Essays – Tattooed Professor

Ida B. Wells Project

English 8330

23 Mar 2011

From her humble beginnings in Holly Springs, Mississippi, no one guesses that Ida B. Wells will grow up to be a revolutionary investigative journalist. The circumstances of her childhood do not provide a solid platform upon which Wells can leap into a life of progressive thought and action. Her parents are both slaves and Wells is the oldest in a long line of eight siblings. It is fortuitous that the young woman’s father sees fit to educate her because Wells spends the rest of her life educating others about the plight of the newly emancipated Negro. When her parents and younger brother die of yellow fever Wells is forced to quit school and take on a paying position as a teacher and in this way supports the entire family. According to a timeline found on the Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation website, in 1879 “[a]n aunt invites Ida to move to Memphis, Tennessee where she quickly finds and accepts a teaching position in the Shelby County school system.” As Wells works as a teacher she also begins editing small scale church newsletters which whet her appetite for the idea of disseminating information directly into black homes.

One incident in particular not only provides an interesting first-person narrative for The Living Way newsletter, but also sparks Wells’ imagination to focus her writing on social change. Wells has been a victim of the Jim Crow laws while riding the train. Wells writes about the fact that she “had sued the railroad company for attempting to expel her from the ladies’ car” (Gates & McKay, 676). The topic is prescient, personal and interesting to her audience: it gives them a stake in the lawsuit’s outcome. (In 1887 the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned Wells’ former win against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.) Using the pen name “Iola” (probably adopted from a Frances Harper novel entitled Iola Leroy) Wells’ train/court stories “were reprinted in newspapers throughout the country” (Gates, 676). Given a public forum in which to tell these stories increased Wells’ appetite for publicly renouncing obvious wrongs that occur on an hourly basis to the newly emancipated black contingent of U.S. citizenry. Her next topic of scrutiny is the one that will not only get her run out of her home base of Memphis but will forever connect her name to a cause: U.S. anti-lynching laws.

In her preface to Southern Horrors Wells seems to take up the pen with a heavy heart and gives an overview of her purpose: “Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against that sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. The awful death-roll that Judge Lynch is calling every week is appalling, not only because of the lives it takes, the rank cruelty and outrage to the victims, but because of the prejudice it fosters and the stain it places against the good name of a weak race” (25-6). Writing about her experience with injustice on the train opens Wells’ eyes to an even more insidious and widespread injustice taking place around her; one that is sanctioned by law: the act of lynching. During these dark days mobs regularly gather to capture and hang someone from a tree whom they feel has committed an offense or broken a societal law. When Wells learns of the lynching of people she actually knows she begins to turn her considerable writing skills toward activism against lynching. Little does Ida B. Wells recognize that her decision to use the press in service of protecting the rights of her race and pointing the finger directly at offenders will set a groundbreaking precedent that would carry on within the ink of newspaper print for generations to come.

In order to understand the importance of Wells’ decision to make use of the press to bring to light social injustice, we must first get our footing in the rhetorical situation of her day. When Wells begins writing the United States has just undergone a little more than a decade of reconstruction after the Civil War. Yet simply because the blacks are no longer enslaved does not mean our nation’s troubles instantaneously disappear. “With slavery officially outlawed, the white south moved quickly to protect its interests by codifying the very white supremacist ideology that had undergirded the chattel slave system” (Gates, 543). Wells experiences the Jim Crow laws such as blacks and whites having to travel in separate train cars. In 1883 the U.S. Supreme Court rules that congress can regulate only state action regarding racial discrimination, not private action. In the years 1888-9 one hundred and sixty-three Negroes are lynched along with one hundred and forty-four whites. Disenfranchisement begins with the “Mississippi Plan.” According to information found in a timeline of African American history provided by the National Humanities center, in order “[t]o minimize the number of black voters, Mississippi institutes a literacy test, a poll tax, and the ‘grandfather clause’” and during the next two decades “most Southern states pass similar laws.”

Thirty-five years before Wells is born the first attempt to run a black newspaper is made by Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm. They run Freedom’s Journal for two years which then becomes The Rights of All which only lasts two more years. About forty-two years before Wells sets up shop, Frederick Douglass resolves to launch his own newspaper, The North Star. “In part Douglass wanted to prove that a black run newspaper could succeed; in part he needed a forum from which to express himself freely, without consulting his former mentors…”(Gates, 386). All of these shifting circumstances are morphing the social and political landscape in the day of Ida B. Wells. It was in 1889 that “Wells becomes part owner of the black-run Memphis newspaper, The Free Speech and Headlight and continues to write under the pen name Iola” (Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation). Wells runs and writes for the paper for three years before an incident occurs that will change not only Wells’ life, but her legacy forever.

According to the Wells Foundation timeline, on March 9th, 1892, “three friends of Wells—Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William Steward—were lynched outside of Memphis. The three men owned and operated a store called the People’s Grocery, a business the competed successfully with a white-owned store nearby.” These incidents so shock and enrage Wells that she tears off an incendiary indictment, using her newspaper as a platform to strongly denounce the practice of lynching. She recognizes that Southern people will often say lynching is used as a punishment against black men that rape white women when Wells knows this to be an outright lie. Her first anti-lynching editorial uses such sure and strong language that it sends (probably the same) white mob into frenzy and they burn the news office to the ground. Ms. Wells is advised to never return to Memphis. A more direct form of censorship do not exist, yet the threat to life and limb do not dissuade Wells from her anti-lynching campaign. The timeline states: “Wells begins to investigate the lynching phenomenon from New York where she writes for the African-American newspaper, the New York Age. Her findings are complied and published in the fall in a story titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.

Some of the particulars of her findings written in the above book are as follows:

That lynching may be claimed to be a punishment for rape, but many white women use the accusation of rape in order to cover up an affair or explain giving birth to a mulatto child.
That though rape is often proffered as the reason for the lynching, any numbers of reasons (or none at all) have been given as sufficient to hang a person. Wells is fond of using lists and lines up lynching statistics for any given year. Beside the number of those lynched there is a reason given for that particular hanging. Some of the reasons on record are: no cause, unknown cause, mistaken identity, bad reputation, giving evidence, refusing to give evidence and unpopularity.
That the white press is only making things worse.
That “[t]here is little difference between the Antebellum South and the New South” (47).
That “[t]he white man’s dollar is his god, and to stop this will be to stop outrages in many localities” (50).

As mentioned earlier, Wells has consequences occur due to her truth-seeking. Her business is burned to the ground and she cannot return to her adopted hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Yet Wells escapes with her life and from new posts up North she continues to write and rally against racism. She protests the lack of African American participation in the Chicago World’s Fair. She helps found the National Association of Colored Women and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In information found in the Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation timeline, in 1913 Wells “turn[s] her reformist energies towards winning the vote for all African-Americans; particularly women. She forms the first suffrage club for black women in the state of Illinois; the Alpha Suffrage Club.“ In 1931 Wells dies in Chicago, yet her creativity in using the medium of the newspaper as a tool for social reform sets the stage for decades of media pioneers to follow.

The activism and writing of Wells carries the country well into the Harlem Renaissance which lasted roughly from 1919-1940. “In particular, the second half of the decade witnessed an outpouring of publications by African Americans that was unprecedented in its variety and scope” (Gates 953). Harlem, New York appears during these years as the African American artistic capital of the world. Blacks begin to be published by the “establishment” publishers, the housing conditions are better than in the south and there is an explosion in every form of art from the writing of plays to the expansion of jazz, the celebration of dance and the emergence of new cultural and political goals. We can see Wells’ influence on men of the Renaissance who are eager to own and run their own African American newspapers. From Charles Johnson to Marcus Garvey, the new African fully exercises the power of the pen by disseminating information, collecting stories, poetry and artwork and relishing the power of creating their own propaganda. “Of these, the most important was almost certainly the Crisis, edited by the brilliant scholar…W.E.B. Du Bois…” (Gates, 955). Du Bois and Wells are connected through the NAACP: Wells helps found the organization and Du Bois launches the Crisis as a mouthpiece for the group. Just as Wells is forced to migrate northward in order to carry on her work, Du Bois also suffers negative consequences due to using printed media to further his leftist politics. The repayment for speaking his mind is “his forced retirement from Atlanta University in 1944 and his firing in 1948 by the NAACP from his position as director of special research” (Gates, 688). Wells’ anti-lynching campaign morphed into Du Bois’ anti-nukes campaign and the U.S. government tries to indict him as a “subversive agent.” Even though the charges do not stick, Du Bois kind of becomes a man alone on a desert island although this isolation does not deter him from speaking his truth.

There is a link connecting the times and people of the Harlem Renaissance to the age of modern African American journalism and his name is Thomas Fleming. Mr. Fleming is “the longtime executive editor of Reporter Publishing Company, Northern California’s leading chain of African American newspapers” (Millard). While the Harlem Renaissance proper is winding down on the east coast Mr. Fleming is gearing up for a life-long vocation in journalism in San Francisco. He is founding editor for the Reporter newspaper and for years writes, on average, three articles a week and in the spirit of Ida B. Wells, he tends to focus on human rights. Through his work with the newspaper Fleming has the opportunity to meet other men of letters that keep African American progress foremost in the writing of their day. Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and others are the types of prolific movers and shakers that inspire and influence the journalism of Fleming. One of his articles entitled “Marcus Garvey Comes to Harlem” provides historians with a direct link from early twentieth century newspapermen to those of more recent times. Yet our linking connections from Ida B. Wells to the Harlem Renaissance to Fleming would not be complete without one last backward glance to African American journalism during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s.

As Fleming is writing in San Francisco, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is writing about his experience as a pastor in the south and how he becomes a vocal advocate for the idea and practice of nonviolent resistance. Dr. King is influenced by Gandhi and shares his philosophy that “…no individual or group need submit to any wrong, nor need they use violence to right the wrong; there is the way of nonviolent resistance. This is ultimately the way of the strong man” (102). King brings our story full circle back to Memphis, Tennessee where he, another African American activist and writer, is being “punished” for having the guts to confront social problems in America. As Martin Luther King Jr. is being shot down at the Lorraine Motel in 1968 a newspaperman by the name of Earl Caldwell stands by his side. Just as Ida B. Wells has been witness to the lynching of her grocery store-owning neighbors, seventy-six years later Caldwell is a journalist witnessing the racial hatred and confusion that continues into the Age of Aquarius.

Civil Rights activists and journalists alike know that Caldwell covers the activities of the Black Panther party and is writing his pieces for the New York Times. According to information found through the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, Caldwell is the center of a mighty struggle between himself as a journalist keeping his sources confidential, and the federal government’s attempts to confiscate Caldwell’s personal notes and research. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. As Tiffany Shepard learned in her personal interview with Caldwell during her stint at Hampton University, the Supreme Court ruling “resulted in a landmark First Amendment decision on reporter’s rights to protect confidential sources. ‘The ruling was unanimous. The court ruled that the First Amendment protected a reporter’s information, notes and confidential sources, ‘said Caldwell, ‘and it protected the reporting process.’” Unlike all of the journalists examined previously in the paper, Earl Caldwell was never run out of town or out of business. It is some relief to see that with the passage of time and America’s tentative steps toward racial equality that Caldwell is still teaching and writing about civil rights. Bringing media all the way into the digital age, we can see from Earl Caldwell’s’ Facebook page that he “is writer-in-residence at the Robert C. Maynard Institute” mentioned earlier in this piece.

A Facebook page is a long way from the days of a small Negro newspaper co-owned by Ida B. Wells in 1889. By keeping her eyes open and her mind analyzing Wells is able to bring forth the discussion of race and rights and use journalism as a tool to bring these issues to the public. Wells set the precedent, and set it with such a high bar that her shoes are quite difficult to fill. Yet we see people step forth, people such as W.E.B. Du Bois during the Harlem Renaissance, Thomas Fleming bridging the gap and Earl Caldwell bringing us into the age of Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers during the Civil Rights era and beyond. Newspapers and in-the-moment journalism keep the world ever-present with the changing and prescient issues of our day. Thanks to Ida B. Wells, the tradition of truth-telling through journalism has been an exciting and often terrifying journey that all Americans are privileged to experience.
Works Cited

Gates, Henry and Nellie McKay. Introduction. A Red Record. By Ida B. Wells-Barnett. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. W. W. Norton and Company, New York: 676.

King, Martin Luther. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. Harper and Row Inc. 101-107.

Millard, Max. “Thomas Fleming, ‘Good Soldier’ of San Francisco’s Black Press, Retires from Sun-Reporter at 89.” Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. 28 July 1997. www.sfmuseum.org/sunreporter/fleming.html.

Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. “The Caldwell Journals.” 2000. Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Web. 23 Mar 2011.

www.localcommunities.org.

Shepard, Tiffany. Interview with Earl Caldwell. National Visionary Leadership Project. 2006. http://www.visionaryproject.org/caldwellearl.

The Making of African American Identity. “Timeline: 1860-1920.” Volume II: 1865-1917. Jan 2006. National Humanities Center. 15 Mar 2011.

<nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/index.htm>.

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Preface. Southern Horrors. By Ida Be. Wells-Barnett. On Lynchings. Humanity Books, New York: 25-6, 47, 50.

Wells, Ida B. (family). Ida B. Wells Memorial Foundation. 22 April 2010. Web. 21 Mar 2010. http://www.idabwells.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article.

W.E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk

Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

Is the book a coherent whole or a set of disparate essays? Explain.

After examining the themes of each individual chapter of The Souls of Black Folk I feel that instead of the text hanging together as one entire body, it more reflects different viewing points on one particular topic. Obviously, the progress of the African American was the one unifying topic that ran throughout the finished book. I understand that Mr. Du Bois wrote all of these pieces as essays and was later asked if he would allow his essays to be collected into a book. I can easily see the differences of mindset between the chapters.

In chapter one Du Bois asks how the race should progress and in what directions now that they have been emancipated? In chapter two the aim is to understand and criticize the freedman’s bureaus and other emancipation agencies that were formed during that time. In the same way, Du Bois examines and criticizes Booker T. Washington’s views in chapter three. Chapter four completely switches gears by discussing the meaning of African American progress. Skipping ahead to chapter seven, Du Bois writes from a unique amalgam of cartographer and sociologist while discussing the various Cotton Kingdoms in Georgia. Chapter twelve examines a true human character in Alexander Crummel while in the very next chapter Du Bois creates two fictitious peripatetic young men both named John who are forever changed by their color and education. I would venture to say, and this is only a guess, that the forethought and afterthought, along with the chapter-opening sorrow-songs, were added as a coalescing element to the final form of the book.

Let us look for some type of grouping of these chapter topics. What we find is some observations, ideas and guidance in the form of chapters 1, 4 and 9. There are geographical studies in chapters 5 and 7. There are examinations of those living in chapters 3 and 12. Du Bois gives a directive in chapter 6. There are informative chapters in 8, 10 and 14. In my opinion the chapters that most fall from form are 11 and 13. Chapter eleven takes us to an extremely personal space with Du Bois. In this chapter we witness the birth and death of his child. The only consolation Du Bois offers is that he feels death for his child would be preferable to his life behind the Veil. “Better for this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you” (742). Of the many difficult things Du Bois describes in vivid detail in his novel, “Of the Passing of the Firstborn,” in my opinion, is the most heart-wrenching.

The chapter that seems to fit the least, or makes its most awkward debut in the novel, is chapter 13, “The Coming of John.” This, one supposes, is a fictional story of two young men, one black one white, both carrying the name of John. Both go off to school, and upon returning home their lives are changed forever. White John ends up raping black John’s sister, black John avenges his sister’s honor, killing White John, and in the end John Jones is hung for the murder. Not only does the chapter stand out as a fictional piece, which does not play the role in any other parts of the novel, it is also a somewhat odd mixture of intellect and pathos that makes no one happy in the end (not that this is the goal).

Question two: discuss philosophical differences between Du Bois and Washington

I find the philosophical differences between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington interesting because these two vantage points give the reader a window into the multi-faceted struggle of the emancipated black race. Du Bois devotes Chapter Three in The Souls of Black Folk to discussing Washington’s “…programme of industrial education, conciliation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and political rights…” (699). As one can easily tell from the variety and depth of Du Bois’ writing, the man was highly educated and won a scholarship to Yale as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Berlin. Perhaps because he well understood the intellectual levels that could be attained by an African American, he seemed to sneer at Washington because he felt Booker T. had allowed commercialism to kill his fire for higher education. Further, Du Bois feels that Washington’s “…educational programme was unnecessarily narrow” (700). Du Bois chafed against the idea that the freedmen should study mostly industrial arts and concentrate on the accumulation of wealth; he felt everyone should be able to acquire the type of education that would take a student as far as their abilities and desires would take him. Du Bois solidly believed in college and university-level aspirations that were within the grasp of the new aged black man and he disagreed with anyone steering them away from such untapped possibility.

