0 comment Thursday, November 6, 2014 | admin
God Will Be an Illegal Immigrant With An Ankle Monitor
I have a friend with an interesting theology.
He believes that God takes the form of whoever we are disgusted by.
He believes that God takes the image of the person, or group of people, that most revolt us. God does this to teach us mercy, compassion, humility. God does this to teach us grace.
He tells the story of a conversation with two policemen. Going back and forth, the two policemen spoke with great disgust about certain populations of people in the area.
''I can't stand the homeless,'' said one policeman. ''Yes, and I hate those Hispanics,'' said the other. ''And the gays and queers too,'' returned the first policeman.
And at that point, my friend realized that for those two policemen, God will take the form of a gay, homeless, Hispanic who will ask them: why did you not love me? Why were you so estranged from your fellow human?''
Frequently in various discussions around the Internet, some conservative accuses Christians of being to blame for the crises of our age, namely, mass, uncontrolled immigration, multiculturalism, and politically correct universalism. Ultimately, all of these things are facilitating our dispossession, all of us in the West, and our ethnic cleansing, in effect.
I've grown weary of trying to offer a defense of Christianity to deaf ears; people are just not willing to listen to arguments which absolve Christianity of blame for what is happening to our countries -- especially when they read things like the above-linked piece. The writer is a prime example of why a growing number of people think that Christianity is a mushy one-world socialist religion.
I thought to post this piece over in the Forum in the Christianity section, but decided that it isn't just an issue that Christians only have to deal with; it affects all of us, because it has to do more with liberalism/leftism/cultural Marxism than with real Christianity. The article illustrates the perverse thinking of liberals and leftists very vividly.
I've remarked on this many times: liberals and leftists are obsessed with society's downtrodden, or those they perceive as downtrodden, almost to the degree of idolatry. They actually place the 'others' of society -- those who are antisocial or aberrant in some way -- above the rest. They perceive that mainstream society mistreats and looks down on these aberrant people, whether illegal immigrants, prisoners, sexual deviants, or other such outsiders, and rather than merely treating these others as brothers, they overcompensate and exalt the outsiders as actually being above the rest of us, and in this piece, even equate these people to God himself.
It's true that our Lord exhorted us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, and give to those who ask, saying ''Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.'' But when we are enjoined to feed the hungry and be hospitable to the stranger, does this refer to occasional individuals, or does it extend, as the liberals insist, to feeding and welcoming tens of millions of uninvited guests?
I cannot imagine that the scriptures in question ask us to welcome mass invasions or to help people to the extent that we are harming ourselves and our own people, which we are doing when we welcome mass influxes of aliens. And the illegals for example: are they not guilty of covetousness, of greed, of avarice? Are they hungry? Or are they merely wanting more and better material goods than they have in their countries?
Our Christian forebears were much more devout, in general, than many Christians of today, with our casual, undemanding brand of Christianity. And yet for all their devoutness, they never imagined that the Bible told them to welcome mass invasions or to martyr themselves in the name of charity or hospitality. They had no qualms about fighting the Moslem invaders of Europe, but according to these modern liberals, they should have simply acquiesced to conquest in the name of hospitality. They should have 'seen God' in the Moslems, after all, if God chooses to manifest as the thing we most recoil from, they should have fallen on their knees to the Mohammedans.
Liberals in general, not just Christian liberals, tend to idealize and romanticize the outlaw, the deviant, the alien, and the marginal. To exercise tolerance toward such people is one thing, but the liberal/leftist goes much further: he, or should I say she (liberals are all feminine in their attitudes) lionizes the deviant or the transgressor. Look at the way liberals and leftists make heroes of killers, as with Mumia Abu Jamal . Look at the way the French liberals protected the fugitive murderer Ira Einhorn , and thwarted justice for years. Why? Because he was a leftist himself, or because he was a member of a 'protected' group like Mumia? I notice that liberals are rather discriminatory in choosing which criminals to defend; the criminal has to be of a victim group.
