie pinko commie” and cluck their tongues at what they imagine to be MY abandonment of the faith. Tongue firmly in cheek, amigos.
Also, I did say that I was “a little uncomfortable with what I feel is [his] perpetually annoyed tone” – key words: “a little uncomfortable” and “feel.” I did not say that I felt his annoyed tone was unjustified, just that it made me feel uncomfortable. This is an unloving, screwed-up culture we live in (among all the other screwed-up cultures) and I think it’s wonderful that there are voices like Fred’s hollering “NO!” He’s a prophet, I think.
Nonetheless, I get nervous because I don’t know him in person. I don’t know how he generally lives and loves, but I do know that in my own life, constantly yelling “foul!” for a long, long time made me bitter, arrogant, cynical and generally all-around less joyful. It’s what I call “the Adbuster’s Syndrome” – whereby, like the creators of that auspicious magazine, I spent all my time yelling about problems and never affirming the good that is, in fact, being done in the world. In so doing, I stripped my reality of joy. This is not to say that Fred does that, just that I get nervous when I read things that I fear might be taking me back towards that pattern of behavior. It’s more a sense of foreboding than anything else.
All good things, peoples. Feel the love. Circular. Like a carousel. The words go ’round, they go in. Send them home.

Nicole, have you met Melanie? I think you two might have a lot to talk about.
Well, no, It doesn’t. “Ends justify means” is used when you do something that hurts some group, but you do it for the “greater good”.
In what way does “Charging poor people who desperately need money interest so you have the capital to lend to more poor people” not fall under this definition? The people would certainly be better off if they didn’t have to repay the interest.

Well, no matter how well you choose people to lend to, some will always default. You need to make those losses up somehow.

The flip side, of course, is that I’m not worried about the interest rate on the house I’ll be buying this year.
But the flip side of that flip side is that everyone started using their houses as a way to build wealth (on paper, at least) because it was the only way open to ordinary people, which is not a very good use of home ownership.
And then, of course, the sharks circled in since people were desperate to buy a house and gobbled up any excess money that may have been floating around.
I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the days of 25% interest on your home mortgage, but we should at least acknowledge that there is a social and economic downside to low interest rates and easy credit.

In what way does “Charging poor people who desperately need money interest so you have the capital to lend to more poor people” not fall under this definition?
You answered your own question: if you do not charge interest, you don’t have any additional money to lend to other desperately poor people who need it and since money is not an infinite resource and some people will inevitably default, you will eventually run out and not be able to help anyone at all.
So the question is, do you want to help a finite number of people for a limited amount of time, or do you want to help a (theoretically) infinite number of people for a much longer period of time?

I wouldn’t mind debt cancellation all ’round. Considering that purposely pushing debt has been the root of quite a bit of trouble these days, it would probably be a smart idea for a one-time fresh-start.

@Spearmint:
Did you hurt the first group of people? You gave them money they needed at a low interest rate. This to me seems like a plus (smaler plus than if they didn’t have to pay the interest, or even din’t need to pay back anything, but still a plus, and they get it at a low interest rate). Than you use the money they payed you back to help more people. This seems like another plus. So let’s see on one side you have a group of people you helped (maybe not as much as you could, but still), and on the other some more people you helped. At least in theory. In case of the “ends justify means” you have people hurt on one side and greater good (however you define it) on the other. It seems different to me.

The Catholic Church were mostly land-owners, so they continued to believe and preach the evils of usury – because land-owners tend to be borrowers. The Reformation was hugely popular with the merchant class, who tend to be lenders, and so usury ceased to be evil…

Did you hurt the first group of people?
You’re hurting them more than if you didn’t charge them interest. Or than if you gave them charity rather than a loan. Perhaps you’d prefer to say you’re helping them less, but that still seems to me to constitute harm when compared to not charging interest.
All injuries are relative to other outcomes- there’s no default baseline. If I deliberately infect you with bubonic plague I’m clearly hurting you, but I’m also hurting you if I had no role in your infection but I have penicillin and I refuse to share it with you. Under moral systems that place property rights above life, which seem to be most of them, I’m not morally obligated to share my penicillin with you. But it’s hard to see how you could claim I’m not hurting you by leaving you to die.
It’s true that net utility goes up by the micro-lending interest system, but that’s true under any ends justifying the means scenario, including the one where you murder the one guy to save a hundred.

I want to know in which universe Fred’s ideas could come across as “hippie pinko-commie”, even as a joke. His political views seem fairly representative of social democracy, as far as I’ve read.
I guess those are considered the same thing now! -Ryan
Right you are Ryan. At least according to Glen Beck tho he says these ideals are more Nazi Fascist but hey, the Far Right has conflated those as well.
See the brilliant Lewis Black on the Daily Show illustrating Beck’s Nazi Tourrette’s.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black—glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s
Glen Beck is against empathy (a commie-pinko hippie-Jesus social democratic idea if there ever was one): Beck says: “Hitler felt that it was the only empathetic thing to do is to put the child down [to death] and put him out of his suffering. It was the beginning… that led to genocide, everywhere. … Empathy leads you to very bad decisions; many times.”
Lewis Black’s comment: “In ONE paragraph Beck tied one of the most positive words in the English language to Hitler’s genocide.”
(I love Black’s recommendation to Beck. I hope Beck takes Black’s advice.)

To clarify: I’m not arguing ends never justify means. But still I don’t see this as this kind of situations.
@Spearmint:”You’re hurting them more than if you didn’t charge them interest. Or than if you gave them charity rather than a loan. Perhaps you’d prefer to say you’re helping them less, but that still seems to me to constitute harm when compared to not charging interest.”
And I will say you’re helping them less, because I think it should be compared to the situations they are now, that means before your involvement. To use the penicilin example. If I share penicilin with the sick person but don’t take care of them while they are returning to health, am I hurting them? (compared the situation to a better situation) If that’s the case I am always hurting people by not helping them to the fullest extent possible.

Answering some questions about KIVA:
Yes, it’s international.
The individual lenders do not collect interest on the money they lend, but they do, generally, get their money back; so KIVA counts as neither an investment nor a charitable contribution. KIVA is a sort of clearing house to connect individual lenders with borrowers. The actual loans are made and collected through KIVA’s partner financial institutions, who do charge their clients interest.
Rates of default are surprisingly low. For example, I started in April of 2007, lending $25 (US) each to five people. So far, that money has been turned into 19 loans of $25 each. Only one borrower, a chicken farmer in Mexico, partially defaulted: I lost $1.92 on the loan. That’s a lot of doing good and feeling good about it for a very small cost.
I am unwilling to anger the gods of Typepad by trying to post a link, but it requires only minimal google-fu to find the KIVA website.

I want to know in which universe Fred’s ideas could come across as “hippie pinko-commie”, even as a joke. His political views seem fairly representative of social democracy, as far as I’ve read.

The sort of universe where the owners of large corporations set the tone of political discourse, and thus where anything short of pure free-market capitalism is dangerously socialist. In other words, the United States of America.
…Anyone have a parallel universe handy?

At first I thought “ShoreBank” referred to the local bank on the Delmarva Peninsula. If it were possible to require all banks to be member-owned credit unions, what would be the effects, both positive and negative?
Well, it’s not very practical, is it? I can imagine the lawn signs and protests now.
What might be more practical is tax benefits associated with credit unions. Maybe for both the institution as it does true community investing (wouldn’t want to leave a loophole there) and an incentive for members with some modest investment amount untaxed. Also increasing the protections on credit union accounts so they match FDIC available through banks, I believe it is close but not equal.
The credit unions themselves could work a bit on transparency. I know plenty of people who haven’t looked into one because they’re unfamiliar with how it works and even if they qualify. People dislike rejection and there is something a little private clubbish about the entrance guidelines. I know it’s required of credit unions, but it’s hard for people new to the concept.

Another vote for Kiva.org though it can be rather addictive – I like the idea that the people who are repaying money to me are in fact financing the next loan, to someone else who needs a bit of help buying a sewing machine, or some more stock so they can expand their store.

You’re hurting them more than if you didn’t charge them interest. Or than if you gave them charity rather than a loan. Perhaps you’d prefer to say you’re helping them less, but that still seems to me to constitute harm when compared to not charging interest.

This might be true in an ideal world, but in the world we actually have it doesn’t work this way. The poor are very unlikely to get an interest free loan and as we’ve discussed many times charity is never going be enough to meet all the needs that exist. So I think the appropriate question to ask is “Which hurts them more? Getting a relatively low interest loan or getting no loan at all?”

I think if we’re going to play Duelling Cliches, “the ends justify the means” is far less applicable than “don’t let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good.”

I’ve never liked “the ends justifies the means” as a criticism. Since my morality is largely utilitarian, I can’t think of what could justify the means besides the ends. The thing to remember is that the ends include all the consequences of the means, not just the beneficial ones. That was rather Fred’s point. The Bible doesn’t forbid lending at interest because lending at interest is inherently bad, but because it ha(s/d) bad consequences.

Every now and then, Fred comes along with something that doesn’t make Evangelical Christianity seem quite so crazzy. Which may explain why I read just about everything he puts in this blog. Come to think of it, it’s more than every now and then, it’s just about every day.

Minerva,
Last fall I had some fraudulent activity on my bank account that overdrew my account. It took months to resolve, and in the meantime, my bank closed my account (with their apologies) and told me I couldn’t reopen it because of the amount of time it was overdrawn.
Since I had wanted to switch to a credit union for a while, I walked over to my local credit union to inquire about opening an account. I had with me a letter from my bank which explained the overdrawn account and that it had now been cleared. The credit union told me sorry, I wouldn’t be allowed to open an account with them despite the letter of explanation.
I was stuck using Walmart’s money center to do my “banking” for a while: cashing checks and purchasing money orders, because they have the cheapest fees for that sort of thing. Then a month later, a bank branch in my local supermarket was having a drive to open new accounts, and one of their clerks approached me. I explained my situation and they said, “Not a problem, you can still open an account with us.” So now I have a bank account again and don’t have to rely on Walmart. But boy, do I wish the credit union had been the one to say that.

Hmm… looks like it might be a good idea to establish two bank accounts when your finances are in good shape, just in case something like that does happen.

If that’s the case I am always hurting people by not helping them to the fullest extent possible.
Aren’t you? I’m not suggesting it’s generally culpable, mind you. But everyone except libertarians seems to consider watching a baby drink a bottle of bleach without intervening to be wrong. What’s the basis for that judgment if not helping doesn’t constitute a form of harm? And once you accept that letting the baby drink the bleach is harmful, where do you draw the line? There’s no clear moral boundary between “taking away the bleach” and “closing the cabinet under the kitchen sink with all the poisons” and “finding the baby’s parents to tell them to watch their kid.”
So I think the appropriate question to ask is “Which hurts them more? Getting a relatively low interest loan or getting no loan at all?”
Well, no. Because you had enough to lend to that particular person without getting the interest (or even just getting the initial loan back), or you couldn’t have made the loan in the first place. So you’re hurting that particular individual slightly so the institution of micro-loans can survive, which seems to me to be a classic ends-justifying-the-means scenario.
Also what hapax and Leum said.