Du Bois also did not find value in Washington’s philosophy of submission to the white race. In one way, Du Bois felt that this submission “overlooked certain elements of true manhood” (700). Du Bois also felt that the idea of allowing the white man to believe he was still running the show was an outdated way of handling this new found freedom in America. Not only that, by working within the former paradigm of one race being submissive to the other, Washington was by default admitting that his own race was inferior. Naturally, if one believes they are equal to another they will not stand for any form of degradation or prejudice. Du Bois resides on the other side of the coin by believing that a man who demands respect will earn respect. This point is very poignant for Du Bois as he says that Booker T. Washington is to be especially criticized for his leniency on the white race. “His doctrine has tended to make the whites, North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders…” (707) while white America stands back and analyze the scene from afar. Du Bois did not condone violence but felt the black race must insist on the “rights which the world accords to men… (708).

WORK CITED

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Henry Gates, Jr. ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004.

Peter Singer

My students and I explored some of the works by philosopher Peter Singer. We read his chapter called “Rich and Poor”, his chapter entitled “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” and his book The Most Good You Can Do. What follows are our reading notes along with personal comments and ideas for writing. The title of each piece will appear followed by the page number of each reading note. Ideas for writing are indicated by the initials W.I. (for writing idea). The entire class contributed to these notes, so you may hear many voices and opinions while reading. Use these notes to learn more about Singer’s philosophies, the content of three of his works or for study notes.

Honors Comp II

Peter Singer

Reading to Write

Close reading at the word/sentence/paragraph level
Knowing what is an example of a larger point
Knowing which words in a sentence you can omit for clarity
Drawing the ideas
Using a dictionary
Taking thinking AND reading notes
What ideas are Singer’s and which are not
Philosophy requires patience and time to decipher

Writing Ideas

When you see a bullet point below with W.I. for “writing idea” this indicates there is something within the text you could take on for a quarterly project.

If you like one of these ideas, place your last name in brackets under the idea of your choosing and tell us how you will tackle your writing idea.
You may come up with your own ideas. If so, place your last name within brackets at the point you see your “in” and indicate the topic you are going to explore.
As you become responsible for updating reading notes, use the bulleted W.I. technique to que others there is a germ of an idea for writing. When updating reading notes, use normal text arial 14 style/size font. Indicate titles and subheadings by following capitalization rules and set the title or subheading apart from the notes by one extra space. You will also be asked to make personal comments within the reading notes. Follow the last name in brackets technique to include your personal thoughts. Let’s set the gradebook to record two personal comments per article and chapter.

General writing ideas:

To what extent do you agree with the author
Exploring definitions
Google Scholar has vetted scholarly articles to help research

Peter Singer: Rich and Poor

Singer is the most famous ethicist in the world. His views on euthanasia and healthcare rationing make him one of the most controversial philosophers. He is an ardent Utilitarian.

Writing idea: what is a utilitarian? Where did this concept begin? Who else has written about utilitarian views? What utilitarian views are found in this Singer piece?

Some Facts

Singer describes that hunger is a problem across the world. He uses some quotes from Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank.

Writing idea (W.I.): Who is Robert McNamara and what has he written about world hunger?

The concept of relative vs. absolute poverty

W.I.: The economics of world hunger and food distribution

W.I.: What other definitions of poverty can we find? Who is defining these terms?

W.I.: Explore poverty across your own lifespan. What have you seen or endured?

W.I.: Poverty observed through travel

Absolute poverty is poverty by any standard. Poverty at the absolute level…is life at the very margin of existence. As McNamara says “beneath any reasonable definition of human decency. Absolute poverty is responsible for the loss of countless lives, especially among infants and young children.” Malnutrition affects health, growth and learning capacity. It contributes to deficiency diseases. The food value is further reduced by hookworm and ringworms. Absolute poverty involves inadequate food, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health services and education. Something like 800 million people–almost 40% of the people of developing countries–live in absolute poverty. It no longer makes the news.

W.I.: Create and film a news story on absolute poverty

In America we produce grain to feed animals, but we do not send the grain to the people who are starving. People in rich countries are responsible for the consumption of far more food than those in poor countries who eat few animal products.

W.I.: Explication: discover and explain this or other forms of food insufficiency and distribution problems

Solution: If we stopped feeding animals on grains, soybeans and fishmeal the amount of food saved would–if distributed to those who need it–be more than enough to end hunger throughout the world. The problem is essentially one of distribution rather than production. The poorer nations themselves could produce far more if they made more use of improved agricultural techniques. So why are people hungry? Poor people cannot afford to buy grain grown by American farmers. Poor farmers cannot afford to buy improved seeds, or fertilizers, or the machinery needed for drilling wells and pumping water.

W.I.: Is there a codified hierarchy of poverty? Who created it? When? Have others created different categories?

A solution is to transfer wealth, product and tolls to those in need. “Absolute affluence” is affluence by any reasonable definition of human needs. They can spend money on luxuries. Its defining characteristic is a significant amount of income above the level necessary to provide for the basic human needs of oneself and one’s dependents. He lists countries who could help with poverty; who have enough to share. He follows with the percentage of income they actually share.

The Moral Equivalent of Murder?

If these are the facts, we cannot avoid concluding that by not giving more than we do, people in rich countries are allowing those in poor countries to suffer. If, then, allowing someone to die is not intrinsically different from killing someone, it would seem that we are all murderers.

[Observe that the paragraph after the next really begins the philosophical question. We are going down a road of thought to see where it will go.]

How is a murderer different from a big spender?

A murderer acts with malice; a big spender acts with indifference.

It is very difficult to obey a rule which commands us to save all the lives we can. Although it is difficult, not doing so still results in death. We are allowing some to die who might have been saved. Saving every life would require a degree of moral heroism utterly different from what is required by mere avoidance of killing.

With murder, there is certainty of harm. To give leads to an uncertainty of it helping. Singer says it like this: a third difference between a murderer and a big spender is the greater certainty of the outcome of shooting when compared with not giving aid.

Fourth, when people are shot there are identifiable individuals who have been harmed. When I buy my color television, I cannot know who my money would have saved if I had given it away. (You know who you have shot vs. an unknown recipient of help.)

A murderer is responsible for a death whereas the big spender is not responsible for hunger.

Singer goes deeper into analysis of the murderer vs. the big spender and asks if these attitudes are justified. Knowingly poisoning itself is reprehensible even if we don’t know who we kill. The lack of knowing how the money will be used is not a sufficient reason not to give.

W.I. Is there an entire theory of consequentialism? Research.

If a consequence of my spending money on a luxury item is that someone dies, I am responsible for that death. Consequentialists will say that as a result of living in today’s world we are responsible for today’s world.

Non-consequentialists have a theory of rights.

W.I. Explore the works of John Locke or Robert Nozick regarding non-consequentialism

Yes, individuals dwelling only in their own worlds cannot harm others, but that is not how the real world works. If we consider people living together in a community, it is less easy to assume that rights must be restricted to rights against interference. If you have a right to life, so does the other. Despite a lack of malice, those who kill deserve not only blame but also severe punishment.

W.I.: Do you believe the above statement? If you kill accidentally or without forethought, planning or malice, should you be punished as much as the reverse?

Not to kill is a minimum standard of acceptable conduct we can require of everyone, to save all one could possibly is not something that can realistically be required.

The Obligation to Assist: The Argument for an Obligation of Assist

If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, we ought to do it. Although this sounds solid, we don’t follow this principle by helping people in poverty.

Most non-consequentialists hold that we ought to prevent what is bad and promote what is good. I assume that absolute poverty, with its hunger and malnutrition, lack of shelter, illiteracy, disease, high infant mortality and low life expectancy, is a bad thing. And I assume that it is within the power of the affluent to reduce absolute poverty, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance.

Not to help would be wrong, so helping is something everyone ought to do.

This is the argument for an obligation to assist:

First premise: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.

Second premise: Absolute poverty is bad.

Third premise: There is some absolute poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance.

Conclusion: We ought to prevent some absolute poverty.

W.I.: What is universalizability? How does it relate to world hunger?

Then Singer argues with his own argument!

Objections to the Argument: Taking Care of Our Own

Some people will ask why help those overseas when we need to help people here first. Singer says the question is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations.

To allow one’s own kin to sink into absolute poverty would be to sacrifice something of comparable significance; and before that point had been reached, the breakdown of the system of family and community responsibility would be a factor to weigh the balance in favor of a small degree of preference for family and community. This small degree of preference is, however, decisively outweighed by existing discrepancies in wealth and property.

Property Rights

Do we have the right to not share our private property?

W.I.: See here Thomas Aquinas: what would he say?

W.I.: How would a socialist answer this question?

A theory of property rights can insist on our right to retain wealth without pronouncing on whether the rich ought to give to the poor.

Population and the Ethics of Triage

In times of war with too few doctors the patients are divided into three categories: those who would probably survive without medical assistance, those who might survive if they received assistance, but otherwise probably would not, and those who even with medical assistance probably would not survive. We would aid those countries where our help might make the difference between success and failure in bringing food and population into balance.

If a country seems to fall into the third category of triage, should we assist them? Make an argument for or against

Population growth cannot be ignored and it cannot grow indefinitely. It will be checked by a decline in birth rates or a rise in death rats. Those who advocate triage are proposing that we allow the population growth of some countries to be checked by a rise in death rates–that is, by increased malnutrition, and related diseases; by widespread famines; by increased infant mortality and by epidemics of infectious diseases. The consequences of triage on this scale are so horrible that we are inclined to reject it without further argument.

By combining the triage theory and consequentialist ethics we find: only if the greater magnitude of the uncertain benefit outweighs its uncertainty should we choose it. The same principle applies when we are trying to avoid evils. The policy of triage involves a certain, very great evil: population control by famine and disease.

Singer makes suggestions regarding what we can do about population growth.

Population growth is therefore not a reason against giving overseas aid, although it should make us think about the kind of aid to give. Instead of food handouts, it may be better to give aid that hastens the demographic transition. The obligation to assist is not reduced.

We have no obligation to assist countries whose governments have policies which will make our aid ineffective. We will help more people in the long run by using our resources where they are most effective.

Leaving It to the Government

I would agree that the governments of affluent nations should give much more genuine, no strings attached, aid than they give now. Refusing to give privately is wrong for the same reason that triage is wrong: it is a refusal to prevent a definite evil for the sake of a very uncertain gain. Singer suggests ways we can work with government.

W.I.: Explore what government agencies are doing to help with overseas aid

Too High a Standard?

If we were to set a more realistic standard, people might make a genuine effort to reach it. This setting a lower standard might actually result in more aid being given. It would mean that in order to do the maximum to reduce absolute poverty, we should advocate a standard lower than the amount we think people really ought to give. Of course we ourselves–those of us who accept the original argument, with its higher standard–would know that we ought to do more than we publicly propose people ought to do, and we might actually give more than we urge others to give. There is no inconsistency here, since in both our private and our public behavior we are trying to do what will most reduce absolute poverty.

What level should we advocate? A round percentage of one’s income…perhaps 10%.

Others may be able to give more without difficulty. No figure should be advocated as a rigid minimum or maximum; but it seems safe to advocate that those earning average or above average incomes in affluent societies, unless they have an unusually large number of dependents or other special needs, ought to give a tenth of their income to reducing absolute poverty. By any reasonable ethical standards this is the minimum we ought to do, and we do wrong if we do less.

V.9 Famine, Affluence, and Morality

269 It’s not an impossible idea to get rid of the poverty and destitution faced by millions.

On a personal/local level, people aren’t doing much

W.I.: Investigate the human tendency toward inaction

India will be forced to choose between letting the refugees starve or diverting funds from her own development program, which will mean that more of her own people will starve in the future.

270 There is nothing unique about this situation except it magnitude. Bengal is simply chosen as an example…this happens all the time.

(Singer’s thesis): What are the moral implications of a situation like this? In what follows, I shall argue that they way people in relatively affluent countries react to a situation like that in Bengal cannot be justified; indeed, the whole way we look at moral issues–our moral conceptual scheme–needs to be altered, and with it, the way of life that has come to be taken for granted in our society.

I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.

If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.

If it were acted upon, our world would be fundamentally changed. The principle takes no account of proximity or distance. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position. We cannot discriminate against someone merely because he is far away.

A large part of what they should be doing as individuals is to try to convince the government to give more aid

Mentions we haven’t responded in any significant way, while he doesn’t define “significant”

If significant means give everything to refugees, poverty-stricken, etc. then that seems outrageous as it would just turn the formerly well off into the ones living In poverty.

Large governments aren’t doing enough either

Even the most generous countries have only given enough money to support them for a few days.

Countries put more money into their own infrastructure and projects than foreign aid.

This puts the home country in a bind between saving those in need today and further causing problems in the future or not helping the needy today and being more able to prevent and fix the problem in the future by having more money

If we can help someone without doing something worse and making a huge sacrifice, it’s our job to do it.

By saying this, we should help everyone no matter where they are.

By someone being near us, it’s easier to help them and aid them as we can see what they need.

[271, 272] We all have a moral responsibility. Why do we have to choose to save a life in another country opposed to our own country where millions are fighting hungry and don’t have a place to call home.

Now that there is world news and travel we can help those far as well as near

Why must we seek attention more than anything? No one will act on their own free will. NO one takes actions when someone else is closer.

All people are equally responsible. We cannot count on everyone to give. By giving more than five I will prevent more suffering than I would if I gave just 5 dollars.

W.I.: Write about how even one person’s action can make an enormous change.

If everyone does what he ought to do, the result will not be as good as it would be if everyone did a little less than he ought to do, if only some do all they ought to do. (It is best if everyone gives a little.) In order to know how much to give everyone would have to give the same amount at the same time.

“If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.”

The result of everyone doing what he really ought to do cannot be worse than the result of everyone doing less than he ought to do. We see giving money as charity, not duty.

W.I.: The difference between duty and charity

“Supererogatory” is an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. We ought to give money away, and it is wrong not do so.

W.I.: We are more focused on getting new clothes and new cars than giving to charity and helping those in need.

The outcome of this argument is that our traditional moral categories are upset. The traditional distinction between duty and charity cannot be drawn.

W.I.: What is your moral responsibility?

273 “It might, nevertheless, be interesting to consider why our society, and most other societies, do judge differently from the way I have suggested they should.” As a philosopher trying to spread his own views and ideas, he seems unable to derive from the idea of most people having good morals, and almost justifying anything less.

Singer mentions J. O. Urmson, a British utilitarian philosopher of the late 19th century. Utilitarianism is “an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness… one theory of utilitarianism is the theory of Justification of Punishment stands in opposition to the “retributive” theory, according to which punishment is intended to make the criminal “pay” for his crime. According to the utilitarian, the rationale of punishment is entirely to prevent further crime by either reforming the criminal or protecting society from him and to deter others from crime through fear of punishment.” Henry R. West britannica.com

The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own society.

The statement from J. O. Urmson’s article is this: “the imperatives of duty, which tell us what we must do, as distinct from what it would be good to do but not wrong to do, function so as to prohibit behavior that is intolerable if men are to live together in society.”

The possibility that by spreading the idea that we ought to be doing very much more than we are to relieve famine we shall bring about a general breakdown of moral behavior seems remote. If the stakes are an end to widespread starvation, it is worth the risk.

Just as singer related his topic to another Philosopher/ Author I will do the same. In his book Social Problems: Second Edition Joel Best he describes Social Construction as the way people assign meaning to the world, such as which actions are considered “tolerable” in different societies and cultures. Even moral standards differ through cultures, this is another example of social construct.

The conclusion, regardless of circumstances, remains that “we ought to be preventing as much suffering as we can without sacrificing [seems like the notes drop off here]

Page 274 Part V Utilitarianism

Singer brings up the fact that, to a certain degree, most people are self-interested with very few of us (people in general) being likely to do everything we ought to do.

W.I: What defines the degrees of self-interest? Yet another triage?

W.I: Singer gave many examples of Contemporary Western moral standards. What moral standards can be found in other cultures and countries?

Some people say the government should be in charge. Others say we actually need population control. This point, like the previous one, is an argument against relieving suffering that is happening now, because of a belief about what might happen in the future.

275 Singer mentions that the proper “conclusion that should be drawn is that the best means of preventing famine, in the long run, is population control.”