It seems as if the French were very impressed with Einhorn's supposed intellectualism and more, they wanted to stick a thumb in the eye of the bloodthirsty Americans who were demanding Einhorn face justice:
One thing that has impressed him and many French people about Einhorn is his voracious reading, the constant references to literature, historical events, scientific concepts. Concludes Guilloton: "I think this guy is a superior intelligence." If Einhorn is representative of an evolved American, then his case presents the opportunity to chastise uncivilized, fanatical, wolfish Americans. A number of people invoke boilerplate examples of despicable behavior, mostly hyperbole from Philadelphia columnists and editorialists, such as encouraging folks to throw tomatoes at photos of Einhorn. Fayaud had told me she was appalled by American blood lust and what looked to her like a kind of hysteria, conduct unbecoming.''
Liberals and leftists: they're the same the whole world over. Leftism, not music, is the universal language, it seems. The excerpt sums up the liberal attitude: defending the criminal is often just an in-your-face to ''the system'' or those evil conservatives who actually believe in backward ideas like law and order. The same motives are at work with the leftists who defend illegals. It's just a way of spitting in the eye of the rednecks, the nativists, all those troglodytes who aren't as 'compassionate and evolved' as the liberals. The liberal or leftist is in a permanent state of rebellion against Daddy and therefore all authority, order, and tradition, and will in a perverse way defend everything that offends ordinary, law-abiding people.
The homeless, a group that the left especially champions, are in rather a different category than say, illegal immigrants or criminals or sexual deviants. There are no doubt some who are homeless through some set of circumstances beyond their control, but in general, in our country, only a lifetime of bad choices can explain chronic homelessness. Some estimates put the rate of alcohol and drug abuse at 65-80 percent among the homeless.
The liberal will no doubt answer that addiction is a 'disease' over which these people have no control, but I am not convinced the 'disease' model has been proven. There is always an element of choice in these things. The liberal, of course, believes that most people are mere pawns, that they are victims in some way of bad upbringing, cruel conservative policies, and an uncaring society. In the liberal universe, we are all children who are not accountable for our actions -- with the exception, of course, being conservatives, who are to be blamed and held accountable at all costs.
Am I a bad Christian or a bad person if I find it hard to see the divine in a drug addict or a street drunk? I do feel pity and compassion, but if I give money to that person (which I have done, many times in the past) am I only helping them to harm themselves? Of course even the criminal and the addict are made in the image and likeness of God, I believe. But living a life of addiction and criminality tends to efface God's image in the human being; that's one of the tragedies and the sins of living a debauched or lawless life -- we deface the image of God in ourselves.
No doubt we should do all we can to help those lost in this kind of life; some Christians are very good at reaching out to the people most in need of help, but the individual has to want to be helped. And when we do 'reach out' to the criminal or the addict, do we embrace the image of God in them, or do we exalt instead their defects as being something admirable? I think the liberals and leftists do the latter: they have a lurid fascination with the dark side, and they tend to be drawn to criminality and the transgressive for its own sake.
In addition, many liberals are exhibiting pride in their superior 'compassion'. They feel puffed-up because of their superior ability to be 'caring'; they think they are the moral betters of the rest of us who don't share their morbid fascination with darkness. They don't try to lift the addict or criminal out of their sordid lives, but instead treat this kind of life as being something valuable in itself. For example, liberal Christians have decided that homosexuality is not unnatural or sinful, and they would like us to remove the stigma from that behavior, if not to outright 'celebrate' it.
In all of these habits, they are putting themselves outside the mainstream of Christian belief. I understand many liberals proudly call themselves ''allophiles'':
...positive attitudes for a group that is not one's own�is a term derived from Greek words meaning "liking or love of the other" (Pittinsky, 2005). Studied by social scientists, allophilia is the antonym of negative prejudices and the antonym of a host of "�isms": sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, anti-Semitism, elitism/classism, and phallocentrism. Allophilia can be felt towards members of a different race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, class, nationality, school, team, or workplace (occupation).''
Of course they try to make it a virtue, but in the old order of things, people like this were just called turncoats or, despite their delusions of moral superiority, traitors. For all their vaunted compassion, they are merely acting as accomplices and apologists for evil when they defend criminals and aggressors. The pharisaical liberal asks why some of us are 'so estranged from our fellow human beings'. I ask in turn: why are you so estranged from your blood kin, your fellow American human beings?
I have a friend with an interesting theology.
He believes that God takes the form of whoever we are disgusted by.
He believes that God takes the image of the person, or group of people, that most revolt us. God does this to teach us mercy, compassion, humility. God does this to teach us grace.
He tells the story of a conversation with two policemen. Going back and forth, the two policemen spoke with great disgust about certain populations of people in the area.