I’ve never liked “the ends justifies the means” as a criticism. Since my morality is largely utilitarian, I can’t think of what could justify the means besides the ends.
See, I think that ninety-nine percent of the time, but then something comes up like people trying to debate torture again, and my mind goes straight back to “No, no, no, you never do that! Better to die first.”
And there are a lot of good practical arguments against torture (it doesn’t work, you’re going to have a lot of people who hate you because of that, it undermines your ability to argue for standards of international law and basic morals, it makes you look like a massive hypocrite for calling it a crime when people on your side are tortured, your torturers are going to suffer severe psychological damage, etc.), but that’s not at the core of my objection. At the core, it just seems so monstrous that practicality isn’t my main concern.
So I’m split somewhat awkwardly between more utilitarian ideas about morality (where you do what causes the least harm and most good), and some absolute principles (where you do certain things because they are decent, and don’t do certain things because they are vile). I don’t have a terribly coherent philosophy, overall.

I think the best way to look at it would be “the ends can justify the means” – so long as the end is good enough and the means aren’t too bad. Thus, for example, the long term survival of the institution of microloans (a fairly large good) can justify the charging of interest on said loans (a relatively minor bad). However, the gaining of a little more information on terrorist activities (a small amount of good, assuming the information is accurate) can never justify torture (a huge evil).

Is Fred really a pink commie hippo?

I thought Fred was a member of the species homo sapiens sapiens. I did not know that he was a hippopotamus amphibius. Let alone a pink communist one. The tendency of certain rightists to refer to any economic position that is slightly to the left of pure free market capitalism as full on Marxism only shows that rightists are stupid fanatics incapable of making distinctions between liberalism, least to the left of center, and Marxism, furthers one can go to the Left of Center probably in politics. Unfortunately this does not hurt them politically.
Incidentally, even though the rightists claim to be in favor of the pure free market; most of them really aren’t. Adam Smith argued that the free market requires the free movement of people along with the free movement of goods. I.e. people need to be allowed to move where the economic opportunities are, no exceptions. Lots of people on the right are known for their very tough stance on immigration and are not known for favoring open borders. Its funny how so many free marketers forget certain parts of Adam Smith’s teachings.

“don’t let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good.”
I’ve heard a very different version of this proverb. “Perfect is the enemy of good enough.” This version goes both ways; it recognizes that a good enough attitude can be the enemy of artistic accomplishment, for example.

So when Treebeard tries to explain the reasons behind his ponderous demeanor, is that a case of the Ent justifying the mien?

Mleczak: If that’s the case I am always hurting people by not helping them to the fullest extent possible.
Spearmint: Aren’t you? I’m not suggesting it’s generally culpable, mind you. But everyone except libertarians seems to consider watching a baby drink a bottle of bleach without intervening to be wrong. What’s the basis for that judgment if not helping doesn’t constitute a form of harm? And once you accept that letting the baby drink the bleach is harmful, where do you draw the line? There’s no clear moral boundary between “taking away the bleach” and “closing the cabinet under the kitchen sink with all the poisons” and “finding the baby’s parents to tell them to watch their kid.”

I disagree with the implication that taking a morally unacceptable action is always the same thing as hurting someone. In this example I would say that if I don’t stop the baby from drinking the bleach I’ve done something wrong, but I didn’t hurt the baby. I’ll allow that the distinction may seem wholly semantic to people who aren’t inside my head.
At any rate there has to be a point at which your responsibility for the bleach drinking baby ends. The fact that you didn’t draw a bright line in creating your example doesn’t mean that no line exists. My philosophy 101 is a little rusty but unless I’m seriously misremembering I think we could sit down with each of the various schools of moral thought and figure out where they would say my moral responsibility to that baby ends. If that’s not the case then my best bet is to try really, really hard never to see any problems in the world because once I know about a problem I fall into a hole were I can’t escape responsible for it. IMO any moral system that creates an incentive not to see problems can’t be right.
Also, you’re assuming that simply giving people something is doing the best for them and in practice that’s often not the case. I had a class last spring that looked at a bunch of issues in development. One of them was outcomes of various means of encouraging small business creation in developing countries. The research indicated that charging a manageable amount of interest actually resulted in the best end results. That seemed to be because the need to pay interest weeded out people who weren’t committed and incentivized borrowers to have a good plan before taking out a loan. (Sorry, I can’t find the cites right now and my notes are in a storage space in Maryland. Someone with better Google-fu should be able to find the info. I don’t recall the sources being particularly obscure.)

I don’t see how “the end justifies the means” even applies to the biblical language against charging interest. I didn’t see anyone here arguing that interest is bad except when in a good cause. The argument seems instead to be that interest is a tool that can be used or good or bad.

What might be more practical is tax benefits associated with credit unions.

I agree. My question was really about how things would be different if we had credit unions instead of banks, not necessarily how to accomplish that goal. I would like to think that the democratic control of these institutions would result in them being more responsible.

But, what about the parable of the talents, in particular Matthew 25:27 where the “bad servant” was told that
“Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.”
Here one could say that Jesus was endorsing investing money in a bank and earning interest.

I think the best way to look at it would be “the ends can justify the means” – so long as the end is good enough and the means aren’t too bad. Thus, for example, the long term survival of the institution of microloans (a fairly large good) can justify the charging of interest on said loans (a relatively minor bad). However, the gaining of a little more information on terrorist activities (a small amount of good, assuming the information is accurate) can never justify torture (a huge evil).”
There was a post a few years ago which I think Fred may have linked to, in which a blogger wrote that you could come up with improbable theoretical situations in which it’s morally justified to torture a child to death. And that trying to extrapolate from this (“Well, you’ve just admitted it’s morally acceptable to torture children for the greater good, so it should be acceptable in other situations.”) was no different than the ticking bomb argument (“if it’s acceptable to torture someone when there’s an imminent ticking bomb, then we should accept it can be justified in other circumstances.”)

Hapax, that is beyond terrible. I admit that I laughed.

I’ve never liked “the ends justifies the means” as a criticism. Since my morality is largely utilitarian, I can’t think of what could justify the means besides the ends. The thing to remember is that the ends include all the consequences of the means, not just the beneficial ones. That was rather Fred’s point. The Bible doesn’t forbid lending at interest because lending at interest is inherently bad, but because it ha(s/d) bad consequences.

Exactly.
People say “The ends justify the means” to mean “You’re doing something horrible!” but think about it: If I lessen my net worth by donating to charity most would argue that my end justifies my means. Despite my means harming someone (myself) the ends are seen as more than appropriate compensation by everyone involved. Indeed, every good action is one where the ends did, in fact, justify the means. An evil one is simply one where that is not true.
I’m curious what other system of deciding morality there could be than judging the outcome vs. the cost to get it.

See, I think that ninety-nine percent of the time, but then something comes up like people trying to debate torture again, and my mind goes straight back to “No, no, no, you never do that! Better to die first.”

But, see, that’s again a case of whether or not the ends justify the means. Torture is a pretty terrible means, especially given that innocents will be tortured, so you’ve decided that no possible end could justify torture.
I don’t quite agree. I cannot, off the top of my head, think of a single scenario where torture would be justifiable, especially given that it doesn’t work, and all. But I suppose there could be such a scenraio (an alien terrorist from a species that torture actually works on is the only one capable of stopping a genocide of all other sentient life in the universe, and refuses to do so without coersion. Huh, guess I could think of one, but it’s so utterly contrived that it hardly counts.) and in that case I would feel that using torture was justifiable (by definition, really.)

At any rate there has to be a point at which your responsibility for the bleach drinking baby ends.

For reasons of sanity, I agree, but I’ve yet to find a way to make my sense of morality agree. Even my going insane from my inability to fix the world is probably not enough of a net negative to justify all the people who are dying right now because I’m not donating all my time and money to helping save lives in some way. My individual happiness has a net worth of less than the happiness of two people, never mind the lives of, say, one dozen (to give an absurdly low estimate) that I could save by donating all of my savings right now and then joining some sort of feed-the-homeless group, or whatever.
I mean, I have a computer. It cost me about $1 500. That’s more than three year’s salary in many countries. I’ve spent much more than that on books and other forms of entertainment. Had I sent every penny I earned to charity then I could probably have fed a family for decades.
How do I justify not doing that? Right now I can’t, and every time I think of it I get very…depressed isn’t too strong a word. But somehow I can never rise to donating more than a tithe of my income, if even that much. :/.
It’s not a sense of responsibility, even, it’s just…the moral action is, I feel in my utilitarian way, that which causes the least harm and the greatest happiness. Donating all of my money (save, I suppose, a small amount to afford food and a very simple place to live.) would cause great happiness. So much so that my discomfort would barely register; a firefly against the sun. So the inevitable conclusion is that I am, in fact, acting immorally. Very much so.
I really like Utilitarianism, but I fear for how much of western life it forces one to see as, well, immoral. It is, alas, a philosophy that my brain accepts for people close to me and in the short term, but which it recoils from when it comes to strangers or over the long term. Stupid primate genes…

It’s not a sense of responsibility, even, it’s just…the moral action is, I feel in my utilitarian way, that which causes the least harm and the greatest happiness. Donating all of my money (save, I suppose, a small amount to afford food and a very simple place to live.) would cause great happiness. So much so that my discomfort would barely register; a firefly against the sun. So the inevitable conclusion is that I am, in fact, acting immorally. Very much so.

An attitude I share and that deeply troubles me. So much so that I end up pushing it out of my mind.

That’s pretty much my way of coping which, when I think about it, just makes it worse since instead of doing the moral thing I’m y’know, ignoring it. Argh.
Don’t suppose anyone here has a nice, simple, obvious solution to this dilemma that I’ve overlooked?

I don’t quite agree. I cannot, off the top of my head, think of a single scenario where torture would be justifiable, especially given that it doesn’t work, and all.
Here’s my opinion of this as another vaguely utilitarian person.
It doesn’t work, why is it then even a question if torture can be justified. Since it is proven not to work, there is no hypothetical “But what if in this instance” here.
I don’t have a terribly coherent philosophy, overall.
I highly doubt anyone really does.
Whether or not your personal Hodgepodge philosophy is coherent isn’t exactly a big deal.
I mean look at me, I’m a utilitarian, a socialist, and yet also a devote of Nietzsche.