How much should we all give? Looking at the matter purely from the point of view of overseas aid, there must be a limit to the extent to which we should deliberately slow down our economy.

Mentioned “a strong and moderate version of the principle of preventing bad occurrences.”

The moderate version saying that we should want to help stop bad occurrences from coming to pass unless it would make the situation worse. The only difference from moderate and strong is that in the strong version we lower ourselves to a level of minimal work (“marginal utility”). Singer taking the side of the strong version saying “I can see no good reason for holding the moderate version of the principle rather than the strong version.”

The Most Good You Can Do

———————————————————————————————————————

4 Effective altruists do things like the following:

Living modestly and donating a large part of their income–often much more than the traditional tenth, or tithe–to the most effective charities;

Researching and discussing with others which charities are the most effective or drawing on research done by other independent evaluators;

Choosing the career in which they can earn most, not in order to be able to live affluently but so that they can do more good;

Talking to others, in person or online, about giving, so that the idea of effective altruism will spread;

Giving part of their body–blood, bone marrow, or even a kidney–to a stranger.

Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement which applies evidence and reason to working out the most effective ways to improve the world.

5 If doing the most you can for others means that you are also flourishing, then that is the best possible outcome for everyone.

6-8 What is Altruism?

To quote Webster an Altruist is “a person unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others”. Singer digs deeper under the surface of altruist, examining every conceivable aspect of it and breaking it down.

6 People tend to be more willing to give to people with a story and a name, rather than to a face in a crowd. He then goes into how many people generously give to the Make-A-Wish foundation to make a child’s dreams of becoming Bat-Kid come true, but are then reluctant to give money to save multiple lives from malaria in another country.

I agree with him when he says that this is because of an “emotional pull”. People seem to feel compelled to give when the child is known and acknowledged as his or her own person rather than one of the many. In my opinion people may sometimes feel they can’t make a lasting difference if they give to many different people as opposed to giving all you can to one specific person.

Although Effective Altruists will also feel compelled to give into an emotional pull, they don’t because they know that their donations are better suited elsewhere where it does more good.

Effective altruists will feel the pull of helping an identifiable child from their own nation, region, or ethnic group but will then ask themselves if that is the best thing to do.

7 They give to the cause that will do the most good, given the abilities, time and money they have available.

What exactly is “the most good”?

According to Singer, even the most effective altruists will have varying opinions. Some will argue that the most good is done when there is more happiness and less suffering whereas others will say that the most good is done simply when everything is equal.

Both arguments are very compelling and understandable. Happiness is good for obvious reasons and then you have equality, which is good because everyone gets the same and no one is overabundant in one thing while others are dying for it. I personally feel that out those two options, id say that the most good would be when we live in a world with more happiness and less suffering. I say this simply because believe everyone wants to be happy and not suffer.

Does all suffering count?

Yes. According to Singer, Effective Altruists regard all suffering as bad no matter how far away they are or even what species they are. Animal suffering is not disregarded simply because they are animals, though they are measured differently on much suffering they an tolerate.

8 One thing that stood out to me was how at the top of page eight Singer states “Effective Altruists can accept one’s own children…ahead of the children of strangers.”

I was surprised at how Singer chose to word this sentence.

The word “accept” shows, in my mind, that there was hesitation.

Another thing he says a few sentences later really had me thinking. Singer says “…it’s not possible to love people without having greater concern for their [owns own children] than others.”

I had never thought of it that way, that to love, you have to love some more than others. Otherwise you wouldn’t love anyone because your feelings for everyone would be the same.

It is important to keep in mind that Effective Altruists are still people, they are still human and cannot put other first every second of every day or their life. They, like everyone else, take time out for themselves.

(9-11) Peter Singer, author of “The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically,” claims that investing resources into the arts would be a worthy goal, had we already overcome major issues in our world. In the next paragraph, Singer goes on to say, “Unfortunately, most people, even (…) professional philanthropy advisors don’t believe in thinking too much about the choice of causes to support. So it isn’t likely everyone will become an effective altruist anytime soon.” I’ve found that, in this sentence, Singer fails to mention the definition of an effective altruist, mentioned previously, leaving me to feel as if I were being persuaded.

The original characteristics of an effective altruist which are excluded in, what seems to be, a persuasive attempt to become one myself:

“Things like the following-”
“Choosing the career in which they can earn most, not in order to be able to live affluently but so that they can do more good”
“Talking to others about giving, so that the idea of effective altruism will spread”
“Giving part of their body; blood, bone marrow, or even a kidney to a stranger.”

These are reasons I do not wish to refer to myself as an “effective altruistic.” This is not because of reasons such as these which seem harmless:

“Living modestly and donating a large part of their income often much more than the traditional tenth, or tithe to the most effective charities”
“Researching and discussing with others which charities are the most effective or drawing on research done by other independent evaluators”

In terms of getting more people to claim effective altruism, these are great points. I see the problem when a person claims the belief system and never knew the other parts. It almost sounds like a cult, by definition of both cult and effective altruism, with the attempt to get their numbers up for active members.

13 Something that stood out to me in this book was even the author argued that we should be giving more than half our income, he did not do it himself.

They were trying to ease into giving marginal unity.

When he first wrote the article him and his wife were only donating half of their income. Even though that percentage was low at the beginning him and his wife are now giving one-third of their income

“One of the things that made it psychologically difficult to increase our giving was that for many years we were giving away a bigger slice of our income than anyone we knew.”

A man by the name of Zell Kravinsky had given up almost his entire 45 million dollars real estate fortune to charity. He did not put any of this money in his children or wife’s trust fund, but he donated it to help others while he lived off of $60,000 a year.

Scientific studies to show that a person that would not donate their kidney valued their life 4,000 times more than the person than that of a stranger. That high of a number is shocking.

The work of Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, professors of economics at MIT, who founded the Poverty Action Lab to carry out “social experiments”–by which they meant empirical research to discover which interventions against poverty work and which do not. Now known as the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL.

W.I.: Explore their work

15 Innovations for Poverty Action

W.I. Explore

16 Give Well, an organization that has taken the evaluation of charities to a new level

W.I.: Explore

18 In 2009 Ord and Will MacAskill founded Giving What We Can which was created to end poverty in the developing world. The members of the organization would pledge to give 10 percent of their income to fund the relief efforts. They organization had 644 members who had pledged to give that percentage. If all went according to plan the organization would raise 309 million dollars for charity. Founded another organization – 80,000 Hours – a global community seeking to change the world.

19 The Life You Can Save – Book – 2009. Website set up so people could pledge 10 percent. Website grew. Everything has a purpose. The book affected even Charlie Bresler – Who would later become the president of Men’s Warehouse. Now the unpaid executive director of The Life You Can Save.

20 2013 – Budget of $147,000 had moved up to $594,000 – more than 400 percent “return on investment’

Title page Part Two: How To Do The Most Good

3 Living Modestly to Give More

The definition of Modest: (of an amount, rate, or level) relatively moderate, limited, or small.

It is possible to do an immense amount of good without earning a lot.

This doesn’t necessarily mean “living on rice and beans and never going out to a movie” as source states. Living modestly means, not the bare minimum, but nothing excessive or completely unnecessary. Singer, along with Julia and her husband Jeff Kaufman, understand that lower incomes can give just as much without sacrificing anything of comparable significance.

W.I.: Learn more about Giving Gladly

Poorness is objective in itself. However, wealthier people often feel poor in comparison to those with even more wealth. Seeing that Julia and Jeff Kaufman were already living modestly and giving with a lower income, it was not hard for them to give more as they earned it.

24 It shows first a graph of how Julia and her husband, Jeff, expenses looked like between August 2013 and July 2014. It talked about how they achieved saving so much and being able to give so much to charity such as taking the bus instead of owning a car as well as only renting part of a house. Knowing that the future held other financial obstacles they still donated half of their income.

25 It also starts off with a graph but instead it shows the “budget for a single person living in the Boston area on 35,000 a year.” We also see that julia provides us a list of the budget breakdown and how it would look realistically showing that most of it going to rent, only 10% being donated as well as saved.

26 If living on a median income you could donate, save money for the future and still have enough to live comfortably.

W.I.: Do you agree with the statement above?

We are told that Julia isn’t Catholic yet has mentioned words spoken by Ambrose, a fourth-century archbishop of Milan who became known as one of the four original Great Doctors of the Roman Catholic Church.

W.I.: Investigate Ambrose.

He states that when you give to the poor “ You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his,. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself.” As this radical view over time became apart of Christian traditions, the Roman Catholic Church never denied it and at times would repeat it to others. Pope Paul VI even quoted a part of what Ambrose said into his encyclical.

27 Julia, a Catholic, reads in the Bible of a time Jesus spoke. Jesus told the man that he is to go and sell everything and give it to the poor. Julia began to do just that.

W.I. Investigate Aaron Moore: Australian international aid worker and artist

28 Questions then arise: How far is too far? Is creating your own misery or saving someone else’s life more important? We can not give everything.

29 “Everyone has boundaries. If you find yourself doing something that makes you bitter, it is time to reconsider.” This also reflects on the balance between giving too much and not enough. Julia found that her decision to not have a child was making her bitter. Julia soon understood that she would be more successful to the world with her personal happiness.

W.I.: Learn more about George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends

30-32 At the very end of page twenty-nine and into the beginning of thirty, the author is telling a story of a woman who become so deeply engulfed in helping others that she was sacrificing things in her own life that gave her any source of happiness. She deprived herself of every little ounce of joy because she told herself that her joy wasn’t as important as giving those extra few dollars for ice cream to a woman who needed to feed her children.

Although it is good to help others, sometimes it’s okay to put yourself first, healthy even.

Set a budget for giving, but also for yourself.

If you deprive yourself of all happiness just to bring another happiness than you’re not really doing any good, your simply switching sides the person who’s miserable.

There needs to be a healthy balance of giving and keeping:

The giver should not be giving simply because they feel they HAVE to or even in such excess that it deprives them of happiness and the simple joys in life.

You also shouldn’t stop others from giving things to you if that makes them happy (ex. Christmas and birthday gifts) Its okay to buy ice cream or accept a gift every now and then.

Although life should not be all about you, your happiness matters just as much as another’s.

Nearing the end of page thirty and onto thirty-one, Singer elaborates more on a story he told pages before about the same woman who deprived herself of ice cream as well as life’s other little joys. Her and her husband wanted to have a child but for some time she was adamant about not having a child because it would take away too much time and money that they could use to help others in need. This decision changed over time due to some factors:

By not having a child in order to giveaway more money than that extra money would have more weight to them then the other money they give. (On page 31 the woman (Julia) says “I’m happy donating 50 percent of my income over my life, but if I also chose not to have a child simply to raise that amount to 55 percent, then that final 5 percent would cost more than all the rest…”

Something I found slightly disturbing is how Singer tries to justify having a child as though it is a bad thing to create life with your spouse.

Singer talks about how hopefully the child will do more good than bad in its life and therefore be worth having it. That, to put it frankly, infuriated me. How would the child feel when he grew up and found out that his parents had to weigh his existence on whether or not he’d be good and raise more money than the cost to be alive.

Yes, children are expensive but their worth it and no one should deprive themselves of a child simply to donate EXTRA money.

Julia also mentions that she “rejects the idea that her responsibility is limited to doing the best for her own child.” This makes me think that Julia does not see children as a blessing but as a burden.

My question is, if she’s so concerned about how the child will ruin her way of life, then why even have one? You should have a child because YOU want to and because you can take care of it and provide it with everything it needs to become the best version of itself, not simply because you’re hoping it will pay the cost of itself.

Having a child can increase empathy because you can then really feel the struggle and responsibility it takes to protect and care for another.

Other Effective Altruists: Rhema Hokama

-modest income

-starting giving when she got her first paycheck

-started donating 2 percent

-set up a “donation account” that she adds into and at the end of the year donates everything in that account to a worthy cause

-doesn’t own a car and packs her own lunches at college to save money

33: Rhema Hokama made a lot of money, lives like her childhood home in Hawaii with a working-class family.

W.I. Learn more about R. Hokama

34: Celso Vieira; thought to have a mental disability as a child, but they turned out to be a genius. Vieira gives to charities such as ‘Innovations for Poverty Action.’

W.I.: Investigate The Life You Can Save

35: Priya Basil grew up in Kenya, in what she calls “A bubble of privilege,” came from India. She has been both rich and poor.

W.I. Explore the writings of P. Basil

36 A woman named Priya is aware that people in our life and the situations in our life play a big role in determining our values and behavior

Believes altruism needs to be needs to be watched challenged and nurtured, or it’ll become “stale” or “automatic”

It is also easy to be caught up with yourself and being “All about me”. Priya mentions that it is hard not impulsively shop.

Priya donates 5 percent of her income to effective charities. Even though due to her income she meets the requirements she plans to donate 10 percent.

In addition to giving, Priya and her partner co-founded in the organization called authors for peace Is involved in another political initiative called Writers Against Mass Surveillance. She believes by working to help one Society you increase the chance of all the societies excelling.

W.I. : Learn more about Authors for Peace

37 Priya explains that even if you live in a household that earns less than the average income, you can still donate 10 percent and make a huge difference in a person’s life who would make roughly 1 percent of the median income

39 Everyone can donate to charity, but the more money you make the more you’re able to donate.

W.I. Explore John Wesley, the founder of Methodism

W.I.: write about the idea of purposely becoming rich to be able to donate a lot to charity, and who does this.

Jim Greenbaum born in 1958 was another man who did this. He has committed to donating 85 percent of his 133 million dollars before he dies. The rest of his fortune will be donated when he dies. Unlike other people committed to donating everything, he lives a luxurious lifestyle. Many wealthy people have committed to donate almost all their money before they die.

W.I.: write about some of the richest people in the world who have committed to donate almost all their money such as Bill Gates, Jim Greenbaum, or Matt Wage

W.I.: Is it wrong to take a higher paying job over a job working for charity if you are going to donate a lot of money to charity?

W.I.: is it more effective to work for a charity or to work somewhere else that pays much more but you will donate enough money to charity to pay for two employees?

As a charity worker you are largely replaceable. Working in finance, however, you earn much more than you need and give half of your earnings to the charity, which can us that money to employ two extra workers it would not, without your donation, have been able to employ at all. Whereas you would have been replaceable as a charity worker, you are not replaceable as a donor.

42 Change is a good thing. When you donate you should be certain that the charity you donate to is effective with its proceeds. Millennials connect with like minded people over social media to share their ideas and experiences.

43 Many people believe charity is very important no matter how you give.

Effective altruism – “Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others.”

Philipp Gruissem is an example of effective altruism. “Raising for Effective Giving.”

W.I.: Animal Charity Evaluators: tries to find the most effective charities helping animals.

W.I.: University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute investigates the problem of how to allocate scarce resources among different global needs.

W.I.: Raising for Effective Giving (explore)

44 “1. Modern animal agriculture causes an immense amount of suffering. 2. We are responsible both for what we do and for what we refrain from doing. 3. We have the means to reduce the suffering caused by modern animal agriculture. 4. It is imperative for each of us to do so.”

W.I.: Hampton Creek Foods.

W.I.: Humane League.

W.I.: Mercy for Animals.

W.I.: Population Services International.

45 The Psychology of Earning to Give

This page introduces Jason Trigg, an MIT computer science graduate giving half of his salary to the Against Malaria Foundation. Given this information about his educational background, one can only assume he has an outstanding paycheck. The 2013 article mentioned is titled Join Wall Street. Save The World. It Revealed that Trigg is a programmer that went to work for a hedge fund in order to earn more money to give.

Although Trigg really seems to be doing the most good that he can, David Brooks from The New York Times “Brooks urged caution. He warned, first that our daily activities change us, and by working in a hedge fund your ideas can slip so that you become less committed to giving.” A Hedge Fund is “a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains.” or an investment partnership. So far, Jason does not seem to be changed as brooks said.David Brooks also warned that choosing a career just for the money can be corrosive. His last warning, Brooks said “turning yourself into a means rather than an end… a machine for the redistribution of wealth.” He explained that this objection is a moral issue, but it can happen and should be mentioned.

46 Matt Wage is another student who chose finance over another career. Although Jason Trigg only chose the path for money, Wage seems to enjoy is and finds his work “interesting.” Brooks and Wage agreed that this path could “[turn yourself into] a machine for redistribution of wealth.” Matt wage explains this as selfishness and jealousy, using ferraris against charities. A clearly selfish choice that most people would make. Matt knows this can happen to him and created a strategy to fight his own implied selfishness; publicity.