''I can't stand the homeless,'' said one policeman. ''Yes, and I hate those Hispanics,'' said the other. ''And the gays and queers too,'' returned the first policeman.
And at that point, my friend realized that for those two policemen, God will take the form of a gay, homeless, Hispanic who will ask them: why did you not love me? Why were you so estranged from your fellow human?''
Frequently in various discussions around the Internet, some conservative accuses Christians of being to blame for the crises of our age, namely, mass, uncontrolled immigration, multiculturalism, and politically correct universalism. Ultimately, all of these things are facilitating our dispossession, all of us in the West, and our ethnic cleansing, in effect.
I've grown weary of trying to offer a defense of Christianity to deaf ears; people are just not willing to listen to arguments which absolve Christianity of blame for what is happening to our countries -- especially when they read things like the above-linked piece. The writer is a prime example of why a growing number of people think that Christianity is a mushy one-world socialist religion.
I thought to post this piece over in the Forum in the Christianity section, but decided that it isn't just an issue that Christians only have to deal with; it affects all of us, because it has to do more with liberalism/leftism/cultural Marxism than with real Christianity. The article illustrates the perverse thinking of liberals and leftists very vividly.
I've remarked on this many times: liberals and leftists are obsessed with society's downtrodden, or those they perceive as downtrodden, almost to the degree of idolatry. They actually place the 'others' of society -- those who are antisocial or aberrant in some way -- above the rest. They perceive that mainstream society mistreats and looks down on these aberrant people, whether illegal immigrants, prisoners, sexual deviants, or other such outsiders, and rather than merely treating these others as brothers, they overcompensate and exalt the outsiders as actually being above the rest of us, and in this piece, even equate these people to God himself.
It's true that our Lord exhorted us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, and give to those who ask, saying ''Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me.'' But when we are enjoined to feed the hungry and be hospitable to the stranger, does this refer to occasional individuals, or does it extend, as the liberals insist, to feeding and welcoming tens of millions of uninvited guests?
I cannot imagine that the scriptures in question ask us to welcome mass invasions or to help people to the extent that we are harming ourselves and our own people, which we are doing when we welcome mass influxes of aliens. And the illegals for example: are they not guilty of covetousness, of greed, of avarice? Are they hungry? Or are they merely wanting more and better material goods than they have in their countries?
Our Christian forebears were much more devout, in general, than many Christians of today, with our casual, undemanding brand of Christianity. And yet for all their devoutness, they never imagined that the Bible told them to welcome mass invasions or to martyr themselves in the name of charity or hospitality. They had no qualms about fighting the Moslem invaders of Europe, but according to these modern liberals, they should have simply acquiesced to conquest in the name of hospitality. They should have 'seen God' in the Moslems, after all, if God chooses to manifest as the thing we most recoil from, they should have fallen on their knees to the Mohammedans.
Liberals in general, not just Christian liberals, tend to idealize and romanticize the outlaw, the deviant, the alien, and the marginal. To exercise tolerance toward such people is one thing, but the liberal/leftist goes much further: he, or should I say she (liberals are all feminine in their attitudes) lionizes the deviant or the transgressor. Look at the way liberals and leftists make heroes of killers, as with Mumia Abu Jamal . Look at the way the French liberals protected the fugitive murderer Ira Einhorn , and thwarted justice for years. Why? Because he was a leftist himself, or because he was a member of a 'protected' group like Mumia? I notice that liberals are rather discriminatory in choosing which criminals to defend; the criminal has to be of a victim group.
It seems as if the French were very impressed with Einhorn's supposed intellectualism and more, they wanted to stick a thumb in the eye of the bloodthirsty Americans who were demanding Einhorn face justice:
One thing that has impressed him and many French people about Einhorn is his voracious reading, the constant references to literature, historical events, scientific concepts. Concludes Guilloton: "I think this guy is a superior intelligence." If Einhorn is representative of an evolved American, then his case presents the opportunity to chastise uncivilized, fanatical, wolfish Americans. A number of people invoke boilerplate examples of despicable behavior, mostly hyperbole from Philadelphia columnists and editorialists, such as encouraging folks to throw tomatoes at photos of Einhorn. Fayaud had told me she was appalled by American blood lust and what looked to her like a kind of hysteria, conduct unbecoming.''