For reasons of sanity, I agree, but I’ve yet to find a way to make my sense of morality agree. Even my going insane from my inability to fix the world is probably not enough of a net negative to justify all the people who are dying right now because I’m not donating all my time and money to helping save lives in some way. My individual happiness has a net worth of less than the happiness of two people, never mind the lives of, say, one dozen (to give an absurdly low estimate) that I could save by donating all of my savings right now and then joining some sort of feed-the-homeless group, or whatever.
The best argument I’ve found against this philosophy is, weirdly, pragmatic. I know that if I kept myself at a subsistence-level existence (lots of rice and beans and no luxury foods, just enough work clothes and hygiene products to allow me to keep my job, no going to movies or buying DVDs or spending money on cable or getting a television at all, donating all extraneous possessions), I could do massive amounts of good.
I also know, on a practical level, telling myself this doesn’t get me to do anything except feel guilty. Giving myself positive mental credit for any good I do leads to effective action.
It’s crappy as a logical refutation to the premise, but it does more practical good to the alternative.
It doesn’t work, why is it then even a question if torture can be justified. Since it is proven not to work, there is no hypothetical “But what if in this instance” here.
The “But what if” is always, explicitly or implicitly, “But what if it works this time?” And, while it’s incredibly improbable for “torture gets the life-saving information you couldn’t get any other way” scenario to happen, it’s slightly more possible than, say, the sun turning into a giant bran muffin, people keep arguing the point. (At least partially, I suspect, because it makes their “I want to torture those bad people!” impulses more comfortable.) And the argument goes on and on.

Don’t suppose anyone here has a nice, simple, obvious solution to this dilemma that I’ve overlooked?

My personal approach is to accept that the dilemma remains unsolved. There’s a dissonance between what I believe and how I live so until I change my beliefs or the way I live I’ll continue to feel moral discomfort at my own hypocrisy. Currently I’m stubborn enough (and have people holding me accountable) not to change or ignore my beliefs, which means that the discomfort drives changes in my behaviour. Granted, it’s gradual and is unlikely ever to be enough to eliminate the dissonance altogether, but I can accept that because its constructive dissonance. Anyway, surely the virtue of my actions is more important than how I feel about them–isn’t it better to change your actions for the good than change your beliefs so that you don’t care if your actions are not good? (I don’t think I’m utilitarian, btw, so this line of reasoning might be utterly unpersuasive to utiliarians. I think I’m a bit Kantian but don’t know enough philosophy to say anything for sure.)
It probably helps that I’m happily Catholic so I’m OK living with guilt

I agree. My question was really about how things would be different if we had credit unions instead of banks, not necessarily how to accomplish that goal. I would like to think that the democratic control of these institutions would result in them being more responsible.
Ah. So I should take “Watching the Tea Party become even more entertaining” off my pro list?
I think the result might be even stronger outside the US. Our banks seem to have their thumbs in some pretty distasteful pies and depriving them of the power to play kingmaker even more than they do here could be a huge bonus. How many countries has BofA and Citibank crippled?
But here? In our daily lives, as we rush to work, the grocer’s, to pick up the kids, make dinner, watch tv, play on the internet… other than aggrieving circumstances and ridiculous overdraft fees, do we notice what our banks do? Could they help us make investing less about pushing paper around to make money on paper and more about actually creating things? I think that’d be a hug advantage.
What about the investment firms? Could some local, community-oriented institution take their place? Since the bulk of middle class investing seems to be tied to employers (I know ours are and the limited fund choices are frustrating), would they be able to deal with a smaller alternative? Why does the government incentivize tying retirement to employers? Should that be decoupled like health care?
As for downsides, other than attempting change seems like political suicide, what sort of time/awareness/activism commitment are we looking at from the average and overstressed USian?

I think by utilitarian logic, if the guilt drives you do to enough good it outweighs the harm feeling guilty does to you, it’s an overall good and a preferable option, unless someone discovers an alternative where you can feel better and do equal or greater amounts of good.
So if you have a nagging sense of guilt and it brings you to go for a hundred dollars worth of malaria bed nets a year, which saves actual lives, utilitarian logic says that living with the guilt is a better option than talking yourself out of it and doing nothing, and less good than doing those actions while not feeling guilty.
It’s all a matter of whether the guilt is productive for you or not. I think most people here would agree that makes a big difference. It makes more sense to live with motivating guilt than with paralyzing guilt.

What about the investment firms? Could some local, community-oriented institution take their place? Since the bulk of middle class investing seems to be tied to employers (I know ours are and the limited fund choices are frustrating), would they be able to deal with a smaller alternative? Why does the government incentivize tying retirement to employers? Should that be decoupled like health care?

Retirement savings and health insurance and such being tied to employment is a historical artifact. Essentially, since the US never developed a proper socialist movement along the lines of the old (1940s-1980s) Labour Party, unions ended up being somewhat coopted by an existing major party (the Democrats) and tended to be more conciliatory than in Europe (especially after Taft-Hartley passed in the late ’40s). Combined with the fact that the US has been the world’s largest economy since the early 20th century, and contained, for a brief period of time, an absolute majority of all world economic activity, that meant that corporations had the ability and the incentive to provide relatively generous benefits to their workers, while the workers weren’t pushing for more dramatic reform (well, not very hard). As usual, the existing system received benefits, so we’ve continued in that path since. While there have been some major changes (in particular the decline of the defined-benefit pension plan), overall the fundamental structure has stayed steady.

@Spearmint:
But in the child drinking bleach scenario you’re comparing the situation to a worse situation (helping the child in some way to the not helpimg child at all). You’re not comparing it a perfect example (whatever it might be, because I can’t really say) and saying doing anything else is hurting the child. You still draw the line somewhere. You aren’t talking in all negatives (bad, less bad) The ends justify the means in this case of the child for me would be slapping the child before he raises the botle to his mouth (justifiable in my opinion) or letting the child die so his parrents learn not to leave a child with acces to bleach (not justifiable in my opinion).
Another example: do we consider not jumping into the fire to save somebodys else possesions to be bad? We are not helping them to the fullest. Of course if we see it that way it becomes ends justifies means scenario too. The end being not endangering your live. And further, everything becomes a ends justify means. Which may be your point (may being the key word).
@Leum:
I agree. I just can’t agree that every situation is “ends justify means” type, or that the one Fred presents is a one of them.
@Tonio:”I don’t see how “the end justifies the means” even applies to the biblical language against charging interest. I didn’t see anyone here arguing that interest is bad except when in a good cause. The argument seems instead to be that interest is a tool that can be used or good or bad.”
I agree. It’s a part what I’ve been trying to say in my first post, but it seems I have failed to do it clearly.
@Lori:” If that’s not the case then my best bet is to try really, really hard never to see any problems in the world because once I know about a problem I fall into a hole were I can’t escape responsible for it. IMO any moral system that creates an incentive not to see problems can’t be right.”
Or accept the fact, and the guilt that comes with it. I prefer fluffy iguana cookies as an incentive myself .

I’ve appreciated all the great descriptions of the work of Kiva.org. Is it right for me to think of it all as some kind of reverse pyramid scheme?

With the whole “crushing guilt because my income could feed countless families” thing, I see it as a case of, yes, it would achieve a net good to become poor and live on basic sustenance for the sake of the poor, but it’s such a difficult thing to do – to give up your whole way of life, effectively – that it ranks on about the same level as “be nice to everyone you meet, ever, always turning the other cheek and never starting or prolonging a conflict”, and slightly above “if you could save a large number of people you didn’t know by eliminating your impact on the world through suicide, would you kill yourself?”. It’s something that humans are simply not engineered for, by and large: the few who are wired like that tend to go into being monks, or somesuch.
Which doesn’t serve as an excuse for not doing it: it’s not something one should invoke as a way of saying “I don’t have to”. But the fact that we find giving up our whole lives as we know them incredibly difficult isn’t something I think we should beat ourselves up over, either.
Also, lives are not interchangeable. That’s sort of one of the pitfalls of utilitarianism. Saying “I will trade my life for ten other lives, because that’s a net gain in worth” is to ignore the fact that each of those lives is not just currency to be gained and lost, but uniquely valuable and uniquely possessed of a right to be. Which is not to say that letting the ten die is any better, but it speaks to why it’s so hard for us to give up our own: it’s not a simple trade. Each factor being weighted is immeasurable; each factor being weighted is priceless.
Or something like that, anyway.
I’d like to be more charitable than I am, but I’m a non-earning disabled person who supports another non-earning disabled person on what I have. Which in itself is evil by utilitarian morals, because we’re not using that money to ensure that larger numbers of people than ourselves live. But I’m not sure it quite works like that, not that I claim to know how it works. I sometimes dream that when I die I’ll disperse what I have to charities, but it’ll likely go towards keeping loved ones alive, because I love them; but I’m not sure I can believe that love is *evil*, even so.
I take some consolation from the fact that we’ve only recently come this far from a base point of “hurts my tribe = kill it”, and anything is better than nothing.

Actually, this has got me in an interesting philosophical position.
Love requires intense feeling towards certain beings. Unless one is Buddha, Jesus or someone similar, or a disciple of someone similar who has ascended to an enlightened state, one cannot love the world: one must preference some beings over others, for one has finite energy, if not necessarily finite love.
To love some people means that you will grossly favour them and advantage them over others. (Example: I share 100% of my money with my significant other, whereas I could share 1% of it amongst 100 people, or 0.1% amongst… you get the idea.) This is unfair, and something of an evil. Yet we can’t say love is evil.
We can, perhaps, say the limitation of love is evil. But it is inherent in human beings as we know them today that we will be limited in love.
Perhaps this leads to the conclusion that Jesus, Buddha and the like were right (not surprising) in that we should attempt to become enlightened beings like them, and that anything less is sinful. Perhaps that’s where the concept of the world being mired in original sin came from.
Though my own belief is that we live in an evolving world, doing its best to push itself forward: similarly, the point of existing is to push the envelope, to seek enlightenment, to become those beings who can universally love. But the fact that we can’t isn’t “sin” as in a crime, so much that it’s “sin” as in the state of the whole world not being perfectly evolved.
We can’t do much about it, but we can swim upstream and slowly change it bit by bit. Of course, the very fact that we’re mired down in it and held at a certain level is what keeps us from all throwing our bank books into the charity pot: we’re far from there, yet.
The best we can do is keep trying to cultivate that mindset, and not beat ourselves up for how far we do or don’t get (e.g. if you find that you really are just most inclined to spend most of your money on you… that’s a limitation you were born into, and it’s a shame that we aren’t all perfect givers, but it’s not evil because it’s the extent of what our particular selves are really able to be).
I don’t know.

@The Right Hon’ Mouse, I think you said it well, especially the point about not being able to weigh one life vs. 10 lives (or more), since each life is invaluable, and about the primacy of intimate love (as in close) to being human, which automatically limits the reach of our love since we can’t love everyone intimately.

On the other hand, even if the United States developed a proper socialist movement; it would not necessarily mean that the United States would have a welfare state. The United States has more veto points than other countries do and unless the socialists get lucky and manage to capture the Presidency and possess a super-majority in Congress than its unlikely that they could pass the legislation they wanted. I doubt that a socialist movement would take off in the South and its most likely that Southern Congress people would work to defeat welfare legislation.
Its also important to note that the Democratic Party did fight for welfare legislation from FDR to the 1970s and scored some impressive victories but never quite managed to achieve universal healthcare because of the veto points in the American political system. They also attempted to pass guaranteed minimum income legislation, legislation where every adult American was entitled to a certain amount of money per year but could not.