Next is Jim Greenbaum, another businessman. Although the first two examples in this section seemed satisfied with their career, Jim Greenbaum said that his initial years were frustrating, because it took longer than expected to earn enough money to help others, but said it did not make him any less committed. Jim also is an advocate for balance between comfort and good like several others have agreed, and others less.

47 Ben West makes an interesting point for page 47. He points out that “even from a selfish perspective, earning to give allows you to have things that believe make them happy, like money and a high-status job, while still getting the fulfillment that comes from knowing you are helping to make the world a better place.” Although this is a good thing, I disagree. It is not selfish to feel good about helping others. Singer mentioned Ian Ross and Alex Foster next, and they are on somewhat different pages when it comes to giving. Ross says there’s no risk for burnout and will continue to give, but Foster was much more enthusiastic. Foster said that this period of his life/career is extremely fulfilling, even with a reduced social life. And on the very different page lies Aveek Bhattacharya, who sees earning to give as an experiment. On this note, Singer brings Brooks back up to warn that earning to give is NOT for everyone. Aveek seems like a very good example of this. However, even a lack of enthusiasm can do good to others. Maybe less good, but some good is better than no good. On the worst side to this, if someone is not enthusiastic they CAN become corrosive effect on them.

49 To fit into the ethos of the organization in which they want to succeed, people earning to give may have to disguise their views about the intrinsic value of their work. It is also true that some of those who change their career in order to earn to give have stepped aside from their own projects and have instead taken the career required by “utilitarian calculation.”

Those who earn to give are, to a greater extent than most people, living in accord with their values; they live so as to do the most good.

50 No doubt capitalism does drive some people into extreme poverty–it is such a vast system that it would be surprising if it did not–but it has also lifted hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty. It would not be easy to demonstrate that capitalism has driven more people into extreme poverty than it has lifted out of it; indeed there are good grounds for thinking that the opposite is the case.

51 Singer refers to the title of the book, “Do the most good you can.” Singer sets himself apart from an effective altruist. He shows how his view on “doing the most good” may be different in his eyes than in the eyes of an effective altruist.

I notice that Singer is very controversial in the philosophical world, and he is not afraid to tell the reader when his view differs from others.

W.I.: An idea for an argument paper: “…you will probably also think that it is wrong to be involved in financial activities that harm some people, even if that brings about an equivalent benefit to many more.”

52 Singer approaches the idea of “ Well, If I didn’t do this bad thing someone else would have anyway.” i.e.- The guards at Auschwitz were at no fault because if they did not guard than someone else would have. [Would delete due to it being a more harsh example of the idea below] Add this:

52 Your choice to work for the bank will have good consequences, for it will have made you a better-informed, more credible opponent of the bank’s actions.

53 If one held that investment banks and similar corporations are engaged in wrongdoing, one might see this as a sufficient reason for not going into the finance industry. (Or you could think the opposite.)

A Brookings Institution study has pointed out that millennials are much more concerned about corporate social responsibility.

54 Millennials want their daily work to be part of, and reflect, their societal concerns.

W.I. Is the above statement true?

Singer quotes another in saying that employees want “their daily work to be a part of, and reflet, their social concerns.” I believe this quote is saying that people want the work that they do to reflect their morals, values, social concerns and beliefs.

Example- Someone who is against abortion, most likely would not be working in an abortion clinic (unless to end it from the inside) .

Some people only get jobs to earn money so that they can give it away.

55 Other Ethical Careers

Will MacAskill does not claim that earning to give is always or even usually the best option. Rather, he thinks we should see it as a baseline against which to compare other possible ethical careers.

Singer goes on to talk about “the ability to find work one is interested in.” He understands that to do something well you have to at least somewhat enjoy what you do, otherwise you won’t try to do better or make an effort.

Staying committed to giving away a large chunk of your money is struggle.

Singer uses “earning to give” as a baseline by which to weigh all other jobs.

In simple terms, if he makes more money for others by influencing others to give, than he would by making money himself then he is doing better than he could have at a regular 9-5 job. Working for a meta charity can do more good than a regular one.

W.I. What are meta charities? What do they do? Examples?

56 The Bureaucrat

The more skills you have that set you apart from the crowd, the more irreplaceable you are.

Just because you don’t like what a company is doing doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work there, you can make a difference.

Singer talks about a man who initially didn’t want to pursue a job at a bank because he didn’t like what the bank was doing, but singer suggested he take the job. Years later singer gets a reply telling him about how he works at the bank and the differences he’s made for the better.

57 There are very big differences in the cost-effectiveness of different ways of improving the health of people in developing countries, so even with a fixed budget, better choices can make a huge difference.

Researchers

Medical researchers, biologists

58 There may be better prospects of making an impact in a relatively uncrowded field. 80,000 Hours recommends “Prioritization Research,” which it describes as “activity aimed at working out which causes, interventions, organisations, policies, etc. do the most to make the world a better place.”

Organizers and Campaigners

Starting an organization

59 There are situations in which if one particular person had not started a novel organization, none of the benefits brought about by the organization would have been achieved.

W.I. Research Janina Ochojska, the Polish EquiLibre Foundation or Polish Humanitarian Action, or (PAH)

60 Ochojska rejects the idea that you can only care and donate to the people that live nearby rather than help people farther away.

PAH helps run educational programs to help make students understand the needs of others in 3rd world countries. To my surprise, it is the leading Non-governmental polish provider of assistance and humanitarian relief. Learning more than US $5 million.

Dharma Master Cheng Yen saw a woman being carried down the mountains of Hualien County. When they arrived they were told they had to pay for medical treatment. Not having any money, the family had to carry her back again.

After the incident Cheng Yen then started an organization with 30 houswifes where they put donated a few cents to families in need.

61 The organization was called Tzu Chi meaning “compassionate relief”

Overtime the word spread and funds were raised to build hospitals. This lead to Tzu Chi founding medical schools and nursing schools to teach the local people

One feature that was interesting is that when they received cadavers they would treat them with the utmost respect and would even meet the family and friends of the person to learn more about them.

Tzu Chi is now a big organization with 7 million members…they have also rebuilt 51 schools.

62 Tzu chi has become a major recycler. They get volunteers to collect bottles and other recyclables that are turned into carpets and clothing.

All meals served in Tzu Chi hospitals, schools, universities, and other institutions are vegetarian.

They distribute $10 million dollars worth of visa debit cards after an earthquake and Tsunami hit Japan; each card has 600 dollars on it

This organization teaches to show love and compassion to others, whether they are rich or poor. Even though they won’t be as big as other organizations they will alway continue to inspire people worldwide to show compassion and love to others.

63 Students from MIT and Harvard (Michael Faye, Paul Niehaus, Jeremy Shapiro and Rohit Wanchoo) studied where donations went and what was more effective. They studied charities that distributed money themselves, and also agencies in which you donated straight to those who needed it. They discovered that the money that was directly donated was typically used for good things. They also discovered that people prefer to donate to the less fortunate directly.

GiveDirectly is among its top three recommended charities.

W.I: write about donating to a charity and having them do what they want with it vs. directly donating to the less fortunate.

These same students tried to find an organization that offered direct giving but none did. To solve this problem, they made their own charity: GiveDirectly, which allows donors to donate directly to the needy and see where it goes.

W.I.: write a biography on GiveDirectly and how it works.

64 Henry Spira worked for most of his life defending and helping the weak and oppressed. He began to fight for animals rights after inheriting a cat from a friend. During his life He led a successful campaign that convinced Revlon and Avon beauty products to stop product testing on animals.

W.I: write about companies that still continue to test on animals and what is being done to try to stop this.

W.I: write about Spira and all that he did for the animal rights movements.

65 A Wide-Open Choice

W.I: write about the career you think you could do well that would help the maximum amount of people/do the most good.

67 Giving a Part of Yourself

In January 2013 Peter Singer received an email from a college student who donated his kidney after reading The Life You Can Save which had stated that none of Peter Singer’s students have ever donated a kidney so Chris Croy, a student at St. Louis Community College, in Meramec, Missouri proved Singer wrong. Croy stated that a means to aid others is to donate organs. Will giving your organ aid more than affecting your own life?

W.I. What good does giving an organ do?

W.I. The process of donating an organ

W.I. Kidney donation.

W.I. Argument against donating a kidney.

Donating organs changes peoples’ lives and lets them live their life. Zell Kravinsky’s donation. “In 2014 the waiting line for a kidney was one hundred thousand and still growing. The waiting list a deceased donor can be five years, and in some states is closer to ten years. On average fourteen people die on the waiting list each day.” Some of the people on the list would have still died even with the transplant but receiving a kidney transplant adds an average of ten years of life to the recipient.

W.I. What it’s like to be on the waiting list.

W.I. How can receiving a kidney change a person’s life and how much longer they get to live.

69 Alexander Berger works for GiveWell, an altruistic organization that has been referred to throughout this document as well as “ The Most Good You Can Do” but he went beyond his already altruistic lifestyle and followed Chris Croy’s trend and decided to altruistically donate his kidney. Berger donated 15-20% of his income regularly, which is something that singer has stressed throughout the book as well as his article from “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.”

Along with starting a doner chain, Croy became vegan. I figured since he cares so deeply for other lives that he would be very strict about dairy and eggs and such. Ironically, this is not the case! He said that “…trying to be very strict about these things discourages people from becoming vegan and so causes more suffering than it prevents.”

70 Croy says that he didn’t think giving his kidney was all that good. He only took 25 years into consideration. That, to me, is still a whole lot of good. ESPECIALLY at the risk of his own health. He didn’t even think it was enough good considering everyone else that had followed his altruistic doner path. I disagree with Croy about it being not good enough, however I do agree with singer when he says “Going to a hospital to have surgery that does no good to you and carries a risk of harm, however small, in order to benefit a stranger seems to take altruism to a very high level.” However, I am not in total disagreement with altruistic kidney donation or other donations such as blood, plasma, bone marrow, stem cells, etc. I find it fascinating that one can continue to give apart of themselves altruistically even after death. I plan to sign up to donate and have my organs harvested after my death. I even have a little heart icon on my driver’s license. ❤️

71 Singer points out that blood, plasma, bone marrow, and stem cells can grow back whereas a kidney cannot. Even so, I still believe that donating one of your kidneys to someone in desperate need is more than okay as long as it does not bring any huge risks for yourself.

Apparently, altruistic organ donation was regarded as psychological! Singer said that this was all up until 2001. That was only 18 years ago. Genuine compassion and empathy for lives seems to be even more rare and outlandish than I thought. Or, in 2001 it was at least. In the UK, it was illegal to donate one’s kidney altruistically. Upon further research, I assumed that this was only illegal because the boom of organ trafficking in the United Kingdom, especially for kidneys. The sources I researched were dated around 2012, so I am not yet certain about this theory.

Chapter Seven: Is Love All We Need?

75 Singer approaches the theory of “All we need is Love” He asks if effective altruists are motivated by universal love.

Effective altruists are sufficiently concerned about the welfare of others to make meaningful changes in their lives. Effective altruists donate to charities that, instead of making an emotional appeal to prospective donors, can demonstrate that they will use donations to save lives and reduce suffering in a way that is highly cost-effective. In order to be able to do more good, effective altruists limit their spending or take a different career path so that they will have more to give or will be more useful in some other way. They may also donate blood, stem cells, bone marrow, or a kidney to a stranger.

What motivates them?

W.I. Who is David Hume?

David Hume- explains that there is no such passion in human minds as the love of mankind

76 Hume relates the love of each other to genetic selection itself. He explains that these two ideas go hand in hand. Our love promotes the survival of genes like ours.

It is easy to see why we would help kin or business partners.

W.I. Who is Frans de Waal?

Waal explains that typically humans do not treat all humans the same, but favor kin/ people they know rather than a stranger.

Maybe love does not motivate effective altruists, but in fact empathy motivates them.

77 Singer now leaves the idea of love motivating altruists, and moves to empathy motivating an effective altruist.

Empathy- the ability to put oneself in the position of others and identify with their feelings and emotions.

Interpersonal Reactivity Inventory has four distinct categories. Empathic concern, (the tendency to experience feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for other people; Personal distress, (one’s own feelings of personal unease and discomfort in reaction to the emotions of others; Perspective taking (the tendency to adopt the point of view of other people; and Fantasy (the tendency to imagine oneself experiencing the feelings and performing the actions of fictitious characters.).

W.I. Explain the four types of Interpersonal Reactivity Inventory and how they relate to altruism.

78 It is easier to feel emotional empathy for one identifiable child than it is to feel that for thousands of children in a circumstance like the one identifiable child. I think this may be due to the fact that it is more likely that you can help one specific child than it is that you can save all the thousands of hurting children. When you don’t feel like you can make a difference it depresses you and you don’t even want to try. I also feel it is easier to identify with one child more than thousands, the same way it is easier for a mother to love her child more than others. When that child is there, and you see it and it has a name and a story then it somehow seems to make it more real than the thousands of other unidentifiable children in need. Effective altruism does not require and is often opposed to letting emotions lead what we feel is the most good because empathy can lead us to make decisions that are not the most possible good we could do.

Effective altruists are sensitive to numbers and to cost per life saved or year of suffering prevented. If they have 10,000 to donate, they would rather give it to a charity that can save a life for 2,000 than one that can save a life for 5,000 because they would rather save five lives than two.

“Paul Bloom, a professor of Psychology at Yale University, has suggested that if we think about our own responses, most of us will realize that we do [let our emotions lead us].”

79 Most of the time our reactions are not equivalent with the amount of pain we are reacting to. Imagine that 2000 people have died. We would most likely feel sad. Now imagine imagine that 20,000 people just died. We probably feel worse about that but its not likely that we feel 10 times worse than we did for the 2,000 who died.

Effective altruists share a lot of moral judgments with utilitarians. Singer tells a story about a runaway trolley heading for 5 people. The trolley will kill the five people unless YOU divert it, in which case it will only kill one. The people in the studies who answered with a utilitarian judgement normally had low levels of empathy. In my opinion, although it is sad, if I HAD to make a choice, I would let the five die and save the one. I know it sounds crazy but I just couldn’t physically divert the train knowing that i would be the actual cause of someone’s death. I just couldn’t do it.

80 Although empathy is good, there is no way to get everyone in the world to empathize with everyone else in the world, it’s just not possible. What everyone needs to realize is that just because you may not feel empathy for someone doesnt mean your life is worth any more than theirs. You child’s life is worth the same as a strangers. Everyone’s life is worth the same. Bloom states that “To the extent that we can recognize the numbers as significance, it’s because of reason, not empathy.” The strongest objection to this claim comes from Hume’s view that “reason can never initiate an action because all action starts with passion or desire.” I personally agree with Hume more on this. If you really think about it, reason itself stems from desire. It can be one’s desire to be reasonable. Every action we have, every move we make, we do because something in us wants to. Whether or not the decisions we make are correct or “reasonable”, we make them because we desire to or because of how we feel.

81 Essentially saying that all people are equals, unless one being is doing more good than the other; (Utilitarianism.) This idea is considered by Sidgwick, the last Utilitarianist of the nineteenth century and quoted by Singer, to be ‘rational/logical’ thought.

82 The same principles used by both Sidgwick & Bloom lead them to a similar idea of universal ‘brotherhood.’ Humans aren’t purely rational; if we were we would be driven to do the most good for the sole purpose of doing the ‘most’ good.

83 Human beings who practice self-respect are allegedly more ‘rational’ and are more empathetic.

85 Chapter 8: One Among Many

Bernard Williams argued that human beings are not the kind of creatures who can take “the point of view of the universe. He also mentions that there is no exercise that consist of stepping outside yourself or your point of view to evaluate the dispositions, projects, and affections that constitute the substance of life.

Effective altruists seem to have completed what WIlliams thought could not be done. They are able to detach themselves from personal considerations. While this detachment is not total, it does make a difference to how they live. It is based on reasoning of a kind.

Living from a point of view that is independent of their own “dispositions, projects and affections.”

86 Effective altruists have a few commonly expressed dispositions that they would consider misguided grounds for giving. One example is “I give to breast cancer research because my wife died of breast cancer”. “The point of view of the universe” has an influence on one’s behavior that will vary person to person. Effective altruist decide on their overall view while they are still young; before they were engrossed in different projects or gained close personal attachments.

“By modifying and redirecting our passions, it can play a critical part in the process that leads us to act ethically.