Liberals and leftists: they're the same the whole world over. Leftism, not music, is the universal language, it seems. The excerpt sums up the liberal attitude: defending the criminal is often just an in-your-face to ''the system'' or those evil conservatives who actually believe in backward ideas like law and order. The same motives are at work with the leftists who defend illegals. It's just a way of spitting in the eye of the rednecks, the nativists, all those troglodytes who aren't as 'compassionate and evolved' as the liberals. The liberal or leftist is in a permanent state of rebellion against Daddy and therefore all authority, order, and tradition, and will in a perverse way defend everything that offends ordinary, law-abiding people.
The homeless, a group that the left especially champions, are in rather a different category than say, illegal immigrants or criminals or sexual deviants. There are no doubt some who are homeless through some set of circumstances beyond their control, but in general, in our country, only a lifetime of bad choices can explain chronic homelessness. Some estimates put the rate of alcohol and drug abuse at 65-80 percent among the homeless.
The liberal will no doubt answer that addiction is a 'disease' over which these people have no control, but I am not convinced the 'disease' model has been proven. There is always an element of choice in these things. The liberal, of course, believes that most people are mere pawns, that they are victims in some way of bad upbringing, cruel conservative policies, and an uncaring society. In the liberal universe, we are all children who are not accountable for our actions -- with the exception, of course, being conservatives, who are to be blamed and held accountable at all costs.
Am I a bad Christian or a bad person if I find it hard to see the divine in a drug addict or a street drunk? I do feel pity and compassion, but if I give money to that person (which I have done, many times in the past) am I only helping them to harm themselves? Of course even the criminal and the addict are made in the image and likeness of God, I believe. But living a life of addiction and criminality tends to efface God's image in the human being; that's one of the tragedies and the sins of living a debauched or lawless life -- we deface the image of God in ourselves.
No doubt we should do all we can to help those lost in this kind of life; some Christians are very good at reaching out to the people most in need of help, but the individual has to want to be helped. And when we do 'reach out' to the criminal or the addict, do we embrace the image of God in them, or do we exalt instead their defects as being something admirable? I think the liberals and leftists do the latter: they have a lurid fascination with the dark side, and they tend to be drawn to criminality and the transgressive for its own sake.
In addition, many liberals are exhibiting pride in their superior 'compassion'. They feel puffed-up because of their superior ability to be 'caring'; they think they are the moral betters of the rest of us who don't share their morbid fascination with darkness. They don't try to lift the addict or criminal out of their sordid lives, but instead treat this kind of life as being something valuable in itself. For example, liberal Christians have decided that homosexuality is not unnatural or sinful, and they would like us to remove the stigma from that behavior, if not to outright 'celebrate' it.
In all of these habits, they are putting themselves outside the mainstream of Christian belief. I understand many liberals proudly call themselves ''allophiles'':
...positive attitudes for a group that is not one's own�is a term derived from Greek words meaning "liking or love of the other" (Pittinsky, 2005). Studied by social scientists, allophilia is the antonym of negative prejudices and the antonym of a host of "�isms": sexism, racism, heterosexism, ageism, anti-Semitism, elitism/classism, and phallocentrism. Allophilia can be felt towards members of a different race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, class, nationality, school, team, or workplace (occupation).''
Of course they try to make it a virtue, but in the old order of things, people like this were just called turncoats or, despite their delusions of moral superiority, traitors. For all their vaunted compassion, they are merely acting as accomplices and apologists for evil when they defend criminals and aggressors. The pharisaical liberal asks why some of us are 'so estranged from our fellow human beings'. I ask in turn: why are you so estranged from your blood kin, your fellow American human beings?
Labels: Allophilia, Cultural Marxism, Leftism, Liberalism, Open Borders, Political Correctness, Xenophilia
0 comment Thursday, September 18, 2014 | admin
Who Gives the Most? Americans, by a long shot
Americans give more to charity, per capita and as a percentage of gross domestic product, than the citizens of other nations. But why?
It would be nice to believe that as a group they are just more generous. Of course, it's more complicated than that.
For instance in the U.S., which is notably religious among wealthy Western nations, about a third of all charitable giving goes to houses of worship.''
This article confirms the same phenomena regarding charity and Americans.
It's worth noting that Christians tend to be bigger givers, as do conservatives generally, contrary to popular stereotypes of stingy conservatives.
