LENIN'S TOMB

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Poor value solidarity more than rich posted by Richard Seymour

A further looting of the 'stating the obvious' department of Truisms R Us:

In follow-up experiments, the researchers asked participants to imagine and write about a hypothetical interaction with someone who was extremely wealthy or extremely poor. This sort of storytelling is used routinely by psychologists when they wish to induce a temporary change in someone’s point of view.

In this case the change intended was to that of a higher or lower social class than the individual perceived he normally belonged to. The researchers then asked participants to indicate what percentage of a person’s income should be spent on charitable donations. They found that both real lower-class participants and those temporarily induced to rank themselves as lower class felt that a greater share of a person’s salary should be used to support charity.

Upper-class participants said 2.1% of incomes should be donated. Lower-class individuals felt that 5.6% was the appropriate slice. Upper-class participants who were induced to believe they were lower class suggested 3.1%. And lower-class individuals who had been “psychologically promoted” thought 3.3% was about right.

Labels: charity, class, poverty, ruling class, solidarity, working class

Sunday, December 14, 2008

The will to possess posted by Richard Seymour

Nietzsche, in his typically indiscriminate way, skewered the humanitarian and philanthropist in these terms:

Among helpful and charitable people, one almost always finds the awkward craftiness which first gets up suitably him who has to be helped, as though, for instance, he should "merit" help, seek just THEIR help, and would show himself deeply grateful, attached, and subservient to them for all help. With these conceits, they take control of the needy as a property, just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a desire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed or forestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make something like themselves out of their children--they call that "education"; no mother doubts at the bottom of her heart that the child she has borne is thereby her property, no father hesitates about his right to HIS OWN ideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in former times fathers deemed it right to use their discretion concerning the life or death of the newly born (as among the ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the teacher, the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new individual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession. (Beyond Good and Evil)

Nietzsche's greatest contempt, of course, was reserved for "socialist pity", the "common herd" and "the rabble", but I just quote this passage because it seems to me to sum up a certain attitude that is sometimes confused with "solidarity".

Poor value solidarity more than rich posted by Richard Seymour

The will to possess posted by Richard Seymour

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