See, I think that ninety-nine percent of the time, but then something comes up like people trying to debate torture again, and my mind goes straight back to “No, no, no, you never do that! Better to die first.”
Well, at that point your end is “Being a state that tortures people.” That strikes me a sufficiently bad end that your alternative ends have to be really, really bad- like, worse than everyone in a major city dead from terrorism bad- to justify means that would force you into that trajectory.
@hapax re. ents: *gives you the side-eye*
I would say that if I don’t stop the baby from drinking the bleach I’ve done something wrong but haven’t hurt it
What made your action wrong, then?
Also, you’re assuming that simply giving people something is doing the best for them and in practice that’s often not the case.
Okay, fair enough. I was assuming the person would be better off with more money, but that’s a good point.
Since it is proven not to work, there is no hypothetical “But what if in this instance” here.
Well, to be fair, torture works great for a lot of things. Just not for getting accurate intelligence.
Which may be your point
Yeah, pretty much. Everything’s an optimization problem. “Your possessions being on fire” > “me having third degree burns everywhere,” so not jumping into the fire trumps. In that case both are bad outcomes, but discounting Lori’s point for the moment, “Poor person being poorer by amount of interest” is also a bad outcome. It’s just a better outcome than the alternative “no microloans.”

This version goes both ways; it recognizes that a good enough attitude can be the enemy of artistic accomplishment, for example.
An interesting thought, in part because most artistic types I have talked to feel that few (if any) of their works have ever been ‘perfect’. They’ve had to declare a stopping point and submit the work to their boss, editor, patron, etc. because if they’d shot for ‘perfect’, they’d still have been working on the project with their dying breath.
These artists have had to learn to recognize the point where “This work says as much of what I wanted it to say as I can expect given the practical constraints under which I work.”

@Gdwarf: I wrestle with this issue on a semi-annual basis. Right now, I’ve sunk into the despair phase of it where I want to sell everything I own and move to some 3rd world country and become a physician’s assistant. Except I know nothing about being a physician’s assistant, am horrible when it comes to actually dealing with large numbers of people in groups, and wouldn’t last long without my carefully constructed support network.
I take some consolation from the fact that we’ve only recently come this far from a base point of “hurts my tribe = kill it”, and anything is better than nothing.
A friend of mine who wrestles with much the same thing as I (and apparently many of the rest of you) has a mantra: Progess, not perfection. As long as I can keep that in my mind, I usually pull myself up out of the “I should sell all I have and become a priest” funks by picking one new thing to focus on and improving that. This go around, I’m trying to establish a pattern of writing letters to my representative in hopes of getting them to listen to what I think is important. Progress, not perfection.

What made your action wrong, then?

I think it’s wrong to see a problem that I can solve, at no real cost to myself or anyone else, and ignore it. That doesn’t mean that I’m hurting the baby. The baby is hurting itself. IMO active vs passive is an important distinction and I don’t see that we gain any moral understanding by conflating them.
We collectively make this distinction every single day. It’s illegal to deliberately push someone who can’t swim into a pool. With the exception of a few people who have a duty to protect, it’s not illegal not to jump in and try to save someone who is drowning. That legal distinction is in part practical, but it’s also a reflection of our moral judgment. Beyond the law, there are some circumstances where we would consider not jumping in to be morally wrong, and others where we would say that it was not.
Here’s another example that goes with the theme of the day—a soldier jumping on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. There’s 1 of him and X them and they would certainly be worse off if they were blown up by the grenade. That doesn’t mean that we look at the soldier and say that he only did what was required of him because X > 1. We also don’t say that any soldier who could have jumped on the grenade but didn’t hurt the others in the group by not doing everything possible to save them. In fact, we recognize that falling on the grenade is an extraordinary act of courage, well above and beyond what is required, and we give the guy a medal and call him a hero.

namedguf, on p. 1:
lol christians.
New, from the people who brought you lolcats!
(Now if only I was funny enough to actually come up with some lolchristians. Any takers? A shiny new internet if anyone manages to make me a lolFatherDamian!)

The thought of living at a subsistence level and using my income to help others has come to my mind many times. Being an economist, I default to thinking in terms of opportunity cost: The cost of keeping anything more than what I need is that there are some people who get less of the necessary things for their survival and comfort. The cost of giving away everything more than what I need is that I accumulate no wealth, which is fine for now, but will really suck for my kids if/when I have them, or if I or anyone else I know is ever in a severe emergency in need of money.
In the first scenario, I don’t know what kind of long-term effects I have. Does anyone get their lifestyle so improved that they can become self-sufficient? If they do, do I keep supporting them until they reach my standard of living, or do I switch to supporting someone in greater need? Do I spend my whole life finding people with severe short-term needs and trying to mitigate them? Do I try to conduct some kind of triage, judging which people are in the worst need? Am I morally culpable if I give my income to someone who’s only in the second most terrible need out of all my options? Is it more appropriate to give money to someone who’s starving right now, or someone who’s just in trouble and could become self-sufficient if they just had some backup for a little while?
There’s a certain temptation to think that everything would be better if we just all gave everything we had to the poor. It’s a compelling concept, because it puts us in the position of angsty power – we mentally define ourselves as the benefactors who would save the world, if only we could make ourselves act. I think we’re giving ourselves more credit than we deserve on that count – I’m pretty sure we could all donate everything we had and there would still be about as much suffering as there already is, because the problems are bigger and more complex than ‘not enough money’.
So yes, if you encounter a problem as simple as ‘not enough money’, do solve it with a generous donation. And the rest of the time, do contribute to charities that appear to be trying to address whole problems, building homes and infrastructure. Possibly even more so, do volunteer with such organisations; time can be even more valuable than money. But I think defining the problem as a simple ‘give away everything or keep some for myself’ is a distraction that we use to keep from grappling with the enormous complexity of developing a society that doesn’t allow starvation or homelessness or suffering. It’s rather like considering yourself selfish for not leaving your doors open at all times and inviting anyone who feels like it to sleep in your living room, kitchen, and bathtub. I’m not arguing that we’re doing all we can right now, but I think if we get into the realm of feeling like we’re moral if and only if we give away everything we own, we’re operating in a fantasy land full of unjustified assumptions and unicorns.

[[If you're comfortable with a very slightly higher level of risk, consider investing in the Grameen Bank or in an international microcredit fund like Opportunity International.]]
From their web-sites, these seem less like “investing” and more like “donating”. I think these (with Kiva.org) are some of the better places to donate, but, unless I’m reading their material incorrectly, the best you can do is break even (with Kiva). Can someone show me where/how I can invest in any of them?

Progess, not perfection
“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
- Voltaire.
An interesting fact: Islam prohibits usury in a way that Muslim countries tend to take more seriously than Christian ones – but they still need to find some way of dealing with interest, because you can’t really run a business economy without it. (The religious prohibitions against charging interest seem to be based on life in small communities, where things work differently.)
According to my husband, whose job involves talking to people in banks all over the world, there are specific ways of effectively charging interest without technically committing usury. In Iran, for instance, apparently credit cards work differently: in effect, the bank ‘buys’ things on your behalf and then sells them on to you in installments for a higher price than they paid – so if you spend a hundred dollars on something, the bank sells it to you for a hundred and seventeen.
(This is my understanding based on what was explained to him: anyone Iranian who wishes to correct me, please do.)
I say this not to criticise Muslims laws, or indeed anyone else’s, but just for general interest. Though it might be fun for anyone next time they have to listen to a Christian insulting Muslims to be able to say, ‘You know, in some ways they follow our shared laws better than we do…’

With regards to the saving the starving poor of the world I do not begrudge folks who do not feel secure enough to sacrifice all they own for and all of their luxuries or comforts for the sake of others. That, like Lori’s example of the soldier who sacrifices himself on a grenade is called a Hero, those who sacrifice everything for others are considered ‘enlightened’, but we don’t expect it from everyone.
I give, but less than I used to (5% instead of 10) because of the economy tho I still have a job for now. I look at the job market as much more risky thanks to the top wealthy few who blew the world of finance in 2008 just so they could make a few more dollars. I look at my limited savings and think “I gotta hold on to this least worst case becomes my case”. I can’t “afford” to be giving it to charity OR spending on luxury.
Where I have the moral problem is with the top 1 percenters – the very top of the wealth/income pinnacle- who COULD easily give half of what they own and still be mega wealthy.
The 1%ers roll model ought to be, at least by my estimation: Bill Gates. Bill Gates is doing with his foundation what the rest of the 1%ers could do; and life across the nation and the planet could become much less dreadful for the bottom 25 percent. As a result everyone in the middle could feel a lot less fear and a lot better about our place (as a nation and as individuals) in the world.
To feel empathy you must first drive out FEAR, of the other, of loss, of failure (both its price and consequences). Those at the top have far more cushion (and room for error/ failure) than any of the rest of us. But all they show is ‘gated community’ us-AGAINST-everyone mentality and the rest of us follow suit.
Imagine if we had developed a Potlatch culture where prestige at the top was measured by how much they could give away not how much they could horde. I always thought that was Jesus’ main message, after turn the other cheek.

Well, all right, fine. I’m kind of a hippie pinko-communist, myself. My main qualm with this piece is that I don’t think micro-finance is exactly The Answer to the problem of poverty. I do think it can be beneficial to the poor, but I know from experience with non-profits and small lenders that it can easily turn into a predatory form of lending. Very high interest rates are sometimes charged, and loan repayment is more strictly monitored than with other forms of credit. In practice, I think the idea of micro-finance too often operates as a for-profit business in ways that can be detrimental to the poor.
Now, I guess I’m a reasonable enough hippie pinko-communist, given that I realize that the Workers’ Revolution ain’t likely any time soon. As such, I do think there’s a place for micro-finance, but I think it needs stricter regulation. Non-profits in general aren’t well-regulated enough, and this is especially true of the micro-finance world. Ultimately, I guess I’m reluctantly in favor of the idea of micro-finance as such, but I don’t think it deserves its current reputation as the unblemished and pure answer to world poverty.

I do think it can be beneficial to the poor, but I know from experience with non-profits and small lenders that it can easily turn into a predatory form of lending. Very high interest rates are sometimes charged, and loan repayment is more strictly monitored than with other forms of credit. In practice, I think the idea of micro-finance too often operates as a for-profit business in ways that can be detrimental to the poor.
It sounds like you’ve got some interesting experience there. Have you tried writing to your representative to ask them to suppor the kind of regulation you think it needs?

Kit–No, I haven’t. It hadn’t occurred to me… This would require a revamping of the entire 501(c)3 system of non-profit regulation, or it would require that micro-finance firms be revamped as for-profit enterprises. For-profit enterprises, unregulated as they are, are nevertheless required to adhere to stricter bookkeeping standards than non-profits. Even so, I think the latter option would be dangerous, inasmuch as it would allow these firms to abandon even the pretense of helping poor people. I’m somewhat skeptical about the efficacy of letter-writing campaigns, particularly when they involve large scale changes. Even so, it might be worth doing once the requisite research is completed. At the moment, I’m not terribly qualified to make specific policy recommendations, and I’d want to read more of the available academic research and become better-versed in non-profit law before I drafted any letters. The majority of what I know now is based on anecdotal experience, discussions with academics, and the occasional academic or news article. But it’s worth considering, yes.