Liberals give less, despite all their talk about the downtrodden poor. I suppose the idea is that Uncle Sugar is responsible for taking money from the greedy right-wingers and giving it to the worthy poor. If this is supposed to constitute 'charity', it seems liberals don't get the idea that charity cannot be coerced or demanded; it's always voluntary.
The writer of the Forbes article linked at the top of the post, Elisabeth Eaves, dissects the motivations behind the American altruistic tendency, examining various possible reasons for it, and ultimately, and rather disappointingly, says this:
In the end I don't think Americans are more generous in their hearts than other people, nor that they have more cynical motives than anyone else. They are responding, rather, to their culture.
For all its polyglot shifting, U.S. culture is unique when it comes to a belief in philanthropy. It's a value that may be rooted in Christian tithing, but has spread to the secular world. Maybe it's a recognition that with individual freedom comes responsibility, too.''
[Emphasis mine]
It's social expectation and 'peer pressure', ultimately, she says.
Well, yes, that's becoming the default liberal explanation for any and all observable differences among groups of people: ''it's the culture." This is the safe, non-threatening answer to all differences which can't be denied. ''It's the culture."
But as I've said before, this just shifts the question elsewhere: WHY do some people have certain cultures? What causes Western people in general, specifically Americans in comparison with other Westerners, to have a culture which values altruism and charity? Why should Americans have 'peer pressure' or 'social expectations' concerning charitable giving?
Could a nation of stingy, selfish, cynics value charity and volunteerism? What an absurd question. The reason we have the culture we have is because it embodies the innate traits and tendencies that we, on a communal level, share among ourselves.
So often in discussion of racial/ethnic differences, the answer to all obvious distinctions among groups is to blame (or credit) this mysterious thing called 'culture' for the differences. But which came first, the chicken, or the egg?
Some who believe in evolution and natural selection claim that because of the harsh climates in which European man developed, Europeans had to learn to be cooperative and altruistic, at least within kin groups, in order to survive. That's as may be; if it's true, why are not Eskimos, for example, the most altruistic of peoples, since they live in the coldest climate?
Other groups survived in harsh conditions without developing our traditions of helpfulness and altruism.
Some people credit (or blame) Christianity for our tendency to be charitable; obviously our charitable and helpful tendencies can be a vulnerability when interacting with people who do not share them, and who don't reciprocate.
This 'study' would seem to indicate that those who receive the most help will in turn be most helpful to others. If it's true, why are not Third World countries the most altruistic, since they are by far the biggest recipients of help, mainly from us?
But to return to the subject of Europe: why was Europe the only area of the world which enthusiastically embraced Christianity? It never really ''took'' in any other part of the world, despite scattered believers here and there in other regions. And I don't count Latin America; their ''Christianity" is too syncretistic, bearing little resemblance to European Christianity.
There's no avoiding the issue of how much of our behavior is genetic, and how much is environmental.
If I overemphasize the genetic aspect of behavior, it's only as a necessary corrective to the big error of our time, an error motivated by political correctness and cultural Marxism, towards denying all genetic components of behavior.
The subject of charity and altruism, which as this article says derives from the Latin alter or Other:
Coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte, the word "altruism" has dominated the social sciences� discussion and measure of our behaviors toward the Other, and the motivations behind those behaviors. Altruism derives from the Latin alter, or "other." Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have since taken up Comte�s nomenclature.''
Certainly altruism is a good thing, but even good things can be excessive and then become bad things. We are now at a stage in which we are wrongly placing priority on the ''Other'' at the expense of our own, and ourselves. This is contrary to nature. I don't see how the secular believers in evolution or natural selection -- as many liberals are -- can champion suicidally altruistic behaviors such as the idea of open borders and special privileges for people of color. This is not natural, nor conducive to our survival and the survival of our progeny.
And those Christians who advocate this self-sacrificing preference given to The Other are slighting their own kin and people in doing so. It seems there is almost an idolatrous reverence for The Other, and the more ''other'', the more they are idealized by this type of Christian.
Many ethnoconservatives accuse Christianity of being responsible for our present precarious position. And they are correct that a certain faction of Christians, unfortunately the most visible and vocal ones, are promoting what amounts to self-genocide in the name of 'Christian charity' and loving one's neighbor. Yet these same people would not promote such self-abnegation if the recipients of the charity were our own people.