87 Numbers turn people into altruists. It goes into detail regarding several people who took a look at the numbers and realized how big of a difference they can make

W.I: find a statistic about altruism and charitable donations and see how it changes your opinion on what you can do

W.I: write about one of the altruists discussed on this page and how numbers changed their perspective

People value their own lives and those that are closest to them more then distant abstract people

This would make sense as people are more likely to donate if they have a face or an individual person they’re donating to.

People tend to think of individual people, not as a statistic

W.I: write about how people tend to think more of personal people/individuals/people close to them rather than a group as a whole or statistic.

If our capacity to reason also enables us to see that the good of others is, from a more universal perspective, as important as our own good, then we have an explanation for why effective altruists act in accordance with such principles. Like our ability to do higher math, this use of reason to recognize fundamental moral truths would be a by-product of another trait or ability that was selected for because it enhanced our reproductive fitness–something that in evolutionary theory is known as a spandrel.

When they talk about why they act as they do, they often use language that is more suggestive of a rational insight than of an emotional impulse.

88 Effective altruists look how to help the most people, rather than an individual person. These people tend to donate to bigger, more effective organizations that got to help many people, while other smaller, less-effective organizations allow you to see how you’re making a difference directly, do less good and help fewer people

People with backgrounds in math and analytical reasoning tend to be the msot effective altruists.

W.I: write about how a background involving math would make you a more effective altruist

89 A study showed that including numbers and statistics increased the donations given by large donors but decreased the number of small donors.

Effective altruists are strongly influenced by analytical data such as statistics and facts

It is telling that effective altruists talk more about the number of people they are able to help than about helping particular individuals.

My favorite example of the combination of effective altruism and numeracy is the website Counting Animals, which has the subtitle “A place for people who love animals and numbers” and a home page stating that “nerdism meets animal rights here!”

People with a high level of abstract reasoning ability are more likely to take the kind of approach to helping others that is characteristic of effective altruism.

W.I: write about why these effective altruists are influenced by this information so much

90 Karlan and Daniel Wood. Freedom from Hunger, a U.S. based charity, they use fundraising-letters. The Standard letter comes with information about the individual who is benefiting by the Freedom from Hunger’s work. “Scientific evidence that shows the effectiveness of Freedom from Hunger increased the number of donations of large donors but decreased the number of donations received from small donors.” “Warm Glow donators.” Effective Altruists – Charitable effectiveness, analytical information, they allow their reasoning abilities to override and redirect their emotion is consistent. Joshua Greene. People use two distinct processes when making moral judgments.

W.I. What processes happen when making moral judgments.

W.I. What’s the most effective way to give your money in a charity.

W.I. What charity is the best at its job.

91 When confronted with moral judgments one will have a gut reaction telling that person what is right or wrong. Intuitive responses are quick and easy and yield good results, but sometimes will lead you astray. Emotional Point-and-shoot mode. Utilitarian Judgment. Nonutilitarian judgment.

W.I. Nonutilitarian judgment.

W.I. Utilitarian Judgment

W.I. Are intuitive responses always right and if not what is the reason.

The most controversial aspect of this model is that it links moral judgments characteristically based on the idea that something is just wrong in itself, independently of its consequences, to the instinctive, emotionally based point-and-shoot mode of reaching a moral judgment and links characteristically utilitarian judgments to the manual mode, which draws on our conscious thought processes, or reasoning, as well as on emotional attitudes. An early piece of evidence for this view came from a study in which Greene and his colleagues asked people to make judgments about trolley problems and similar moral dilemmas while images were being taken of their brain activity. The study showed increased activity in brain areas associated with cognitive control before a subject made a utilitarian judgment but not before making a non utilitarian judgment. This suggestive finding has since been supported by a wide variety of further evidence.

92 Experiments have shown that cognitive loading has shed light on the realm of brain where these functions are being processed. These experiments used various methods on the participants like having the participant memorize a series of numbers or letters. Other experiments involved the participants being shown a picture of a single person that would be harmed if that participant did not choose to act so as to save the larger group of people, the most likely response of the participant was the feeling of empathy for the person shown in the picture. These studies bolster as well the more specific claim that associates characteristically consequentialist judgments with greater use of conscious reasoning processes. Holden Karnofsky. GiveWell.

W.I. Cognitive Loading

W.I. Holden Karnofsky

W.I. The human mind and what we think

93 As page 92 deals with cognitive loading in a textbook sense, 93 makes it hypothetical. Holden Karnofsky (above) is the cofounder of GiveWell. Singer makes a hypothetical situation in which Karnofsky would have to choose between his passion of soup kitchen or his current position at GiveWell. Singer suggests that reason, in this case, trumps that of passion even though a desire for good is present in both situations. He also uses an example of an animal rights activist named Harish Sethu who argues that motivation is not just one side of the other, but emotion and reason together.

WI: Write an argumentative essay defending each example and then choose your own path.

94 Singer has already mentioned that people are more likely to help someone they can recognize. Sethu pays homage to that ideology, but he flips it. He says that the recognition of a larger universe of animal suffering that he sees in a video “does not dampen his emotional response, as it does in people who are told about a group of children in need rather than one child.” Sethu recognizes that it is a whole social issue, and does not happen to only one animal. This makes his wish go give more even stronger, yet when it comes to other people, we give less money and resources or more people who need it. Rather than more money and resources or more people that need it.

Abstract reasoning essentially means that the answers can be found in gray areas, and are not always just black or white. Singer argues that this is conducive to effective altruism. “Have people’s abstract reasoning abilities suddenly improved?” I don’t think that is the case. I don’t think it was the abilities that improved, I think it related more to cultural and societal improvements that made altruism more common and good.

95 Steven Pinker believes the invention of the printing press improved our reasoning and spread ideas and information to a much larger proportion of the population. He argues that better reasoning has a positive moral impact.

97 Chapter 9: Altruism and Happiness

97 Check out the blog post “Excited Altruism.”

Effective altruists do not generally see what they are doing as a sacrifice.

98 Studies of the relationship between income and happiness or well-being indicate that for people at low levels of income, an increase in income does lead to greater happiness, but once income is sufficient to provide for one’s needs and a degree of financial security, further increases have either much less impact on happiness or no impact at all.

99 Singer continues on the idea of “Does money equal happiness” or more accurately does lack of money equal lack of happiness? Singer found that in the former study the bad mood was highly exaggerated, and in the latter people largely underestimated how happy people at the lower incomes would be.

Singer then approaches “Does having more material things make us happier?”

He concludes that using your income to buy more stuff does not make us happier, but using it to help others does.

Americans today have three times the amount of space, per person than they did in 1950. They pay a total of 22 billion a year to rent extra storage space. Are they happier for having so much stuff?

100 Singer finds a correlation; he finds that people who are happier are more likely to give help to others. In the same way, giving makes people feel happier.

There is a positive correlation between having donated to charity in the past month and being at a higher level of happiness. This creates a positive feedback loop that leads to more spending on others and greater happiness.

W.I. Do a study and investigate how happy people think they are in relation to how much they give.

101 W.I. Sue Rabbitt Roff investigate her studies on how donors self-esteem is affected.

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being best, an average score of 9.8 was given in rating the overall donation experience while an average score of 10 was given to willingness to do it again.

Self-esteem is important for happiness. I think that self-esteem is important for happiness; I think that it allows happiness. If you have no self-esteem could you really be truly happy?

W.I. Richard Keshen’s concepts for self esteem

102 Everyone’s life and well being is regarded as equal to your own. You cannot ignore the interests of others or you are basically saying that their life isn’t as valuable as yours. Effective Altruists are not actually sacrificing anything because they do not regard what they do as “sacrificing” but rather something that they want to do. They see this as one element of the core of their identity.

103 If they are not sacrificing anything can they really be called “effective altruists?” The answer is yes. Just because one is also gaining happiness from the act of giving to others does not change the fact that they are indeed, helping. Take exercise for example. A majority of people hate working out; they complain it’s painful, time consuming, and oftentimes expensive, but some people love it. They work out all the time and find great joy in it. The fact that they love it has no change in the fact that it helps their health and well-being anymore than it changes the fact that it helps those who hate it. Altruists can be defined by their interests, not the loss of them.

W.I. The difference between Egoism and Altruism

104 The difference between Egoism and Altruism is unimportant when you keep in mind the interest of others. You shouldn’t label someone as an Altruist or an Egoist based of the joy they receive from the good that they do, but rather the increased well being of the person/people they chose to help. If you are doing the most possible good you can, it doesn’t really matter if you benefit from it or not.

105 Part Four: Choosing Causes and Organizations

107 Chapter 10 Domestic or Global?

How can we tell if we are being the most effective with our time, money and efforts? The field of philanthropy has, as a whole, been extremely reluctant to tackle these comparative questions. Finding the answers involves not only questions of fact that are difficult to establish but also controversial value judgments. Let us use the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors as an example. It is one of the world’s largest philanthropic service organizations.

108: A website created by Rockefeller Advisors features a section called “Your Philanthropy Roadmap”. The goal is to start helping donors create thoughtful and effective giving program. It includes charts that give information about various areas that might give health and safety, education, arts culture and heritage.

Animal welfare does not fit the environment category because much of the suffering human inflicts on animals .

It also fails to indicate that intendcing donors living in affluent countries must choose whether to give to an organition that acts domestically or one with a focus beyond thatir country’s borders. Giving to reduce global poverty does not even appear as a category.

109: Among the various projects, the leaflet wants to seek to improve health care for the global poor and improve health care in america. In 1988 Ted Turner gave a third of his wealth to health programs focused on the world’s biggest killer diseases; mainly in developing countries.

The Initiative has been very successful drawing in funding from non profit organizations such as Gates Foundation. 1.1 billion children have been given a combined vaccine that prevents measles and rubella. Deaths from measles have fallen 78%, the cost of the vaccine is one dollar.

Lucile Packard gave 40 million donation to establish a hospital in Palo Alto, California. The Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital has been in the news for its success in achieving difficult separations of conjoined twins.

110 In 2007 the hospital separated two girls both Costa Rica who share deliver. The cost estimated at somewhere between 1 million and 2 million. One of the girls needed heart surgery for a heart defect and the other needed an operation to reconstruct her chest cavity. The hospital paid for operations and the doctors donated their time.

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors describe the costs of a child living in a ICU and it is really shocking. The million dollars used could help many children in a developing country.

What Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors does not say, in describing these two projects, is that the cost of saving a child’s life in an intensive care hospital in the U.S. is typically thousands of times higher than the cost of saving the life of a child in a developing country. It doesn’t seem all that difficult to judge that is is better to use a million dollars to save the lives of hundreds of children by protecting them from measles than to use it to separate one pair of conjoined twins or save one extremely premature infant. It costs about 40,000 to supply one person in the U.S. with a guide dog…

111 but the cost of preventing someone from going blind because of trachoma, the most common cause of preventable blindness, is in the range of 20-100 dollars.

Even though America has many poor people, and people living in poverty, the poverty experienced is relative. Compared to people living in extreme poverty, they’re living lavishly.

Poverty in the US is almost 6000 a year per person while extreme poverty is around 500 dollars.

A dollar and twenty-five cents a day is what more than a billion people live on, virtually all of them in developing countries. The World Bank’s figure is at “purchasing power parity.”

People in poverty in America have clean water, free schooling, free health care, housing, and food stamps. While people in extreme poverty have to watch their kids die and walk miles for water.

W.I: write about what you’d buy if you had $1.53 (extreme poverty per day) and you had to make it last all day

112: Malnourished Children in the US are placed into care and are nursed back to health. Children living in extreme poverty however have no access to healthcare and often die from easily treated diseases

The author says that he’s not saying being poor in America isn’t hard and that we shouldn’t worry about them, but that there’s simply a big difference between being poor in America/rich nations and in extreme poverty poor countries

W.I: compare and contrast being poor in a rich country vs a poor country Relative poverty vs extreme poverty

113: People in extreme poverty can do a lot more with less money

It is more effective and helpful to donate money to people living in extreme poverty

Example: Would 1000 dollars make a bigger difference to a family who makes 2500 dollars a year or one who makes 24,000 a year?

W.I: write about what you could buy for 1000 in a developed country vs an impoverished country

The charity GiveDirectly makes one-off cash grants of about 1,000 U.S. dollars to African families living in extreme poverty. This could be six months to a year’s income.

114 Giving a $1000 dollars in the US might be the equivalent of a month’s income. If the family is on SNAP benefits they won’t have to use that money on food whereas is they weren’t on SNAP benefits the family would have to use the $1000 on food. We will do more good donating to organizations working to help people living in extreme poverty in poor nations. Robert Wiblin. Altruistic arbitrage. In the business world, if two identical products are selling at different prices in different markets. Philanthropy is not focused on effectiveness as the financial sector is focused on profit.

115 The life of a poor American is far higher than the cost of making such a difference to the life of someone who is poor by global standards. “Target groups you care about that other people mostly don’t, and take advantage of strategies other people are biased against using.”

117 Chapter 11 Are Some Causes Objectively Better than Others?

A potential donor should be asking where can I do the most good?

Singer alludes to a leaflet from the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the welfare of others through generous donations of money.

WI: explore RPA more deeply and the most good they have achieved.

Those wanting to do the most good should ask WHERE can I do the most good, rather than asking what is the most urgent issue. Singer compares his own situation here: he wrote about poverty and liberation of animals in “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” and “Animal Liberation” even though more urgent issues were happening at the time like the Vietnam war and threats of the Cold War. Although he supported these issues, he knew that he alone could do even more good somewhere else.

118 He chose to write “Animal Liberation” because not enough people were doing enough for this cause, giving him the chance to do the most good for the treatment of animals. If there were more people contributing the same amount to the same cause, he would no longer be giving the most impact there and his efforts could be put to use somewhere else. Singer points out that these efforts are not the most good or the biggest impact in the moment, but will be in the long run.

119 (An extended example. This section can be cut.) Numbers are not always black and white. He mentions helping a museum opening a new wing compared to curing blindness. The wing would cost $50 mil and appeal to a million people over the years, but $100,000 can cure a thousand people of blindness in developing worlds for 15 years. Morally you should help the blind who have more need, instead of the museum even though the number is greater.

WI: Are there any situations where morals are less relevant, or that the impact of the less moral option does a greater amount of good?

120 The Harvard philosopher Thomas Scanlon. When we are faced with the needs of those who are “severely burdened,” the sum of the smaller pleasures of the many have no “justificatory weight.”

W.I. Does art (making or viewing) depend on economic status? Does every level of wealth enjoy art? Is art relevant in upper classes along with people who can’t even provide basic needs for themselves?

125 If the price of trying to persuade people to donate to the cause that does the most good is that they give less, that price may be worth paying. Singer then approaches; How would we decide? We would have to figure of the amount of good in a dollar, depending on the charity of choosing.

Singer makes an analogy to explain that getting rid of the problem is WAY better than finding a way to deal with the problem.

126 Giving isn’t about the amount of money you give, it’s about the amount of good that comes out of it. You could give 1000 dollars to one organization but if giving 500 to another does more good than you ought to give your money to the second organization even if you are giving less. GIVING LESS doesn’t always mean DOING LESS. Sometimes giving to the wrong charities (even if they aren’t necessarily doing harm) causes harm. Giving to a charity that does only a very limited amount of good, for example, may cause more harm than good because when you examine the fact that donations can be tax deductible and are therefore coming out of the pockets of hard working taxpayers drawing money away from organizations that do more good. You should never give simply for the sake of giving, you should give for the sake of doing the most good. Sometimes things intended for good can cause harm if they aren’t properly thought through.

Should donors be directed on where to give? A donor might, for example, give half as much, but the charity may do a hundred times as much good per dollar it receives; then persuading the donor to give to the more effective charity will lead to benefits fifty times greater than leaving the donor to follow her or his initial personal convictions.

127 Most people just want to do the most good they can with what they have and telling them that there is “obviously no objective answer” to the question of giving can dampen their desire to give altogether causing the reverse effect of what you want.

129 Chapter Twelve: Difficult Comparisons

130 In the United Kingdom the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, known as NICE, uses such methods in order to recommend to the National Health Service authorities which drugs and treatments they should provide free of charge to British residents who can benefit from them. To reach this conclusion, NICE, for each treatment it considers, draws on estimates of the cost of gaining a quality-adjusted life-year, or QALY.

131 In order to set priorities, WHO wanted to estimate the global burden of various diseases. WHO uses the Disability-Adjusted Life-Year, or DALY. One DALY represents one year of life in full health. A year of life with a disability is discounted according to the severity of the disability. The extent of the discounting is decided by various methods involving interviews with samples of the population.