@Kit: According to my husband, whose job involves talking to people in banks all over the world, there are specific ways of effectively charging interest without technically committing usury. In Iran, for instance, apparently credit cards work differently: in effect, the bank ‘buys’ things on your behalf and then sells them on to you in installments for a higher price than they paid – so if you spend a hundred dollars on something, the bank sells it to you for a hundred and seventeen.
Because everything returns to comics, this puts me in mind of the convolutions Superman would go into to protect his secret identity when he couldn’t lie. For example, a prosecutor with a lie detector asks Clark Kent point blank if he is Superman. Clark surreptitiously exposes himself to a tiny (but potent) piece of Green Kryptonite that robs him of his powers so that he is at that moment not a “super” man.
=====================================================
Elizakeepsbees — did you ever hear of some women who got these microloans getting battered by their husbands for taking away their status as breadwinners? Years ago I read a post to that effect as to why the poster didn’t care for microloans (and then, of course, I couldn’t find it again). Any evidence pro or con?

did you ever hear of some women who got these microloans getting battered by their husbands for taking away their status as breadwinners? Years ago I read a post to that effect as to why the poster didn’t care for microloans (and then, of course, I couldn’t find it again).

Why would abusive husbands be a reason not to approve of microloans? That’s a reason to disapprove of abusive men and lack of laws to protect women, but the loan didn’t hit anyone. Was the argument that the lenders were giving women dangerous ideas or loaning to women in high risk situations? Because if so that’s pretty paternalistic.

Lori, ISTR the argument was that loaning put the woman in a high-risk situation by going against (admittedly paternalistic) custom.

Lori, ISTR the argument was that loaning put the woman in a high-risk situation by going against (admittedly paternalistic) custom.

It’s not just the custom that’s paternalistic–the argument is as well. The lenders don’t put the women in any situation. They don’t go out and force loans on anyone. Women chose to take out the loans and saying that the lenders should be protecting them by not allowing them to make that choice is paternalistic.

Women chose to take out the loans and saying that the lenders should be protecting them by not allowing them to make that choice is paternalistic.

Is denial of service on such grounds not some kind of offence, over your side of the Puddle? The very notion of that seems quite frightening to me, to be honest.

The same people who would argue against the nanny state will argue for the daddy state!

Is denial of service on such grounds not some kind of offence, over your side of the Puddle?

It’s against the law here in the US, but microlenders are governed by the laws of the country in which they’re operating. Presumably they could refuse to lend to women on the grounds that it’s just too dangerous for them and they obviously aren’t able to assess the risks themselves.

the argument was that loaning put the woman in a high-risk situation by going against (admittedly paternalistic) custom.

Wait…the poster was arguing against the loans because of the abuse? Was this here or somewhere else? I don’t see how that can be an argument for anything but the woman simply staying and putting up with the abuse.

the argument was that loaning put the woman in a high-risk situation by going against (admittedly paternalistic) custom.

Tonio: Wait…the poster was arguing against the loans because of the abuse? Was this here or somewhere else? I don’t see how that can be an argument for anything but the woman simply staying and putting up with the abuse.
That wasn’t here, Tonio. It was years ago on a Usenet discussion. The poster said he’d worked with the women in question in their country. These women had gotten loans from well-meaning foreigners to start their own businesses, their men had gotten offended, beating them, and leaving them and their children to the charity of the tribe. This was intended as a case of consequences being the exact opposite of what was intended. I was involved in a different search and it took a while to realize he was talking about microloans, and then I couldn’t retrace my steps.
I have no idea whether his story was objective or not – I suspect not – but that’s why I asked Elizakeepsbees.

What more proof do one need that Bible is wrong, dated and impossible to apply to modern life unless you butcher it’s meaning with “interpretation.”

“Elizakeepsbees — did you ever hear of some women who got these microloans getting battered by their husbands for taking away their status as breadwinners? Years ago I read a post to that effect as to why the poster didn’t care for microloans (and then, of course, I couldn’t find it again). Any evidence pro or con?”
No, I’ve never heard of this. There is a sort of systemic problem in some places in sub-Saharan Africa in which the men controlling the finances use too much of the family income for personal expenses and detract from subsistence costs. Studies show that women are less likely to allow this (and are more likely to equitably distribute funds throughout the family), though, and that’s why micro-finance focuses on providing loans/financial independence to women.

This was intended as a case of consequences being the exact opposite of what was intended.

Thanks for the clarification. It sounded at first as if the poster was playing the imperialism card, as in “How dare these paternalistic foreigners presume to tell these countries how to treat their women.”

“That wasn’t here, Tonio. It was years ago on a Usenet discussion. The poster said he’d worked with the women in question in their country. These women had gotten loans from well-meaning foreigners to start their own businesses, their men had gotten offended, beating them, and leaving them and their children to the charity of the tribe. This was intended as a case of consequences being the exact opposite of what was intended. I was involved in a different search and it took a while to realize he was talking about microloans, and then I couldn’t retrace my steps.”
Eh, well, the abuse of women is kind of a worldwide problem. I’m not sure its existence any kind of argument against micro-finance as such. Put differently, I would be quite surprised that an abusive situation arose because of the introduction of micro-finance. It may have triggered the escalation of an already abusive situation, sure, but if it hadn’t been for micro-finance, well, something else would’ve been the catalyst.
In response to those denigrating the Imperialist Card: Fine, then, I’ll pull it; I don’t mind. I get uncomfortable when discussions of things that Western countries are doing to ease the problem of world poverty devolve into discussions of whether or not the West’s best intentions can ever be fruitful because of the Bad Barbaric Practices of Third World People. It makes me think of Western feminism’s preoccupation with so-called “female genital mutilation” (not at apt term because of the practice’s many different forms) in light of the reality of trends like world poverty. It’s vexing given that world poverty claims the lives of so many more women every year. It’s also misplaced, and it reflects our own exoticization of non-Western people and places. And it has racist consequences. There, I said it.

Interestingly, even ShoreBank ran into trouble with failing mortgages.
It was about to be taken over by FDIC, but was bailed out by a consortium of big name Wall Street outfits, some of which had been bailed out themselves by US taxpayers only a year ago.
Spokesmen for Citigroup and General Electric Co (GE.N) each confirmed $20 million investments on Tuesday, and JP Morgan previously said it was ready to inject $15 million. Another source said Goldman injected $20 million.
ShoreBank, which has $2.3 billion in assets, was reported to have exceeded the $125 million in rescue capital it needed to avoid a takeover by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idCNN1821015420100518?rpc=44
Several Republican legislators have called for a federal investigation, alleging special treatment of the bank by federal regulators:
Chicago-based ShoreBank was on the brink of failing before a group of the nation’s largest financial players, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Electric Co.’s commercial finance arm, J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. stepped forward with about $140 million in equity commitments. That should enable the South Side lender, which made its name over three decades lending profitably in low-income neighborhoods, to qualify for about $75 million in bailout funds from the Treasury Department.
Obama administration representatives and the bank have denied any White House role in the capital-raising campaign.

It makes me think of Western feminism’s preoccupation with so-called “female genital mutilation” (not at apt term because of the practice’s many different forms) in light of the reality of trends like world poverty.

While I can’t speak for those feminists, I can imagine them having a strong visceral reaction to the practice that they wouldn’t have with, say, Western high heels or Chinese foot-binding. I say that because I’ve encountered some opponents of male circumcision who seem to have that same visceral reaction. Genitals can be an emotional subject, to say the least, regardless of gender, and it’s very easy to see the practice as symbolic of all oppression of women.
I’ve seen some criticism of the practice that did come across as racist, but I’ve seen many more criticism that seemed too careful and indirect, as if the critic was terrified of being accused of racism. I’m one of those people who sees Western high heels as oppressive. Not that anyone is forcing women here to buy and wear them. It’s the idea that heels are considered sexy and flats are not, even though heels inflict pain and damage on feet. It’s tempting to imagine male shoemakers conceiving of the heel just so they could ogle the legs of the women wearing them.
As an aside, I’ve seen much more racism involved with Westerners who protest (or ridicule) Asians for eating dogs and cats. It’s the irritating attitude that one culture’s own standards for animals to eat or keep as pets are the only ones to have, and that having different standards are wrong or sick. “Conventionalism” doesn’t seem to be the right term for this. I agree with those who suggest that all such standards are ultimately arbitrary.

It looks like a day’s worth of comments got dumped — thanks, Typepad!
I had one: Kiva seems to repay the original loan — the lendor receives no interest (according to the web-site). So how can 5 loans “grow” into 19?
Grameen seems to be more of a “donate” funds than “invest” funds. I couldn’t see anywhere to lend money, only where to doante it to Grameen.
Am I wrong? If so, please post a link to the appropriate pages. If not, then I think talking about “investing” in Kiva or Grameen seems wrong.

I might be wrong, but seems to me that the funds for loans six through ten came from the repayment of loans one through five.

“As an aside, I’ve seen much more racism involved with Westerners who protest (or ridicule) Asians for eating dogs and cats. It’s the irritating attitude that one culture’s own standards for animals to eat or keep as pets are the only ones to have, and that having different standards are wrong or sick. “Conventionalism” doesn’t seem to be the right term for this. I agree with those who suggest that all such standards are ultimately arbitrary.”
Uh, well, not sure how I feel about rating expressions of racism, but… This is kind of beside the point. What I brought up about “female genital mutilation” is something that lefty/liberal/human rights/feminist types tend to be concerned with. Your example is just, well, run of the mill everyday bigotry.

As an aside, I’ve seen much more racism involved with Westerners who protest (or ridicule) Asians for eating dogs and cats. It’s the irritating attitude that one culture’s own standards for animals to eat or keep as pets are the only ones to have, and that having different standards are wrong or sick. “Conventionalism” doesn’t seem to be the right term for this. I agree with those who suggest that all such standards are ultimately arbitrary.
My impression is that Westerners jump from “X eats dogs” to “X wants to eat MY beloved puppy!” and panic. So the different cultural norm becomes a personal attack on a family member. In their head. Maybe. I don’t know, I’m not really an animal person anyway.

My impression is that Westerners jump from “X eats dogs” to “X wants to eat MY beloved puppy!” and panic. So the different cultural norm becomes a personal attack on a family member. In their head. Maybe. I don’t know, I’m not really an animal person anyway.

I don’t think that’s exactly it. I think it’s more that a very high percentage of Western pet owners see their animals as members of the family. They therefore react to the notion of dogs as food in much the same way they react to the idea of someone eating other members of their family. Humans take the question of what is and is not food quite seriously and the pet/family member vs meal divide is pretty fundamental.

[[I might be wrong, but seems to me that the funds for loans six through ten came from the repayment of loans one through five.]]
That makes sense, but it invalidates Kiva as an investment. Unless you take a very small negitive rate of return as “investment”.

It makes me think of Western feminism’s preoccupation with so-called “female genital mutilation” (not at apt term because of the practice’s many different forms) in light of the reality of trends like world poverty.
While I can’t speak for those feminists, I can imagine them having a strong visceral reaction to the practice that they wouldn’t have with, say, Western high heels or Chinese foot-binding…I’m one of those people who sees Western high heels as oppressive. Not that anyone is forcing women here to buy and wear them. It’s the idea that heels are considered sexy and flats are not, even though heels inflict pain and damage on feet.