Has anyone noticed how virtually all of those TV appeals for starving children never show any American children? I actually saw one such appeal that did show some White American children, and it was startling because we never see that. Never, ever. I can hear someone say, 'well, we are so prosperous in this country that we have few or no starving children." Technically, we don't have starving children like those shown in the 'food for Africa' appeals. But we certainly have malnourished children and children in need.
The other response is usually ''anybody who can't find a way to prosper in this country just isn't trying, isn't working hard." To some extent, it's true, but in our increasingly difficult job market and with living expenses rising, many families are barely scraping by. So it isn't accurate to say that nobody need be poor in this country.
But why is it that we tend to rush to the aid of the ''other'' in preference to our own? Is it a perverse scramble for moral superiority, a desire to show off one's superior charitable tendencies?
Why is it that Americans tend to put foreign people on a pedestal? Some years ago, when Russian immigrants were a rarity in this country, there was a newspaper sob story about a Russian immigrant who had succeeded in getting to this country, but who was struggling to get on his feet. A follow-up story told of how the people in a local small town rallied to provide him with a car, a place to live, and a job. Who would do this for a local neighbor? Not many, but lots of people will rush to the side of a foreigner who has a sad story to tell. Why don't we seek out our kin and neighbors who have needs first, and if there truly are none, then give to ''others"?
It may be that this is an admirable thing; it may be that these people who will give the shirts off their backs for 'others' will have many stars in their crown in eternity. But somewhere we have lost the healthy love for our own that enabled us to prosper so well for so many centuries.
Whether something in our wiring has gone wrong, or whether propaganda can override our natural tendencies, I don't know.
Our altruism is something to cherish, only if we use it as it was meant to be used, to care for those nearest to us first, and for our extended family and tribe next. If all people everywhere did just that simple thing, we in the West need not have to be responsible for saving the whole world again and again.
Americans give more to charity, per capita and as a percentage of gross domestic product, than the citizens of other nations. But why?
It would be nice to believe that as a group they are just more generous. Of course, it's more complicated than that.
For instance in the U.S., which is notably religious among wealthy Western nations, about a third of all charitable giving goes to houses of worship.''
This article confirms the same phenomena regarding charity and Americans.
It's worth noting that Christians tend to be bigger givers, as do conservatives generally, contrary to popular stereotypes of stingy conservatives.
Liberals give less, despite all their talk about the downtrodden poor. I suppose the idea is that Uncle Sugar is responsible for taking money from the greedy right-wingers and giving it to the worthy poor. If this is supposed to constitute 'charity', it seems liberals don't get the idea that charity cannot be coerced or demanded; it's always voluntary.
The writer of the Forbes article linked at the top of the post, Elisabeth Eaves, dissects the motivations behind the American altruistic tendency, examining various possible reasons for it, and ultimately, and rather disappointingly, says this:
In the end I don't think Americans are more generous in their hearts than other people, nor that they have more cynical motives than anyone else. They are responding, rather, to their culture.
For all its polyglot shifting, U.S. culture is unique when it comes to a belief in philanthropy. It's a value that may be rooted in Christian tithing, but has spread to the secular world. Maybe it's a recognition that with individual freedom comes responsibility, too.''
[Emphasis mine]
It's social expectation and 'peer pressure', ultimately, she says.
Well, yes, that's becoming the default liberal explanation for any and all observable differences among groups of people: ''it's the culture." This is the safe, non-threatening answer to all differences which can't be denied. ''It's the culture."
But as I've said before, this just shifts the question elsewhere: WHY do some people have certain cultures? What causes Western people in general, specifically Americans in comparison with other Westerners, to have a culture which values altruism and charity? Why should Americans have 'peer pressure' or 'social expectations' concerning charitable giving?
Could a nation of stingy, selfish, cynics value charity and volunteerism? What an absurd question. The reason we have the culture we have is because it embodies the innate traits and tendencies that we, on a communal level, share among ourselves.
So often in discussion of racial/ethnic differences, the answer to all obvious distinctions among groups is to blame (or credit) this mysterious thing called 'culture' for the differences. But which came first, the chicken, or the egg?
Some who believe in evolution and natural selection claim that because of the harsh climates in which European man developed, Europeans had to learn to be cooperative and altruistic, at least within kin groups, in order to survive. That's as may be; if it's true, why are not Eskimos, for example, the most altruistic of peoples, since they live in the coldest climate?