132 A large team of researchers did a study and found results in distinct cultures. For example they used blindness to equate the amount of healthy years of healthy life a person has. This was a hypothetical study. The researchers believe since blindness cause less deaths than starvation, then people should focus on feeding the starving. It is not difficult to find grounds for disagreeing with the discount rate for blindness and and the method used to evaluate “healthy states.”

For $1000,000, untreated blindness causes the loss of 1,000 x 0.2 = 200 DALYs per year, while starvation threatens to cause the loss of 500 DALYs per year. On these figures, we should feed the starving.

On the other hand there psychological research cast a doubt on the judgement by people with good health about what it would be like to suffer from different health condition.

133 Holden Karnofsky asks us to imagine different scenarios for the same cost, we could accomplish them. Holden noted that some people agreed with his view and others did not. He says “ it’s possible that we would agree if we new more about the lives of the people in developing countries”. Holden believes the best solution to get people to donate is telling them exactly the number of people their helping. For example, $100,000 can restore health to x people, or save the lives of y infants.

Any disagreement on these fundamental value questions will lead to disagreement about the cost-effectiveness of different health care interventions, and converting the benefits of those interventions into a single figure like the DALY obfuscates the disagreement rather than resolving it.

134 This allows the donors to donate with their values in consideration. Toby Ord says there are problems with the DALY approach, but supports their attempts. He believes should continue to construct a single measure of well being, even if we won’t reach it in the near future.

There has been research going into developing ways of measuring the benefits of health care interventions. In the initial years of Give Well it did consider some charities that assist poor in the United States, but they soon stopped because they realized helping the global poor would be better.

137 Chapter 13: Reducing Animal Suffering and Protecting Nature

While they’re a good cause, rescuing animals shouldn’t be our top priority, because they go to a small portion of the animals that suffer in the U.S.

Only a small portion of pets are abused while 9.1billion animals are slaughtered each year. That’s 55 times as many farm raised animals as there are pets.

Hundreds of millions of animals don’t die from slaughter but from suffering

W.I. write about animal cruelty and how people are trying to stop it

W.I. write about how animals raised for slaughter are treated

There is a straightforward reason for not giving the highest priority to charities that rescue abused animals. The suffering of abused pets amounts to a tiny fraction of the suffering we inflict on animals.

138: The Animal Activists’ Handbook. Matt Ball. Bruce Friedrich. “Every year, hundreds of millions of animals-many times more than the total total number killed for fur, housed in shelters, and locked in laboratories combined- don’t even make it to slaughter. They actually suffer to death.” The total number of animals killed in shelters each year is around 4 million, for fur 10 million, and in laboratories 11.5 million, making a total of approximately 25.5 million.

Animals killed for food are so badly treated that they die before they ever get to slaughter.

W.I. Animal experimentation

W.I. How many animals die because of humans

Harish Sethu has done the numbers for the U.S. on his website Counting Animals. There are thousands of organizations in the U.S. working to help dogs and cats and relatively few working for farmed animals. Animal Charity

139: Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE). Sterilizing dogs and cats, curtailing the spread of disease among them, and finding a good home for some animals it is possible to reduce the suffering of the animals. ACE – The most effective way to help animals is to be an advocate for farm animals.

Convince people to reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal products saves animals at a fraction of this cost.

How can we compare the good achieved by helping animals with the good achieved by other charities? Here, two separate questions are often confused. One is a factual question: Do animals suffer as much as humans? The other is ethical: Given that an animal is suffering as much as a human, does the suffering of the animal matter as much as the suffering of the human? The answer to the ethical question should be yes.

Robert Wiblin. Animal Liberation. Speciesism is a form of discrimination against the interests of those who are not “us,” where the line between us and the outsider is drown on the basis of something that is not in itself morally relevant.

W.I. Whats is gained by those animals suffering

W.I. Are modern amenities worth the killing of thousands of animals

W.I. What is Speciesism

140: Rejection of speciesism isn’t the end of the debate, it’s about the moral weight we should give to an animal suffering. Defenders of the way we treat animals usually point out that humans are more rational or autonomous or self-aware or capable of reciprocating than nonhuman animals. Some find it offensive to compare the suffering of humans with that of animals. Presumably they believe that human suffering is always incomparably more important than the suffering of animals.

We wrong animals whenever we give less weight to their interests than we would, in the same circumstances, give to a human with similar capacities.

W.I. The suffering of animals compared to human suffering

141 The argument is since animals have lower awareness and mental capacity, that they therefore are not on the same level as humans and there suffering is in the lower degree. Singer says that this goes beyond species bias because it is based on mental capacities. Because he says that the argument is based on that same mental capacity, some argue that humans with similar mental level also can’t compare their suffering with actual human suffering. This argument puts mentally disabled people as less than human. Other animals are kind and lovable, but humans pride ourselves on our intelligence so to put one in the category as not to have that intelligence is of the greatest insults because it is morally wrong. Since it seems immoral to choose one species suffering over the other, Singer says that the area of uncertainty seems to be the best. Without having to choose whose suffering outweighs the other, ethical altruists can help both causes even though they might not be aware which one does the MOST good, or they can make the most DIFFERENCE.

142 Do levels of awareness determine levels of suffering? A farm animal that has grown up in a slaughter farm has no knowledge or awareness of what there life could be like without the suffering; they are not aware that they are suffering compared to other animals not in the same type of environment. Does this make their suffering less? I don’t think it does. There is no sound criteria that says one cause is better or worse than the other. Altruists believe in different causes, the support for different causes creates an argument of which cause is better or more good. One side of this argument says that animals have less capacity to suffer than humans because they have a different level of awareness, while the other sides believe that either human suffering is less than that of animals, or that they are on a similar level.

Vegan Outreach is a nonprofit organization to end violence towards animals, especially in the slaughtering scene. They hand out leaflets to spread the idea of veganism and give statistical data of suffering. Other organizations use their leaflets for their own organization like The Humane League which is a protection non profit organization, also aiming to stop violence towards animals, specifically animals being raised for food. Their advertisements have helped many animals, because people have started agreeing with the leaflets and stopped buying and eating animal meat and products.

ACE (Animal Charity Evaluators) also use leaflets to forward this movement to stop animal cruelty.

143 ACE gives more statistical evidence to readers about how much it costs to help these animals and how little it takes. These inexpensive ways to divert suffering are as little as .06 CENTS. Although ACE is an animal advocacy organization, they still say that animals are only capable of a portion of the suffering that humans can endure, this portion being only one tenth.

WI: why does ACE believe animals only suffer 1/10? Research and develop an answer.

144 Spreading information about factoring farming would still have excellent value compared to the most effective charities helping humans. Even if your goal were solely to slow down climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, you could do that more effectively by donating to organizations that are encouraging people to go vegetarian or vegan than by donating to leading carbon-offsetting organizations.

Climate Change

Singer discusses the effects of global warming

145 Slowing climate change would be a very important goal, one that would bring huge benefits to the global poor and to all future generations. An action that has only a tiny chance of changing that outcome can still have very high expected value.

Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value?

147 Intrinsic value of nature- Most effective altruists have not shown interest in. Singer believes that intrinsic value is to be found only in conscious experiences.

149 Chapter 14 Choosing the Best Organization

Meta Charities- organizations that evaluate other charities. Most people who give to charities are giving out of an emotionally based reasoning. Others give because they are asked by someone they know. In both cases sufficient research is usually not present.

150 Donors have an excuse for not looking into the charities and organizations they donate to; it is a lot of work. Before GiveWell, people would go to the website Charity Navigator. Charity navigator is a program that evaluates charities. Although this sounds good, it does has its disadvantages. One disadvantage is that its ratings are superficial. At the moment Charity Navigator doesn’t even tell you anything about the outcome of the charities. Many time people use Charity Navigator to look at one figure: the percentage of a charity’s revenue that is spent on administration and fundraising, rather than on its programs. In extreme cases this can be very helpful, especially when deciding when NOT to give to a charity.

151 In a few cases the proportion of revenue spent doesn’t tell us anything. Just because a charity spends little to nothing on administration and fundraising doesnt mean its a good charity to donate to. In some cases a large amount of the donations can go to administration and fundraising and it helps the charity to make the most out of every dollar it gets.

152 Instead of evaluating all types of charities, GiveWell focuses on charities that help the poor. GiveWell decided that aiming to help poor people in developing countries would be more cost affluent than affluent countries and therefore stopped reviewing charities that don’t assign the global poor. Because GiveWell only reviews a small amount of organizations (in comparison to other charity review sites), it is able to give better, more deeply research reviews. In the absence of evidence, GiveWell writes reviews on charities but doesn’t recommend them. GiveWell does not focus on specific organizations but rather on specific types of interventions because GiveWell contends that the highest quality of evidence comes from academic research which focuses on the type of intervention. One could describe GiveWells mode of investigation as identifying interventions with a plethora of evidence showing positive outcomes, and then narrowing in on specific organizations within the decided specific interventions.

Give Well’s first identifying interventions for which their is rigorous evidence that they have positive effects, and then investigating organizations that focus narrowly on these demonstrably beneficial interventions. Directing a donation to a specific project thus won’t necessarily affect whether or not the project will go ahead or even its scale. In 2013 GiveWell recommended only three charities, two of which specialize in treating parasitic worm infections that cause children to develop anemia and slow their progress in school, which the third is GiveDirectly founded to give cash grants directly to very poor people. These interventions have been evaluated by randomized controlled trials.

154 Providing information to parents about the increased wages of those who stay at school is by far the most cost-effective way of improving education and

155 results in an amazing 20.7 additional years spent at school!

156 There are limited resources make it impossible for Heifer International to provide the option of giving to everyone who could benefit from it. Niehaus proposed instead of giving people cash grams, it would be more beneficial to give poor people cows because it would lead to a better outcome in the end.

Randomized controlled trials of drugs and medical treatments are required even though they are “experiments with people’s lives”. The trials, however, comply with guidelines set by international research organizations. In the long run these treatments save people’s lives. Failing to use the resource available to save people’s lives is much worse. There are drawbacks and limitations to the randomized controlled trials. For some aid interventions, getting trained people to remote villages is the largest part of the budget. If randomization is to be done, which will be necessary in some situations, then twice as many villages need to be visited to get the baseline measurement which will be doubling the cost of the project.

157 Oxfam America wanted to do a randomized trials of its “Savings for Change” program, this encouraged women in rural villages in Mali to set up saving schemes from which each member could borrow money when needed. However, Donors were worried that their donations were going only to the research being done. The study found benefits in this plan like food security but not in education, it also helped in women empowerment. The major limitation of randomization is they can only be used for certain inventions. Oxfam puts resources into both direct aid and advocacy work.It believes that its advocacy work is better grounded because it regards itself as vital to try combat the causes of poverty.

158 Oxfam has always taken an interest in extracting industries like oil and mining, which often deprives the poor of the land and pollute the rivers which local people rely on for fishing, drinking water, and irrigation. When big quantities of oil and gas were discovered, Ghana knew that it would not benefit the poor of the country.

Oxfam supported research reports and public forums that use the revenue from the oil industry to help raise public awareness to the issue. The attention helped Ghana get the money they deserved. In 2014 they received approximately $777 million in oil revenue. WIth vast majority of this money directed at “Poverty-focused agriculture”.

159 Oxfam, an international organization working to end poverty. They work with oil companies to get them to donate to farms and those in poverty. Because it involves so much money, even getting them to donate 1 percent is a huge sum. It indicates a return on investment of 580 percent.

W.I. write about Oxfam and what they do

They also work to stop large food companies methods of land acquisition, sustainable use of water, climate change, and exploiting women

One of their big battles is fighting against big brand foods driving poor people off land they’ve lived on their whole lives.

160 An example of this^ is a people in brazil had been living in the sirinhaem river estuary since 1914, in 1998 sugar cane companies forced them to move out, threatened them with violence, and burned their homes down.

When oxfam brought this to the public’s eye , coca-cola and other big 10 food brands denounced this practice

They have all committed to zero tolerance policies of this practice

W.I. write about the sirinhaem river estuary people and their conflict with the Usina Trapiche sugar cane company

161 People like political advocacies because they help the causes of poverty too

Many times when a poverty stricken country gets money, they don’t fix the poverty or help them. The money goes into the extremely wealthy and government officials. Because they don’t get any of the money, and know they can get it if they take over the government, the risk for revolt is increased.

Many organizations are part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which works to make sure that money from resource rights goes into the right hands and not into leaders pockets

Working to change unfair trading practices that disadvantage developing countries is one way in which we can try to address at least some of the causes of poverty.

W.I. write about what the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative does

W.I. write about how the angolan government pocketed 34 billion dollars over the course of 8 years that should’ve gone to help their poverty stricken

162: Angola. Financial flows of $34 billion between 2000 and 2008. Nine times what it received in official development assistance during the same period. The rich rule over the poor. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. EITI- works alongside governments and companies to implement an international standard requiring transparency both from the governments of resource rich countries concerning what what they recieve and what happens to it. ONE. In 2011 ONE campaigned for nations to increase their pledges to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations. June 2011- $4.3 billion dollars in total was raised, more than hundred times ONE’s total expenditure of $29 million that year. Bono the lead singer of U2, the largest advocacy-only organization that is focused on extreme poverty.

W.I. What is the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations and what does it do?

W.I. What all goes into giving a vaccine and immunizations?

163: How much money should ONE claim? The campaign was money well spent. ONE conducted another campaign in 2011, it appealed to the UN for a humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa. ONE also successfully persuaded the European Commission to propose a law requiring transparency in the extractives industry. In 2012 ONE became somewhat obsolete because of budget cuts in the European government. GiveWell has a partnership with Good Ventures, a philanthropic foundation set up by Cari Tuna and her husband. Dustin Moskovitz. Open Philanthropy Project – goal of investigating a much wider range of giving opportunities that GiveWell does when it evaluates and recommends specific charities. OPP and GiveWell have funded many scientific research studies focused on reducing global catastrophic risk, and attempting to reform the criminal justice system in the U.S.

W.I. What government gives the most to people in need and why? What impact does it have on those people and does it do any good? If so how?

164 If the advocacy organizations do have an impact, then the return investment “would likely be very large.” In other words, we do not, at present, know enough to say whether policy advocacy offers better or worse value for money than direct aid programs.

W.I. The difference between direct aid and policy advocacy.

W.I. What is the best way to give your money?

165 Singer explains that dinosaurs became extinct due to a massive collision wiping out the species, and points out that it might be our turn next. He describes how rare the occurrence is, but I am very confused regarding how this can relate to choosing the best organization. Maybe he is leading up to an organization that is researching ways to prevent these collisions?

Chapter 15: Preventing Human Extinction

Nick Bostrom speaks of the term existential risk, or a situation in which “an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.”

166 Nick Bostrom is focused on “intelligent life” such as ourselves, but not a specific species. Where is the line drawn? Some of the ways we could become extinct: a large asteroid, nuclear war, a pandemic of natural origins, a pandemic caused by bioterrorism, global warming, (which is very current) 167 a nanotech accident, physics research producing hyperdense “strange matter”, or a superintelligent unfriendly artificial intelligence [Gremillion] What is nasa’s plan to prevent these catastrophic events? How can we help them do the most good for our planet and our lives?

172 Prior existence view: that if people or, more broadly, sentient beings, exist or will exist independently of anything we choose to do, we ought to make their lives as good as possible; but we have no obligation to try to bring about the existence of people who, but for our actions, would not have existed at all. There is no obligation to reproduce.

173 There is a philosophical debate as to the extent of the efforts we should make to reduce the risk of extinction. Bostrom’s calculations say that reducing existential risk should take priority over doing other good things.

174 Altruistic dollars are scarce so effective altruists tend to donate more to reducing need than the actual needs themselves. Unrestricted altruism is not common enough today for us to have the ability to waste it on the more frivolous needs. This isn’t to say that every need isn’t important, but some are definitely more detrimental than others. On that note, it is important to encourage others to be effective altruists as there is a greater likelihood of those effective altruists becoming concerned about existential risk than someone who wasn’t previously an effective altruism would. The problem of how to minimize known existential risks has no known solution. This is true only for most existential risks.

175 Some effective altruists have shown interest in the development of artificial intelligence.

W.I. The dangers of artificial intelligence

176 The development of artificial intelligence was bad for the chimps but good for humans. Animal suffering is offset by the fact there by the decreased suffering of humans, there is hope for the future of increased happiness for both humans and animals together. If you have a clear idea in one specific area of how to reduce existential risk, it is much better for you to focus on that one area of which you have knowledge and do limited side work in other areas, than to dedicate yourself to areas you have no knowledge about.