Are you equating heels and footbinding because they both inflict pain and damage on the feet? I am hoping that you mean to suggest there is, I suppose, an oppression continuum, with a utopian, shoeless society where no woman is subjected to social norms that basically equate attractiveness with pain and damage on one end, and foot binding on the other end, and heels somewhere in between.

As an aside, I’ve seen much more racism involved with Westerners who protest (or ridicule) Asians for eating dogs and cats. It’s the irritating attitude that one culture’s own standards for animals to eat or keep as pets are the only ones to have, and that having different standards are wrong or sick. “Conventionalism” doesn’t seem to be the right term for this. I agree with those who suggest that all such standards are ultimately arbitrary.

So, the rejection of cannibalism is as arbitrary as the western rejection of canine cuisine? Or the Indian abstinence from beef the same as a raw food advocate?

This summer, why not vacation in beautiful, libertarian [SPOILER ALERT]
(Link courtesy of Andrew Tobias)

Let’s try that again.
Click here.

I saw “AnCap” (Anarchist capitolists) libertoods arguing with a straight face that when Somalia “gets its problems worked out”, it would be a Libertarian Paradise, as long as no government intruded. Which means of course, that if the warlords are brougjht under control, any good will be victory for libertarianism, and any bad will be due to the Eeeeevil government.
[headdesk]

I am hoping that you mean to suggest there is, I suppose, an oppression continuum, with a utopian, shoeless society where no woman is subjected to social norms that basically equate attractiveness with pain and damage on one end, and foot binding on the other end, and heels somewhere in between.

No need for the snarky comment about “utopian shoeless society.” My core argument is against social norms for their own sake, suggesting that such norms should be questioned as to whether they help or harm individuals and society. That type of questioning can itself be subjective, but it’s still preferable to not questioning at all. While heels obviously aren’t as harmful as foot binding, both are rooted in the same principle, which is that a woman’s well-being is less important than her attractivenss to men. Another reason I mentioned heels is to argue against cultural ego, pointing out that all cultures live in glass houses to some extent.

So, the rejection of cannibalism is as arbitrary as the western rejection of canine cuisine? Or the Indian abstinence from beef the same as a raw food advocate?

You’re bringing up issues which have nothing to do with my point. When I said that such standards were arbitrary, I was talking specifically about different cultural standards about which animals are pets and which animals are food. Whenever I’ve heard Westerners ridicule Asians for eating cats and dogs, I’ve tried pointing out that Indians likely consider Westerners to be barbarians for eating beef, and almost always the response was some variety of “We’re right and everyone else is wrong.” Ridiculous. Not even an attempt to view different cultures from a neutral perspective.

They therefore react to the notion of dogs as food in much the same way they react to the idea of someone eating other members of their family.

If you’re right, they’re taking this way too personally, since no one is asking them to consider eating their own pets. I’m suggesting that it’s worth considering other cultures’ perspectives, instead of being…uh, I don’t remember the word for the cultural equivalent of ethnocentrism.

What I brought up about “female genital mutilation” is something that lefty/liberal/human rights/feminist types tend to be concerned with. Your example is just, well, run of the mill everyday bigotry.

Fair point. I was criticizing the claim that Western supremacism was the chief motivation for FGM opponents in other countries, offering instead a purer example of such supremacism.

If you’re right, they’re taking this way too personally, since no one is asking them to consider eating their own pets.

Where do you draw that line? Is cannibalism OK as long as no one asks you to eat your mom or one of your children?
It’s true that there’s value in examining one’s own taboos. However, that doesn’t mean that people’s feelings about them are invalid.

Lori, you’re the second person to bring up cannibalism when it isn’t relevant to my point. Of course people’s feelings about taboos are valid in and of themselves. I’m arguing against using those feelings as a substitute for real thinking about morality. Squick is not a sufficient basis for deciding right and wrong. (And since you brought up cannibalism, I suspect that any valid moral arguments against it would generally be the same ones against murder. )

If you’re right, they’re taking this way too personally, since no one is asking them to consider eating their own pets.

To expand on this, they seem to see other people holding different values as a rejection of their own values.

Lori, you’re the second person to bring up cannibalism when it isn’t relevant to my point. Of course people’s feelings about taboos are valid in and of themselves. I’m arguing against using those feelings as a substitute for real thinking about morality. Squick is not a sufficient basis for deciding right and wrong.

Cannibalism isn’t relevant to your point because? Why? It’s a taboo. For people who are strongly attached to their pets the idea of them as food goes beyond merely a squick. Why do you have the right to be dismissive of their feelings, but they don’t have a right to cop an attitude about people who eat creatures that they consider Not Food?

(And since you brought up cannibalism, I suspect that any valid moral arguments against it would generally be the same ones against murder. )

Only if you assume that you’d only eat what you kill. If you ate people who died in some other way then the murder thing wouldn’t apply. That would obviously require a rather odd set up since humans don’t generally eat carrion (for very good reasons), but I’m sure one could think of something.

No need for the snarky comment about “utopian shoeless society.”

I would actually love a shoeless society, except for the part where my feet are vulnerable to all the broken glass, sharp rocks, and chemical agents that abound in an industrialized society. But seriously, shoes suck, and there is evidence that all shoes are bad for you.

While heels obviously aren’t as harmful as foot binding, both are rooted in the same principle, which is that a woman’s well-being is less important than her attractivenss to men.

For a non trivial portion of societies over time a woman’s well being was directly tied to her attractiveness to men (not that this was a good thing), so some of the “principle” at stake is actually sheer historical inertia and less malfeasance. My overall point though, is that across various societies, men have been to things that are very bad and discomforting for women (foot binding, using herbs that dry out the vagina and increase the likelihood of tearing and disease during sex) and some things that are not so bad (heels, limited versions of neck stretching) and some things that are essentially trivial (ear piercings). These all lie on a continuum where they share in common pain and damage, and societal conventions of attractiveness, but to me talking about how heels and foot binding are the same in principle is distorting if you don’t simultaneously note how they are vastly different in degree.

You’re bringing up issues which have nothing to do with my point. When I said that such standards were arbitrary, I was talking specifically about different cultural standards about which animals are pets and which animals are food. Whenever I’ve heard Westerners ridicule Asians for eating cats and dogs, I’ve tried pointing out that Indians likely consider Westerners to be barbarians for eating beef, and almost always the response was some variety of “We’re right and everyone else is wrong.” Ridiculous. Not even an attempt to view different cultures from a neutral perspective.

Saying something is ultimately arbitrary isn’t viewing cultures from a neutral perspective (which I argue is itself is a somewhat Western cultural conceit). Lets put aside whether or not the meaning of “pet” is something that is easily portable across cultures and time, what with the blurry line between working animals and pets (not to mention, some Asian families eat their pets) and restrict ourselves to the the pet-food divide. Even then, what is food and what is pet comes about not arbitrarily, but because of history, and religion, and politics, and all the other bits that we generally call culture. “Ultimately” arbitrary or not, I think its problematic to simply make a headfake towards tolerance without actually acknowledging specifically that cultural differences come about for some sort of reason.
What I’m really saying is this: you cannot value and neutrally observe another culture, simply by declaring the differences you have are ultimately arbitrary. That isn’t respectful at all.

Only if you assume that you’d only eat what you kill. If you ate people who died in some other way then the murder thing wouldn’t apply. That would obviously require a rather odd set up since humans don’t generally eat carrion (for very good reasons), but I’m sure one could think of something.

Island of the color blind by Isaac sacks describes a tiny island culture that has ritual cannibalism of recently deceased family members. This turns out to be a bad idea. There are also cannibalism of war dead (I believe friendly as well as enemy), but you can co-opt the antimurder arguments with warismurder I suppose.

Why do you have the right to be dismissive of their feelings, but they don’t have a right to cop an attitude about people who eat creatures that they consider Not Food?

I’m not being dismissive of their feelings. I’m being dismissive of them using their feelings as a basis for saying that other people shouldn’t eat those creatures. That’s a huge distinction. It sounds like they’re saying, “No one should eat dogs because I love my Fido.” No one is asking them to even like the fact that other people eat those creatures. They don’t seem to consider that other people may have the same reaction to their own culinary choices.

These all lie on a continuum where they share in common pain and damage, and societal conventions of attractiveness, but to me talking about how heels and foot binding are the same in principle is distorting if you don’t simultaneously note how they are vastly different in degree.

No argument about the difference in degree. I don’t want to lose sight of the principle, which involves the fact that these amount largely to men’s visual pleasure.

a neutral perspective (which I argue is itself is a somewhat Western cultural conceit).

How so?

Even then, what is food and what is pet comes about not arbitrarily, but because of history, and religion, and politics, and all the other bits that we generally call culture. “Ultimately” arbitrary or not, I think its problematic to simply make a headfake towards tolerance without actually acknowledging specifically that cultural differences come about for some sort of reason.

I agree, and I wasn’t arguing the opposite. I wasn’t saying that the categories themselves are arbitrary. I’m saying that defending the categories of any one culture over others amounts to arbitrariness. To make it clear, there’s no basis for saying that one culture’s pet vs. food values are right in and of themselves and all others are wrong. It’s possible that some such values may cause more harm than others, but that has nothing to do with ethnocentrism.

you cannot value and neutrally observe another culture, simply by declaring the differences you have are ultimately arbitrary. That isn’t respectful at all.

Again, I’m not arguing the opposite. The arbitrary part is deeming one’s own culture to be the norm and all others to be abnormal, for no other reason than they’re different.

I don’t remember the title of the book, but one anthropologist in the 1970s argued that cannibalism may never have existed anywhere as a regular custom. He claimed that when the Aztecs first encountered the Spanish, each side accused the other of cannibalism, but only one side’s accusation made it into the history books. If true, it reminds me of “Belgian babies” in the propaganda sense.

It sounds like they’re saying, “No one should eat dogs because I love my Fido.”

IME what they’re saying is “no one should eat Fido because Fido is a pet/family member and creatures in that category are Not Food”, which is not the same thing. Most of the people I know who have that reaction can be made to see it as a cultural difference which they accept, but it still makes them uncomfortable because eating pets is a strong taboo for them. That’s how taboos work.

Most of the people I know who have that reaction can be made to see it as a cultural difference which they accept, but it still makes them uncomfortable because eating pets is a strong taboo for them. That’s how taboos work.

In my own experience, it’s about 60/40 “no one should eat dogs” versus “no one should eat Fido.” I would offer homosexuality as an example of a taboo that causes harm to individuals and to society. And when some conservatives rant about sexualized TV shows and movies, I’ve suggested that these still treat sex as taboo, as something naughty and forbidden. I’ve long questioned why societies even have taboo words, like Carlin’s Seven Words You Cannot Say on Television, because that comes across like an attempt to make some ideas themselves forbidden.

a neutral perspective (which I argue is itself is a somewhat Western cultural conceit).
How so?