Other groups survived in harsh conditions without developing our traditions of helpfulness and altruism.
Some people credit (or blame) Christianity for our tendency to be charitable; obviously our charitable and helpful tendencies can be a vulnerability when interacting with people who do not share them, and who don't reciprocate.
This 'study' would seem to indicate that those who receive the most help will in turn be most helpful to others. If it's true, why are not Third World countries the most altruistic, since they are by far the biggest recipients of help, mainly from us?
But to return to the subject of Europe: why was Europe the only area of the world which enthusiastically embraced Christianity? It never really ''took'' in any other part of the world, despite scattered believers here and there in other regions. And I don't count Latin America; their ''Christianity" is too syncretistic, bearing little resemblance to European Christianity.
There's no avoiding the issue of how much of our behavior is genetic, and how much is environmental.
If I overemphasize the genetic aspect of behavior, it's only as a necessary corrective to the big error of our time, an error motivated by political correctness and cultural Marxism, towards denying all genetic components of behavior.
The subject of charity and altruism, which as this article says derives from the Latin alter or Other:
Coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte, the word "altruism" has dominated the social sciences� discussion and measure of our behaviors toward the Other, and the motivations behind those behaviors. Altruism derives from the Latin alter, or "other." Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have since taken up Comte�s nomenclature.''
Certainly altruism is a good thing, but even good things can be excessive and then become bad things. We are now at a stage in which we are wrongly placing priority on the ''Other'' at the expense of our own, and ourselves. This is contrary to nature. I don't see how the secular believers in evolution or natural selection -- as many liberals are -- can champion suicidally altruistic behaviors such as the idea of open borders and special privileges for people of color. This is not natural, nor conducive to our survival and the survival of our progeny.
And those Christians who advocate this self-sacrificing preference given to The Other are slighting their own kin and people in doing so. It seems there is almost an idolatrous reverence for The Other, and the more ''other'', the more they are idealized by this type of Christian.
Many ethnoconservatives accuse Christianity of being responsible for our present precarious position. And they are correct that a certain faction of Christians, unfortunately the most visible and vocal ones, are promoting what amounts to self-genocide in the name of 'Christian charity' and loving one's neighbor. Yet these same people would not promote such self-abnegation if the recipients of the charity were our own people.
Has anyone noticed how virtually all of those TV appeals for starving children never show any American children? I actually saw one such appeal that did show some White American children, and it was startling because we never see that. Never, ever. I can hear someone say, 'well, we are so prosperous in this country that we have few or no starving children." Technically, we don't have starving children like those shown in the 'food for Africa' appeals. But we certainly have malnourished children and children in need.
The other response is usually ''anybody who can't find a way to prosper in this country just isn't trying, isn't working hard." To some extent, it's true, but in our increasingly difficult job market and with living expenses rising, many families are barely scraping by. So it isn't accurate to say that nobody need be poor in this country.
But why is it that we tend to rush to the aid of the ''other'' in preference to our own? Is it a perverse scramble for moral superiority, a desire to show off one's superior charitable tendencies?
Why is it that Americans tend to put foreign people on a pedestal? Some years ago, when Russian immigrants were a rarity in this country, there was a newspaper sob story about a Russian immigrant who had succeeded in getting to this country, but who was struggling to get on his feet. A follow-up story told of how the people in a local small town rallied to provide him with a car, a place to live, and a job. Who would do this for a local neighbor? Not many, but lots of people will rush to the side of a foreigner who has a sad story to tell. Why don't we seek out our kin and neighbors who have needs first, and if there truly are none, then give to ''others"?
It may be that this is an admirable thing; it may be that these people who will give the shirts off their backs for 'others' will have many stars in their crown in eternity. But somewhere we have lost the healthy love for our own that enabled us to prosper so well for so many centuries.
Whether something in our wiring has gone wrong, or whether propaganda can override our natural tendencies, I don't know.
Our altruism is something to cherish, only if we use it as it was meant to be used, to care for those nearest to us first, and for our extended family and tribe next. If all people everywhere did just that simple thing, we in the West need not have to be responsible for saving the whole world again and again.
Labels: Allophilia, Altruism, American Culture, Charity, Nature Vs Nurture, Western Civilization