177 Take steps to reduce the risk of human extinction when those steps are also highly effective in benefiting existing sentient beings. For example, eliminating or decreasing the consumption of animal products will benefit animals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and lessen the chances of a pandemic resulting from a virus evolving among the animals crowded into today’s factory farms, which are an ideal breeding ground for viruses.

178 Educating and empowering women by giving them greater say in national and international affairs. Educating women and growing healthier children.

Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

By Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker

University of California Press 2013

The authors write their own introduction and here it states:

“The problem with these technologies is that though they generally help get you where you’re going, that’s all they do. With a paper map, you take charge; with these other means, you take orders and don’t learn your way around, any more than you learn math by using a calculator. A map shows countless possible routes; a computer-generated itinerary shows one. Using the new navigational aids, you remain dependent, and your trajectory requires obedience to the technology–some GPS devices literally dictate voice commands you are meant to obey. When you navigate with a paper map, tracing your own route rather than having it issued as a line, a list, or a set of commands, you incrementally learn the lay of the land.

“The map becomes obsolete as you become oriented. The map is then no longer on paper in front of you but inside you; many maps are, as you contain knowledge of many kinds of history and community in one place. You no longer need help navigating but can offer it. You become a map, an atlas, a guide, a person who has absorbed maps, or who needs no map intermediaries because you know the place and the many ways to get here from there. You know where you are, which may become an increasingly rare thing in an era of digital intervention.

“As Unfathomable City’s editor-at-large, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, put it in his Harper’s essay on cartography in the contemporary world, these new technologies of navigation don’t do ‘what maps are best at: providing context. Beyond simply getting us from one appointment to another, old-fashioned maps express what the geographer…Yi-Fu Tuan calls topophilia, our innate love of place, often shaped by sense and by memories.’ Jelly-Schapiro quotes the German scholar Julia Frankenstein, who concludes that ‘the more we rely on technology to find our way, the less we build up our cognitive maps.’ In other words, when you use the old-fashioned technology of paper maps, you build up the even more ancient resources of memory, mind, and spatial imagination–and you do it without monthly payments to a large corporation to gain access, or electricity, or a screen on which to read directions.

“Another aspect of the old maps to consider is beauty: many online maps have a cheerfully ugly aesthetic, one unlikely to provoke the wonder or craving of the handsome maps of yore; and what appears on screens may not inspire contemplation the way an atlas can. People do study the aerial photographs that function as online maps, and digital mapping has valuable roles to play in environmental defense, community mapping, and countermapping–the making of maps as acts of resistance to the powers that be. They have also extended some kinds of access to geographical information. But paper maps offer other strengths and glories–and beauties.

“Curiously, too, though the ephemerality of paper is often noted, there are hosts of maps and atlases half a millennium old; most digital maps are intended to be ephemeral, called up for a particular purpose, their pixels consigned to the past as soon as the use is over. So paper maps can offer beauty; they can also provide an edge on immortality; they never go blank; and the well-made ones are reliable in ways that aren’t always true of digital maps. One stormy summer evening when Jelly-Schapiro and this atlas’s two principal editors wer on a paddleboat on the Mississippi, one of us glanced at our location via smartphone. The device was not programmed to admit the possibility that we were boating rather than driving, so the dot showing where we were remained adamantly onshore. But we knew where we were, and we could’ve found it on a paper map.

“Modern road maps, like online maps, show highways, roads, and streets and generally don’t show cemeteries, bird migrations, histories, economies, ethnic groups, parade routes, and the thousand other things that can be mapped and have been mapped in old atlases and are, to some extent, in Unfathomable City. President Obama’s old map, issued by a gas station or an auto association, likely as not, was made to get you around but not to tell you where you are and who lives there. There are things that cannot be mapped, but much of what moves through and stays put in this world can be. And should be. A great map should stir up wonder and curiosity, prompt revelation, and deepen orientation. It should make the strange familiar and the familiar strange” (5-6).

I think this somehow captures the mystery of why I am drawn to maps. My husband and I had been to New Orleans more than once and it was capturing our hearts as one of our favorite cities. On a stormy afternoon we were flitting from store to store and in a bookstore I almost immediately found Unfathomable City and held it tightly to my breast in a statement of ownership. It is a collection of two things I love: maps and essays. I hear Solnit has done the same with San Francisco. I love the thought of seeing one city in dozens of ways and hearing people who actually live there discuss the meaning of the map. Brilliant concept.

From further in the introduction subtitled Lakeside, Riverside, Upriver, downriver, they write,

“(Before Katrina, we had the highest rate of nativity–the percentage of residents living in the same town where they were born–in the United States.)”

“Solnit came back and back again, which we locals call ‘the rubber-band effect’” (9).

Chapter 1: A City in Time

Map: A City in Time: La Nouvelle-Orleans Over 300 Years by Richard Campanella and Shizue Seigel

Essay How New Orleans Happened by Richard Campanella

The authors call Campanella “New Orleans’s preeminent geographer/cartographer. This map was created by Campanella and Shizue Seigel and shows the urbanization of the city from 1722 to 2000 buy using a color code.

“The city was conceived in 1717 by John Law’s Company of the West (later the Company of the Indies), a speculative venture granted a monopoly by the Crown to develop the problematic Louisiana claim with tobacco plantations and other risky projects.

“…designated La Nouvelle-Orleans to flatter Law’s royal patron, the Duc d’Orleans.

“France ceded the colony to Sapin in the 1760s.”

Here is a comment on how urban development can separate the haves from the have nots:

“One final criterion sorted spaces for urbanization. Areas closer to risky, noisy, smelly, unsightly, or otherwise offensive nuisances and hazards–flood zones, railroads, canals, dumps, wharves, industry–tended to be developed for lower-income residences and commercial or industrial land uses, while areas farther from such sites attracted higher-end development for a more moneyed crowd. Housing for the city’s poorest residents, usually African American, was such a low priority for developers that other urbanization ‘rules,’ particularly for drainage and accessibility, carried little weight. This left the poor and the disenfranchised to settle in social and geographical isolation in the low-amenity, high-risk back-of-town or along the high-nuisance wharves along the immediate riverfront” (18).

Chapter 2: Ebb and Flow

Map called Ebb and Flow: Migrations of the Houma, Erosions of the Coast by Shizue Seigel

Essay called Southward Into the Vanishing Lands by Monique Verdin

“Upriver, the Algonquian speakers identified it as ‘Missi sippi’ (large flowing water).

Chapter 3: People Who

Map by Molly Roy which, in a fun way, shows where different types of people live

Essay Here They Come, There They Go by Lolis Eric Elie

“Do not think of a South of railroad tracks and barbecue shacks and others who live at a predictably prescribed remove from us. Do not think of an America of ethnic enclaves and inviolable spaces, of hard immigrated boundaries. Even after you have formed your vision of our borders, do not cling to it, for every division awarits revision, which new history will reverse” (25).

Chapter 4: Moves, Remains

A map of Hiding and Seeking the Dead by Molly Roy

Essay called Bodies by Nathaniel Rich

“As a body decomposes, it fills with gases–cadaverine and putrescine–that cause it to bloat.

“…burying their dead in aboveground mausoleums. These are known colloquially as ‘ovens’ because the white stone chambers, heated by the merciless Louisiana sun, bake the corpses” (35).

Chapter 5: Stationary Revelations

Intro states:

“If you walk a city, if you love a city, if you put in your miles and years with open heart and mind, the city will reveal itself to you. Maybe it won’t become yours, but you will become its–its chronicler, its pilgrim, its ardent lover, its nonnative son or native daughter or defender. Billy Sothern trod these streets over the years, both defending the most desperate of this city, the people on Death Row, and pushing a baby carriage (and then, later, walking with his daughter) up and down the avenues, to Carnival parades and secret spots. This list of his own treasures is a testament to his conscience and his wanderings and an invitation to everyone, of this city or any city, to count up the stations of their own journeys home, the dusty miracles of the backstreets, and the stories to be told. Where are your treasures and your milestones, what mud is on your shoes, toward what shrines are you traveling on your pilgrimage?

Map by Shizue Seigel called Stationary Revelations: Sites of Contemplation and Delight

Essay On A Strange Island by Billy Sothern

“Who cares that the city is slowly falling into the Gulf of Mexico, that you know that the gunshots you hear at night are not fireworks because they are followed by sirens, that you no longer bother calling the city about the sinkhole that is consuming your street because it is clear that no one will fix it? Such concerns fade when you can sit on your porch and watch the world’s most amazing eheater of people talking, yelling, dancing, and eating, set against our amazing vernacular buildings and among our magnolias, crepe myrtles, swamp lilies, and Louisiana irises. You are part of that theater, and you talk to people as they pass, smell the jasmine and sweet olive in the air, and hear trains and boats from the river. You do not need to leave your porch to find treasures here” (37).

Chapter 6: Oil and Water

Map called Oil and Water: Extracting Petroleum, Exterminating Nature by Jakob Rosenzweig

Essay called When They Set the Sea of Fire by Antonia Juhasz

Chapter 7: Of Levees and Prisons

Intro

“Most incarcerated city…Louisiana…founded as a place to dump convicts…single largest prison in the United States, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola, is situated on the lush land of a plantation of that same name founded by a slave trader.

Map called Of Levees and Prisons: Failures of Containment, Surges of Freedom by Shizue Seigel

Essay Lockdown Louisiana by Lydia Pelot-Hobbs

Chapter 8: Civil Rights and Lemon Ice

Map called Civil Rights and Lemon Ice: Three Lives in the Old City by Shizue Seigel

Essay The Presence of the Past by Dana Logsdon and Dawn Logsdon

Mentions an “anarchist geographer” by the name of Elisee Reclus.

I didn’t know there was such a thing, but now I want to know more.

Chapter 9: Sugar Heaven and Sugar Hell

Map called Sugar Heaven and Sugar Hell: Pleasures and Brutalities of a Commodity by Shizue Seigel

Essay No Sweetness is Light by Shirley Thompson

Chapter 10: Bananas!

Map of the same name by Shizue Seigel

Essay Fruits’ Fortunes at the Gate of the Tropics by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro

Chapter 11: Hot and Steamy

Map called Hot and Steamy: Selling Seafood, Selling Sex by Molly Roy

Essay Salacious and Crustaceous by Evan Casper-Futterman

“From Southern Decadence to Sissy Bounce, the Fruit Loop to Club Vibe, to Burlesque and Moulin Vieux, New Orleans proudly pushes the boundaries of ‘proper’ sexaul conduct and provides sanctuary (also the name of a lesbian bar) from a nightmarish value system of decency, chastity, and temperance” (84).

Chapter 12: The Mississippi is (Not) the Nile

Map called The Mississippi Is (Not) the Nile: Arab New Orleans, Real and Imagined by Shizue Seigel

Essay The Ibis-Headed God of New Orleans by Khaled Hegazzi and Andy Young

Chapter 13: The Line-Up

Map: The Line-Up: Live Oak Corridors and Carnival Parade Routes by Shizue Seigel

Essay Sentinels and Celebrants by Eve Abrams

“…the oldest, McDonogh Oak, resides in City Park. McDonogh Oak is more than eight hundred years old, and its girth exceeds 24 feet. The president of the Live Oak Society, Seven Sisters Oak, lives two blocks from Lake Pontchartrain’s North Shore. It’s approximately twelve hundred years old and has a waistline of more than 38 feet” (96).

Chapter 14: Repercussions

Map called Repercussions: Rhythm and Resistance Across the Atlantic by Shizue Seigel

Essay It Enriches My Spirit to be Linked to Such a Deep and Far-Reaching Piece of What This Universe Is: A Conversation with Herreast Harrison and Donald Harrison Jr.

Under the subtitle “They walked with this elegant air” Herreast Harrison says

“…some of them were not acutely aware of their own suffering, because they had accepted what was supposed to be the ‘norm.’ You grow up with all this inferiority implanted in you; you never feel like you’re worthy. But I always knew one thing–I can talk! [laughs] That hasn’t been taken away from me. So I can say what I want. And I had to get to the place where I was gonna say it, whether anyone appreciated it or not. So now, at seventy-five, I try to be congnizant of people’s feelings and all of that, but if it’s something I need to say–wow!–you better harness yourself because I’ll put it on trial” (102).

Chapter 15: Thirty-Nine Sundays

Map called Thirty-Nine Sundays: Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs Take It to the Streets by Benjamin Pease

Essay (my favorite of the bunch) called Rollin’ Wid It by Joel Dinerstein

Here is the essay in its entirety which I easily found on Joel Dinerstein’s website:

http://www.joeldinerstein.com/archive/2014/12/10/39sundays

The day starts at 10 am at Spring Hill Missionary, a white stucco four-square Uptown Baptist church crowned with an all-watching steeple. Inside, we spread our tropical peach sleeves across the double rows of wooden pews, dark olive alligator shoes sticking out in the aisle. The pastor wears a pink power suit and reads from Corinthians about how Jesus might be anywhere, might even be on today’s second line (so I guess we should watch for him). We’re all mostly bored until one of our own, 72-year-old Sidney “Lil Bruh” Morris, stands up to act as a deacon and brings the message home with quiet dignity, asking the Lord for a good parade and a peaceful day of celebration and we all say Amen.

In New Orleans, the second Sunday of each October belongs to the Prince of Wales Social Aid and Pleasure Club and has for a very long time. Founded in 1928 by dockworkers and railroad men, there is some disagreement about the origin of the club name. Most members believed it was named for the love of the club ancestors for J&B scotch (it says “dedicated to the Prince of Wales” on the label) while a few believe it was named for the actual Prince of Wales, a renowned jazz hound who made his first visit that year to the source of the cultural river. Mostly in our 40s and 50s, many Walers are second- and third-generation paraders who recall watching second-lines as kids or remember when clubs sewed their own colorful suits every year. On our day, by police permit and with police escort, all traffic is stopped and cleared out a quarter-mile section at a time as the Prince of Wales and Lady Walers — and more than a thousand second-liners from all around — funk up four miles of bad New Orleans road.

After church, we drive over to take the annual club photo on the neutral ground across from Tipitina’s, the famous club and shrine to Professor Longhair on Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas. We line up all in the unity of our finery half-facing the photographer. Standing proud in the year’s colors — peach suits, dark olive accessories — we hold aloft two oval so-called “fans” upon which the club’s lion symbol roars from a field of velvet. Then we move on up the street a quarter-mile to our home base where there’s an hour until we launch ourselves onto the streets.

The Rockbottom Lounge is the staging ground for coming out the door, the parade’s kick-off at 1 pm. The core of the current club met here in the 1990s, many of them friends or relatives of Alonzo Landry, the President for most of that decade, while “White Boy Joe” Stern, our most veteran member, was adopted into Landry’s extended family. Here we start getting the spirit, talk to former members, watch mothers dress their kids, take pride in being told by past generations that this year’s peach three-piece with matching dark-olive hat and alligator shoes, has again made the grade: “Y’all look clean, ya look pretty,” the men tell us. We each pin up a long streamer that flows across our torsos and down to our knees, full of bows and ribbons with a nickname on the shoulder-strap. All the while we’re spiking our Sunday-go-to-second-line spirit with Heineken, Seagram’s 7, weed, Grey Goose — don’t forget the wine coolers for Phyllis — except for Miss Betty, a church-going woman soberly surviving with style at 65. Coming out in single file, we each by each hit the threshold, strike a pose and present this year’s model of our selves. It is a serious celebratory matter. As Betty says, “All I know is when I come out I want to look like the baddest motherfucker there is.”

We come out rocking Soul-Train style between the ropes held by our prop men and descend onto Tchoupitoulas Street powered by The Stooges brass band: kids first, girls skipping and mugging with their green hats, boys next, a twelve-year-old already with a quick hip-dip and touch of the hat, then the Lady Walers saunter out, cool and low-flowin’, Terina’s star-time smile followed by Phyllis’ slow boogie and Desiree crossdressed in a Prince’s suit working the glory of a threshold till its hers. Then the gents: Noland comes out lean and mean, a cool hustler as if with money to burn, White Boy Joe faces West and side-steps, sporting a matching dark olive bandanna under his olive Stetson, Bruce waves his booty round and round and covers the most ground, switching back through the ropes and up Peniston, Alvin does his gangster strut and runs his hand along his hat brim. Then Lil Bruh comes out holding his fans high and kicks his knees up higher than you’d imagine a 72-year-old man can, the very incarnation of the original “Grand Marshal,” the strutting dancer who led the second-lines back when Black New Orleanians first “made up the parades just for the pleasure of it,” as recalled by jazz legend Sidney Bechet from his childhood.