With a gigantic, 40 page legalese disclaimer that declares I have not done anything resembling systemic research on this topic, my experience has been that it is the Western scholarly tradition, especially in the the humanities and social sciences in the modernity and post-Modernity paradigms (not postmodern) that believes there can be a neutral and/or objective understanding of a thing like culture. More importantly, it seems uniquely Western to accept as a self-evident fact, that to view other cultures (and things) neutrally as virtuous.
th ethnocentrism.

you cannot value and neutrally observe another culture, simply by declaring the differences you have are ultimately arbitrary. That isn’t respectful at all.
Again, I’m not arguing the opposite. The arbitrary part is deeming one’s own culture to be the norm and all others to be abnormal, for no other reason than they’re different.

I agree with this.

I’m saying that defending the categories of any one culture over others amounts to arbitrariness.

But not this. Maybe we’re using terms differently here, but not all things that are culture are created equal. Some are better than others, often by multiple measuring sticks. Perhaps more significantly, even if one set of cultural beliefs I hold is diametrically opposed to a neighbors’, and the origin of them is somehow arbitrary, they are still my beliefs, and I have something of an obligation to follow through on them.

To make it clear, there’s no basis for saying that one culture’s pet vs. food values are right in and of themselves and all others are wrong.
I disagree. You may not *accept* the basis for those values, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one; one (as K.Chen correctly points out) is frequently intertwined with an entire cultural ethos (e.g. the Hindu taboos against eating beef, Jewish taboos against pork). It could be integral to an economic system — there are cultures in which a good working dog is more valuable to survival than a human child.
Or it may be based upon a non-obvious but perfectly rational distinction — carnivores (e.g. cats, ferrets) tend to have a profoundly different flavor from omnivores (dogs, pigs) from herbivores (cows, sheep). Or health concerns about eating scavenger species.
To automatically dismiss all such distinctions as merely arbitrary shows a lack of respect for different cultures rather than the reverse.
(E.g., I would never argue that there is “no basis” for FGM. I think there are several very good reasons for it, depending on the different cultures and the ways it is imposed; and in many cases it very effectively serves those ends. I oppose FGM because for the most part I find those *ends* to be monstrous.)

And since you brought up cannibalism, I suspect that any valid moral arguments against it would generally be the same ones against murder.
Only if hypothetical-you killed the person you ate.
Orthogonal to the morality of cannibalism, and in my mind making the morality of cannibalism—’irrelevant’ is probably the wrong word but I can’t think of a better one—kuru.

When I went to Seoul with my friend, he took me to a restaurant that sold dog meat and yes it was delicious. The thing that most Westerners do not realize about dog meat is that its raised from a very specific type of dog.
Interesting factoid about high heels, they were originally worn by men. The first high heeled shoes were designed for King Louis XIV of France because he wanted to appear taller and more majestic.
Generally, I distinguish between male and female circumcision because female circumcision has often be used as a method of social control over women to decrease the chance of adultery committed by women by making sex unpleasant. Male circumcision has none of the elements of social control that female circumcision does.

I don’t remember the title of the book, but one anthropologist in the 1970s argued that cannibalism may never have existed anywhere as a regular custom. He claimed that when the Aztecs first encountered the Spanish, each side accused the other of cannibalism, but only one side’s accusation made it into the history books. If true, it reminds me of “Belgian babies” in the propaganda sense.
I’m currently living in the South Pacific, and that’s…highly improbable. I can certainly believe that in most of the world, cannibalism claims were propaganda. But in some countries in the South Pacific, the evidence is so pervasive for cannibalism as a regular practice (something agreed on by foreigners and indigenous people alike), that it’s rather plausibility-stretching to assume it’s all misinterpretations and rare exceptions. Conceivably, for instance, there could be a scenario where Europeans coming to Fiji radically misunderstood cultural traditions, and managed to make the “history of cannibalism” story so pervasive that practically everyone in the county ended up believing it above their own cultural traditions, but it doesn’t fit the environment very well.

To automatically dismiss all such distinctions as merely arbitrary shows a lack of respect for different cultures rather than the reverse.

I must have trouble explaining my point, because what you state there is not what I’m doing. I’m only dismissing the normative distinctions, the ones that amount to “It’s right because our culture says so.” The bases that you stated – good working dogs, different flavor, health concerns – are NOT normative.
And having a particular taboo connected to a cultural ethos still sounds like a highly developed concept of normativity to me.

not all things that are culture are created equal. Some are better than others, often by multiple measuring sticks.

Again, once one introduces such measurements, one is implicitly (and rightly) rejecting the concept of normativity.

even if one set of cultural beliefs I hold is diametrically opposed to a neighbors’, and the origin of them is somehow arbitrary, they are still my beliefs, and I have something of an obligation to follow through on them.

That almost sounds like one has a duty to one’s culture or beliefs. I don’t see any room there for questioning whether the beliefs help or harm one’s self or others. Or more correctly, whether the actions based on those beliefs do so.

Only if hypothetical-you killed the person you ate.

I don’t see that as orthogonal to the morality of cannibalism. The only practical way to get human meat would be to murder the person yourself, or to have the person murdered. All other ways seem to pose such logistical barriers that there would be no opportunity to be cannibalistic, at least regularly. (I imagine the cannibal looking for vehicle accidents, finding that the victim of one isn’t dead yet, and deliberately not rendering aid so he/she can get a fresh meal.)

Tonio, while there are scholars who argue that human sacrafice was a Spanish accusation against the Aztec and Incas, the general consensus amopng experts is that the Aztecs and other civilizations south of them did sacrifice humans. This is true even among schoalars that are very pro-Indigeneous and anti-Spanish in regards to the Americas. The Aztecs apparently even had a type of war called a Flower War whose sole purpose was to get captives for human sacrifice. Its also important to note that the parts of Mexico under Aztec dominion where one of the few areas of the Spanish Empire where there was not a mass indigenous revolt against the Spanish because as evil and exploitative as the Spanish were, they were basically an improvement over the Aztecs unless you were an Aztec. The archiological evidence for Aztec sacrifice is rather good.
I’m not necessarily fond of the idea of a barefoot society because modern environments aren’t really built for barefeet but I do wish that sandals could be seen as appropriate footware for work during the summer. I like how my feet air when I’m wearing sandals. I’m not necessarily fond of high heels but thats mainly because I had the rather annoying experience of a woman wearing high heels accidentally stepping down on my foot when I was in sandals once. It hurt, a lot.

the general consensus amopng experts is that the Aztecs and other civilizations south of them did sacrifice humans

The question is whether those civilizations ate their sacrifices, which is a different question. Although I didn’t initially bring up cannibalism, I hope it’s clear that I’m using the practice to make a point about moral reasoning. In my view, it’s unwise to simply hold that an action is right or wrong without subjecting the position to some type of scrutiny. I’m talking partly about individuals and partly about society. I’m arguing against such ideas as “That’s the way we’ve always done it” and “Because it’s written.”

The only practical way to get human meat would be to murder the person yourself, or to have the person murdered. All other ways seem to pose such logistical barriers that there would be no opportunity to be cannibalistic, at least regularly. (I imagine the cannibal looking for vehicle accidents, finding that the victim of one isn’t dead yet, and deliberately not rendering aid so he/she can get a fresh meal.)

The taboo isn’t against regularly practicing cannibalism—it’s against eating human flesh at all, ever. Murder is certainly not the only way to get occasional person-steaks.

Murder is certainly not the only way to get occasional person-steaks.

The moral issue is that the methods of obtaining them would almost always involve lack of consent, at least in principle. We don’t assume consent for organ donation unless it is explicitly given. Leaving out situations such as the Stalingrad siege, I suppose a few people might be willing to give their lives or limbs so others can enjoy long pig. But even then the question would arise as to whether it was truly consensual or whether there was some psychological manipulation involved.

I’ve read that the Aztecs might have engaged in some light cannibalism but many scholars think it was just human sacrifice. No scholarship has ever stated that the Incas and Mayans practiced cannibalism.

Light cannibalism? You mean like finger sandwiches?

To automatically dismiss all such distinctions as merely arbitrary shows a lack of respect for different cultures rather than the reverse.
I must have trouble explaining my point, because what you state there is not what I’m doing. I’m only dismissing the normative distinctions, the ones that amount to “It’s right because our culture says so.” The bases that you stated – good working dogs, different flavor, health concerns – are NOT normative.
And having a particular taboo connected to a cultural ethos still sounds like a highly developed concept of normativity to me.

You’ve got some of what I said and some of what Lori said mixed up together.

not all things that are culture are created equal. Some are better than others, often by multiple measuring sticks.
Again, once one introduces such measurements, one is implicitly (and rightly) rejecting the concept of normativity.

…I think we’re using normativity differently, because I personally reserve the right to make (careful, responsible, reasoned) moral judgements about a society against a (or several) theoretical model societies.

That almost sounds like one has a duty to one’s culture or beliefs. I don’t see any room there for questioning whether the beliefs help or harm one’s self or others. Or more correctly, whether the actions based on those beliefs do so.

You see the nature of duty and beliefs as much more draconian and rigid than I do then.

I was replying to several posts at once, so I apologize for the confusion.

I think we’re using normativity differently, because I personally reserve the right to make (careful, responsible, reasoned) moral judgements about a society against a (or several) theoretical model societies.

I said nothing to indicate that people shouldn’t reserve that right. My point is not about particular cultural norms, but how these are defended or criticized. I use “normativity” to refer to particular defenses or criticisms that are grounded in the idea that a particular norm is right or wrong by virtue of it being a norm. I’m condemning the idea that prevalence equals goodness, or that conformance and morality are the same thing. Using an earlier example, I’m astounded by some Americans and some English who insist that the other country drives on the objectively “wrong” side of the road.

I said nothing to indicate that people shouldn’t reserve that right. My point is not about particular cultural norms, but how these are defended or criticized. I use “normativity” to refer to particular defenses or criticisms that are grounded in the idea that a particular norm is right or wrong by virtue of it being a norm. I’m condemning the idea that prevalence equals goodness, or that conformance and morality are the same thing. Using an earlier example, I’m astounded by some Americans and some English who insist that the other country drives on the objectively “wrong” side of the road.

I think you’re looking for “enthnocentrism” or “cultural centrism” or perhaps simply “cultural arrogance.” As to the specific point of what side of the road you drive on, I get the point, even if I doubt most Americans or English who have that reaction about the “wrong” side of the road actually feel all strongly about it.
As to the more general point, I don’t think the instinct to defend your own culture or obey your own taboos, or expect others to is dangerous in and of itself. In fact, as much tragedy as it can cause, the way that groups use taboos (among other things) to put up walls between insiders and outsiders has obviously evolved over time as a survival mechanism. It is how we respond to the clash of cultures – whether we talk, we fight, or we ignore – that matters to me, not how conscious they are of the arbitrary nature of many of the differences between cultures. To run with the car example, the issue is not whether Sam the American Eagle thinks of the English as silly for driving on the objectively wrong side of the problem, but whether Sam feels so strongly about it, that he mistreats the English, or invades their country or some such.

I don’t think the instinct to defend your own culture or obey your own taboos, or expect others to is dangerous in and of itself.

I agree to a point. The potential problem with cultures and taboos is that they can, and have been, used against disadvantaged groups and against individuals. To a certain extent, those things are less important than individual freedom of conscience.

the way that groups use taboos (among other things) to put up walls between insiders and outsiders has obviously evolved over time as a survival mechanism.

I wouldn’t say it’s obvious. In some cases, the original targets may not have been outsiders, but minorities and individuals who were wrongly perceived as threats to the social order.

It is how we respond to the clash of cultures – whether we talk, we fight, or we ignore – that matters to me, not how conscious they are of the arbitrary nature of many of the differences between cultures.

Yes and no. I see that awareness of cultural differences as driving much of our response to intercultural conflicts. Implicit in my argument is that cultures shouldn’t have to clash. While conflict cannot be eliminated completely, differing cultures don’t automatically have to perceive either other as threats. As long as a culture’s practices aren’t oppressing individuals or groups within the culture, or threatening to do the same with other cultures, one would hope for some kind of “live and let live” across cultures. I realize this may sound too Sunshine Lollipops & Rainbows, so I’ll put it another way – it’s none of America’s damn business whether the English drive on the left or right, and vice versa.
I see this problem even on an interpersonal level, where the “mommy wars” amount to two sides each thinking it knows best how individual women should run their lives. (That’s my perception, anyway.) True, the sides aren’t forcing women to bend to these preferences. Still, no one’s individual life choices should be subject to community approval.

Implicit in my argument is that cultures shouldn’t have to clash. While conflict cannot be eliminated completely, differing cultures don’t automatically have to perceive either other as threats. As long as a culture’s practices aren’t oppressing individuals or groups within the culture, or threatening to do the same with other cultures, one would hope for some kind of “live and let live” across cultures.

I think we have mutually exclusive orientations on this topic then, because I see conflict (abstractly) as a necessary and good thing, where conflicts create crucibles, and good and bad beliefs can be sorted out. Likewise, on the personal level, I don’t want my community to always keep mum about my personal choices, I think some sort of approval or disapproval feed back mechanism is important.
Admittedly, the side on which you drive on the road is a silly example, but if I truly felt strongly about it, the response is not “mind my own business” but to try to change your mind, and vice versa.

I see conflict (abstractly) as a necessary and good thing, where conflicts create crucibles, and good and bad beliefs can be sorted out.

That would be useful if the various sides keep somewhat open minds. That wouldn’t happen if one or more sides have an attitude of cultural arrogance.

I don’t want my community to always keep mum about my personal choices, I think some sort of approval or disapproval feed back mechanism is important.

Unless an individual’s personal choices cause harm, the community shouldn’t approve or disapprove of those in the first place. Admittedly all choices have some degree of impact on others. A community overruling an individual’s freedom of conscience does harm to the individual, so the question becomes whether the choices in a given instance would do greater harm.

Unless an individual’s personal choices cause harm, the community shouldn’t approve or disapprove of those in the first place. Admittedly all choices have some degree of impact on others. A community overruling an individual’s freedom of conscience does harm to the individual, so the question becomes whether the choices in a given instance would do greater harm.

Feedback and overruling are two very, very different things, just as freedom of religion and freedom from religion are two very, very different things. As discussed before, I disagree with the utility of the “harm/no harm” metric.

Only if hypothetical-you killed the person you ate.

I don’t see that as orthogonal to the morality of cannibalism.
I think you misread me; what I was saying is orthogonal etc etc is kuru, which is a real fun-sounding disease that evidence suggests is passed via cannibalism. For bonus points that’s the same mechanism as the transmission of mad cow disease. (Why did anybody ever think it was a good idea to turn cows that died of disease into feed for other cows?) Doesn’t have anything to do with whether cannibalism is an acceptable practice. Does make cannibalism a bad idea.

Feedback and overruling are two very, very different things, just as freedom of religion and freedom from religion are two very, very different things.

My point about “overruling” wasn’t intended to mean that the community would force the individual to comply. (Although if it was one person against an entire community, I can imagine such a person ceasing resistance out of fear.)
If I expressed an opinion about what job you should hold, or who you should marry, or whether you should have kids and how many, that would imply that you aren’t competent to make your own decisions and that I should make them for you. It would imply that I believed I had a right to make those decisions for you, even if I never acted on those opinions. Part of the issue is that my opinion would be an uninformed one, since I wouldn’t be living your life and I wouldn’t know your innermost thoughts or feelings or desires. So I would see agnosticism about your personal choices as the only responsibile course.

Doesn’t have anything to do with whether cannibalism is an acceptable practice. Does make cannibalism a bad idea.

I see the morality of cannibalism as separate from both of those. Kuru might lead to a taboo against it, but part of my point is that we shouldn’t assume that something is wrong simply because it’s considered taboo.

If I expressed an opinion about what job you should hold, or who you should marry, or whether you should have kids and how many, that would imply that you aren’t competent to make your own decisions and that I should make them for you. It would imply that I believed I had a right to make those decisions for you, even if I never acted on those opinions.

… Yeah, I don’t feel that way, most people I know don’t feel that way, and most people I know don’t act that way anymore. We call what you apparently abhor perfectly normal conversation sometimes, and being a friend other times.

It’s one thing to have chew-the-fat chats behind other people’s backs about what it is they did or didn’t do in their lives that you don’t approve of.
It’s another thing to institutionalize this attitude into governmental policy.

We call what you apparently abhor perfectly normal conversation sometimes, and being a friend other times.

I suspect you and I are talking about two different things. You seem to be describing instances where a person seeks out a friend’s advice on what jobs to take, or about a new boyfriend or girlfriend. The operative phrase there is “seeks out.” Or even instances where the friend might realize that the boyfriend or girlfriend has major issues and seeks to clue the first person into this.
I’m talking about much different instances. Unsolicited advice, unwanted attempts to play matchmaker, telling someone he/she shouldn’t date someone of a different race or religion, telling a woman that the only proper or moral role for her is mother, telling a woman she shouldn’t be an engineer, or telling a man he shouldn’t be a stay-at home dad.

You seem to be describing instances where a person seeks out a friend’s advice on what jobs to take, or about a new boyfriend or girlfriend.

I’m not. I’m talking about unsolicited free advice and opinions. And that’s just the stuff I appreciate.

Given how rankling it can be to get unsolicited free advice and opinions from people who really ought to keep their mouths shut, what makes you think it’s any more acceptable to make it a government policy to butt in on people who don’t have the means to make their way in life, and use leverage over their income to tell them what to do?
Or, for that matter, what makes it socially acceptable to institutionalize a de facto cultural tendency to treat the lives of poor people as the subject for ridicule and unwarranted, un-needed “helpful advice” from people who wouldn’t dream of contradicting their boss when that boss makes a poor business decision?
Power changes lots, and one thing it changes is who gets all the well-intentioned unwarranted interference.

I got all confused, reading the thread in small increments and under the influence because an injury put me on limited computer time, so I don’t even know how it got to unsolicited advice, but that’s one of my least favourite things in the world. Maybe if you’re not under pressure to fit all the time, or if you’re not expected to be quiet while you’re ordered around, you can see it as a friendly gesture, but otherwise, it’s a tentative of control, and infuriating. I have the privilege of choosing my career, my friends, my partners and my hobbies, but even I still have all kinds of experiences, going from people just walking up to me to button up my shirt (which is open over another top and totally decent already, and which you can’t button while obeying the laws of physics because store-bought clothes aren’t made to fit me, and if they weren’t as arrogant as to think they know more about me than myself, and have a right to touch me uninvited, they’d know it), to being berated on the street to remove my jacket because I’m too covered for the weather, to strangers telling me I’m ordering lunch wrong and should eat something else instead.

I’m talking about unsolicited free advice and opinions. And that’s just the stuff I appreciate.

While one can think that one knows what is best for another person, one can never really know this. (This principle assumes competent adults, as opposed to say, children.) Among people who offer unsolicited advice, there’s a minority that seems to have a messiah complex, where “playing God” seems to feed their ego. A majority seem to operate from good intentions, mistakenly assuming that their own life experience is applicable to everyone else. “Should” is a loaded concept that is usually involved with unsolicited advice, and usually not involved with solicited advice.
Pius’s point about power comes into play when the phenomenon extends across an entire culture. Cultural sexism means, in part, that women are told explicitly and implicitly by their cultures that some personal choices aren’t acceptable for them but are acceptable for men.

The Reluctant Cannibal
http://www.thurb.com/humour/cannibal.htm

This all boils down to: “Jesus wasn’t addressing Modern, Sophisticated Us. Except when He was. We will let you know, on a case-by-case basis, whether to hew slavishly to His words or completely ignore them.” In this case, His intent was unambiguous: you GIVE the money, you don’t LEND it. There is no business case to be made.

A conflict like this one is what made me an atheist — the Bible contradicted the world in a big, obvious way, and I thought to myself, “Who am I going to believe, the Bible, or my lying eyes?” and so I did the easy thing and ditched the Bible and all the baggage that goes with it and went with the world.
By the way, there is a substantial amount of evidence that the Neutral people of southern Ontario regularly practiced cannibalism, primarily of their war captives (hence the reason why no one but no one wanted to go to war with them, and they became called the “Neutrals”), but nobody really wants to talk about that, even when they’ve just pulled another human bone with human teeth marks all over it out of another Neutral midden.

Off-topic here; I need some advice. When I was a kid, my adult teeth often started growing in before the baby teeth would fall out, so usually the dentist had to pull them. If we waited too long before pulling them, the adult teeth grew in crooked. Fortunately, all my crooked teeth are on the bottom, so they’re not very noticeable when I smile.
My daughter, who just turned five, is having the same issue. One of her adult teeth came in a few months ago, and when I called her dentist to ask about it, her assistant said the dentist never pulls teeth in those instances. Instead, she prefers to wait until the teeth fall out on their own. I accepted that at the time, but since then, a second adult tooth has started to emerge, and DD is still a full year away from losing any of her baby teeth.
My daughter’s semi-annual checkup is next week, and I’m trying to figure out what to do. If we go to the appointment and the dentist maintains her stance, I don’t know if our insurance will pay for us to have a second opinion. (I plan to call tomorrow to find out). But in the meantime, I want to find out as much information as I can before the appointment.
What I’m really wondering is the rationale for pulling the baby teeth vs. not pulling them. Does anyone know if one is better than the other? All I can see now is my daughter in school having two rows of teeth, with its accompanying discomfort and teasing by other kids, or needing braces in five years because her adult teeth are out of alignment, when both could have been prevented. (Given that we’re trying to pull ourselves out of several years of financial setbacks, I doubt we’d be able to afford braces in 5 years). But if there’s a good reason for not pulling the baby teeth, I’d like to know what it is.

sorry, didn’t mean to post that here, but under the current topic!

What a great time! Can’t wait for next year!

This is an unloving, screwed-up culture we live in (among all the other screwed-up cultures) and I think it’s wonderful that there are voices like Fred’s hollering “NO!” He’s a prophet, I think.