After only two blocks we slow the parade roll to honor the dead. The band downshifts into a dirge in front of the late Jimmy Parker’s house on Annunciation and The Walers fall into a halting step with a syncopated slip: we strut in two lines with a slight diagonal step, shaping the air into chords of ancestor worship. Maybe we pick up his spirit, maybe he’s satisfied we’re all still dancing for him. Once past, the tuba and snare drum pick up the groove and down the block we pick up the Queen and her Court. Elected from outside the club, she rides with her maids and throws a few beads, honorary royal figureheads in the ritual. While waiting, Paul and I buckjump together, his thrashing kicks set off my deep-knee corkscrewing, and the Walers gather around, throw their fans down and get busy with The Stooges. The tuba-man slows his beat and a pride of princesses and their children dance down the steps and ascend a half-sawn off Mardi Gras float with their children. Then the Queen comes down the steps in white taffeta approaching a vehicle that has to be seen to be believed: an open-air bare-bones stagecoach woven of wire and drawn by two stallion-sized white mules. The Queen steps in as if she’s a relief pitcher from Heaven. The driver flicks his switch and she is driven half a block to the awaiting float for a day of regal waves and champagne riding.

We set in to serious second-lining through the 12th Ward, a seamless sunny brassy carpet-ride of strolling, drinking, talking, and strutting, tuba-&-drum call and community response, until the parade turns onto Magazine Street and the Walers hit this commercial strip like a holiday: Alvin throws down his fans and we make a circle around him as he zigs back and forth with zip starts and stops, Desiree turns her palms up and damn near limbos, and everyone digs making the rich white folks wait and wonder as they stare from their cars with culture shock-and-awe. Second-lines run four hours over five-mile routes almost entirely through African-American neighborhoods — Treme, Central City, Carrollton — so many locals have never seen one due to residential segregation. Until recently, New Orleans culture was racially coded for locals: white and black Mardi Gras, white Krewes and Black Social Aid & Pleasure Clubs, white touristy second-lines and these black-cultural rolling block parties.

The Prince of Wales is a rare Uptown second-line and this ain’t no First Friday: it’s a community getting its collective freak on, working off the weekly tension so at some point everybody is a star (to riff on Sly Stone). The parade belongs as much to the second liners as to the first line: that’s why it’s named for them. As Louis Armstrong testified about his childhood: “The Second Line is a bunch of Guys who follows the parade. They’re not the members of the … Club. Anybody can be a Second Liner, whether they are Raggedy or dressed up. They seemed to have more fun than anybody.” This weekly ritual is named for the celebrants and not the sponsors, and at this point we all swing together onto the broad expanse of Louisiana Avenue and head up to The Sandpiper, a bar whose ’50s neon martini sign is a beacon in the late unholy NOLA night. This is the first scheduled ten-minute stop of the parade: we rest for a drink and momentarily de-compress.

Once we re-emerge we’re in the thick of it, between the dancers and the deep heat and the strolling crowd. Sometimes you look up from getting down and don’t even know where you’re at even in your own neighborhood. The music shapes the air, the band torques up our internal gyroscopes, the tuba syncs our bodies together. We’re getting the street into our system and putting our energy into the street. Like any good ritual, second-lines suspend everyday industrial time. And then it’s out LaSalle to Washington and on around to the stop at Charley Wright’s place, and we’re lettin’ the good times roll on, Walers out front.

On your club’s parade day, the suit is your club uniform and the band is your motorcade. “Shut that street down… I’m coming through here. That’s what it feel like,” Noland once said, having driven a cab and a truck and run assorted hustles as well as a home-repair business in his fifty-odd years. “You feel like, [there’s] nothing they can do [to stop you]… Eleven months they [we] slave, for one day out of the year.” Miss Betty distills this feeling: “That’s my day. I feel like a star. Everything’s got to stop for me.” On this day, the second-liners bask in refracted glory off our colorful shoulders and bad-ass shoes: our tropical blaze of body and soul lights up the community. “It’s your day, you the one shining,” Betty says.

If a city is a circulatory system of its residents’ energy — with streets like arteries and airwaves — then New Orleans is the city as dancing body, a place whose spirit is stomped into existence every Sunday. Every day musicians inhale the city and on Sundays, they exhale it through valves and pistons and put the music on the wind for dancers to make the city’s rhythms visible. There’s a third line, too — the platoon of photographers and tourists who think the main action is the first line when it’s more along the sidewalks, where two people lock eyes and drop into a dance-off full of fluid shimmies, spins, and pelvic pops, where an impromptu drum unit rings time on cowbells and pint bottles, where every surface becomes a platform of celebration — church steps, flatbeds, low rooftops, billboards — and I watch seven young men from the community pace the Prince of Wales single-file each with his own move (leap, hurdle, split, cartwheel) while a few women lean forward on a parked car and booty-pop their pleasure since it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.

“There’s no place like this place,” Stan smiles at me as we swing onto St. Charles and hold up a streetcar, tourists’ eyes popping wide as their camera lenses. The Stooges shift into “Billie Jean” and pump up the volume, honoring the recently deceased Michael Jackson and blowing up the prized quiet real estate with brassy antagonism. “The tourists … be trying to see what’s going on, they taking pictures,” Phyllis says with pride, “but we own the streets that day.” Stan is originally from San Antonio and joined the club post-Katrina for one reason: “It became imperative [for me] to step up because they were trying to take the culture away.” In the immediate aftermath of “the Storm” (as it’s called here), the city doubled the cost of a police permit and spread the lie that violence was endemic to second-lines. The clubs sued to rescind the increase and the Walers’ own Joe Stern testified to the lack of parade violence over a generation. “They don’t help us at all,” Phyllis once said about the city, “if it was up to them, we wouldn’t even be second lining… That’s why we have the [Second-Line] Task Force…because we’re trying to fight for our culture… Any kind of commercial dealing with New Orleans, the first thing you see is a second line. But they don’t support us.”

We have looped back around into the Garden District and arrive at our last stop, Commander’s Palace, the city’s #1 restaurant as rated by Zagat’s: this was a prestigious coup engineered by Bruce and Noland and represents very recent attempts by local businesses to embrace local Black culture for its spectacle value. Five feet from the door, Adrian, the youngest Waler, throws her hat to the ground and she dip-bam-double-skips and spins into a quick routine that The Stooges support with sustained, escalating riffs, and Adrian does a stutter-kick, a half-split and then a slight backbend from which she rolls her head back in to place, gives the band an appreciative side-eye, then bends gracefully to pick up her hat and sashays on in. It is her way of claiming this new terrain and honoring its prestige. We swirl into the restaurant, human birds of paradise swooping low past shocked faces in the midst of quiet mid-afternoon lunches. I toss back a gimlet with Alvin and Terina’s goldened smile spurs us back on out to Tchoupitoulas and the wide-open homestretch along the river that takes us home to the Rockbottom.

A second-line parade is an annual house party that moves lightly like the feathers on our fans yet inexorably like a tank through the streets. Gotta roll wid it or get the hell on outta the way.

Chapter 16: Bass Lines

Intro:

“…whose name–funk–is perhaps derived from its Kongo slaves’ word for ‘strong body odor,’ lufuki…” (116).

Map called Bass Lines: Deep Sounds and Soils by Jakob Rosenzweig

Essay The Floating Cushion by George Porter Jr. on the City’s Low End

Chapter 17: Where Dey At

Map: Where Dey At: Bounce Calls Up A Vanished City by Molly Roy

Essay A Home In Song by Garnette Cadogan

Chapter 18: Snakes and Ladders

Map: Snakes and Ladders: What Rose Up, What Fell Down During Hurricane Katrina by Shizue Seigel

Essay Nothing was Foreordained by Rebecca Solnit

Chapter 19: St. Claude Avenue

Map: St. Claude Avenue: Loss and Recovery on an Inner-City Artery by Shizue Seigel

Essay The Beginning of This Road by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Chapter 20: Juju and Cuckoo

Map Juju and Cuckoo: Taking Care of Crazy by Shizue Seigel

Essay Holding It Together, Falling Apart by Rebecca Snedeker

Mentions the “King and Queen Emporium International on Bayou Road” as well as “the F&F Botanica and Candle Shop on North Broad” (144).

Chapter 21: Lead and Lies

Map Lead and Lies: Mouths Full of Poison by Molly Roy

Essay Charting the Territories of Untruth by Rebecca Solnit

Chapter 22: Waterland

Map by the same name by Jakob Rosenzweig

Essay The Cement Lily Pad by Rebecca Snedeker

Poetry for Professionals by J. Coleman

Wallace Stevens was one of America’s greatest poets. The author of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” and “The Idea of Order at Key West” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955 and offered a prestigious faculty position at Harvard University. Stevens turned it down. He didn’t want to give up his position as Vice President of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.

This lyrically inclined insurance executive was far from alone in occupying the intersect of business and poetry. Dana Gioia, a poet, Stanford Business School grad, and former General Foods executive, notes that T.S. Eliot spent a decade at Lloyd’s Bank of London; and many other poets including James Dickey, A.R. Ammons, and Edmund Clarence Stedman navigated stints in business.

I’ve written in the past about how business leaders should be readers, but even those of us prone to read avidly often restrict ourselves to contemporary nonfiction or novels. By doing so, we overlook a genre that could be valuable to our personal and professional development: poetry. Here’s why we shouldn’t.

For one, poetry teaches us to wrestle with and simplify complexity. Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman once told The New York Times, “I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.” Emily Dickinson, for example, masterfully simplified complex topics with poems like “Because I could not stop for Death,” and many poets are similarly adept. Business leaders live in multifaceted, dynamic environments. Their challenge is to take that chaos and make it meaningful and understandable. Reading and writing poetry can exercise that capacity, improving one’s ability to better conceptualize the world and communicate it — through presentations or writing — to others.

Poetry can also help users develop a more acute sense of empathy. In the poem “Celestial Music,” for example, Louise Glück explores her feelings on heaven and mortality by seeing the issue through the eyes of a friend, and many poets focus intensely on understanding the people around them. In January of 2006, the Poetry Foundation released a landmark study, “Poetry in America,” outlining trends in reading poetry and characteristics of poetry readers. The number one thematic benefit poetry users cited was “understanding” — of the world, the self, and others. They were even found to be more sociable than their non-poetry-using counterparts. And bevies of new research show that reading fiction and poetry more broadly develops empathy. Raymond Mar, for example, has conducted studies showing fiction reading is essential to developing empathy in young children (PDF) and empathy and theory of mind in adults (PDF). The program in Medical Humanities & Arts (PDF) even included poetry in their curriculum as a way of enhancing empathy and compassion in doctors, and the intense empathy developed by so many poets is a skill essential to those who occupy executive suites and regularly need to understand the feelings and motivations of board members, colleagues, customers, suppliers, community members, and employees.

Reading and writing poetry also develops creativity. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, the aforementioned Dana Gioia says, “As [I rose] in business … I felt I had an enormous advantage over my colleagues because I had a background in imagination, in language and in literature.” Noting that the Greek root for poetry means “maker,” Dana emphasizes that senior executives need not just quantitative skills but “qualitative and creative” skills and “creative judgment,” and feels reading and writing poetry is a route to developing those capabilities. Indeed, poetry may be an even better tool for developing creativity than conventional fiction. Clare Morgan, in her book What Poetry Brings to Business, cites a study showing that poems caused readers to generate nearly twice as many alternative meanings as “stories,” and poetry readers further developed greater “self-monitoring” strategies that enhanced the efficacy of their thinking processes. These creative capabilities can help executives keep their organizations entrepreneurial, draw imaginative solutions, and navigate disruptive environments where data alone are insufficient to make progress.

Finally, poetry can teach us to infuse life with beauty and meaning. A challenge in modern management can be to keep ourselves and our colleagues invested with wonder and purpose. As Simon Sinek and others have documented, the best companies and people never lose a sense of why they do what they do. Neither do poets. In her Nobel lecture “The Poet and the World,” Wislawa Szymborska writes:

The world — whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence … is astonishing …Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like “the ordinary world,” “ordinary life,” “the ordinary course of events” … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.

What if we professionals cultivated a similar outlook? We might find our colleagues more hopeful and purposeful and our work revitalized with more surprise, meaning, and beauty.

Poetry isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to every business problem. There are plenty of business leaders who’ve never read poetry and have been wholly successful. But to those open to it, reading and writing poetry can be a valuable component of leadership development.

by J. Coleman

Paulo Freire

One of the most influential radical educators of our world. Developing methods for teaching illiterate adults to read and write and (as he would say) to think critically and, thereby, to take power over their own lives. Where teachers and students have equal power and equal dignity.

Wrote: Education for Critical Consciousness, The Politics of Education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Revised Edition, Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation and Pedagogy of Indignation.

Because teachers could be said to have something that their students lack, it is impossible to have a ‘neutral’ classroom; when teachers present a subject to their students they also present a point of view on that subject. The choice, according to Freire, is fairly simple: teachers either work ‘for the liberation of the people–their humanization–or for their domestication, their domination. A teacher’s most crucial skill is his or her ability to assist students’ struggle to gain control over the conditions of their lives, and this means helping them not only to know but ‘to know that they know.’

Freire edited, along with Henry A. Giroux, a series of books on education and teaching. In Literacy: Reading the Word and the World, a book for the series, Freire describes the interrelationship between reading the written word and understanding the world that surrounds us.

The “Banking” Concept of Education

[margin notes: teaching = too much talking. Further: this is why I use real world examples]

For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

[margin note: acknowledge what the students bring to the table; what they already know. Let them know you do not know everything; you are learning as well]

…both are simultaneously teachers and students.

…the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.

To transform that structure so that they can become ‘beings for themselves.’

…critically consider reality. …ontological vocation to be more fully human.

…reality is really a process, undergoing constant transformation.

…engage in critical thinking and the quest for mutual humanization. …a profound trust in people and their creative power…be partners of the students in their relations with them.

[footnote: conscientizacao: According the Freire’s translator, “The term conscientizacao refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality.” margin note: being woke.]

…a person is with the world or with others…a re-creator…a conscious being…

…one must seek to live with others in solidarity. Solidarity requires true communication, and the concept by which such an educator is guided fears and proscribes communication.

Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning. …thinking that is concerned about reality happens through communication.

Thinking, action, creative power.

But the inability to act which causes people’s anguish also causes them to reject their impotence, by attempting “to restore [their] capacity to act. But can [they], and how? One way is to submit to and identify with a person or group having power. By this symbolic participation in another person’s life, [men have] the illusion of acting, when in reality [they] only submit to and become part of those who act.”

…they cannot use banking educational methods in the pursuit of liberation…

But one does not liberate people by alienating them. Authentic liberation–the process of humanization–is not another deposit to be made in men. Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.

Those truly committed to liberation adopt instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings; as consciousness intent upon the world…the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world. ‘Problem-posing’ education, responding to the essence of consciousness–intentionality…embodies communications…being conscious of…consciousness as consciousness of consciousness.

…acts of cognition…the cognizable object…intermediates the cognitive actors… Dialogical relations–indispensable to the capacity of cognitive actors to cooperate in perceiving the same cognizable object…

…problem-posing education: its function as the practice of freedom. …teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teachers, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow. …authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it. People teach each other, mediated by the world…

…a medium evoking the critical reflection of both teacher and students.

He does not regard cognizable objects as his private property, but as the object of reflection by himself and the students. In this way, the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflections in the reflection of the students. The students–no longer docile listeners–are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own. The role of the problem-posing educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the doxa is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the logos.

Problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality…the latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality.

Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge. Because they apprehend the challenge as interrelated to other problems within a total context, not as a theoretical question, the resulting comprehension tends to be increasingly critical and thus constantly less alienated. Their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understandings; and gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed. [margin note: problem-posing leads to commitment]

Education as the practice of freedom… Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man nor the world without people, but people in their relations with the world.

In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation. Although the dialectical relations of women and men with the world exist independently of how these relations are perceived (or whether or not they are perceived at all), it is also true that the form of action they adopt is to a large extent a function of how they perceive themselves in the world. Hence, the teacher-student and the students-teachers reflect simultaneously on themselves and the world without dichotomizing this reflection from action, and thus establish an authentic form of thought and action.

…problem-posing education sets itself the task of demythologizing. Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality; it makes them critical thinkers. Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality…persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation…problem-posing theory and practice take the people’s historicity as their starting point.

Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming–as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality. The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity.

Education is thus constantly re-made…problem-posing education–which accepts neither a ‘well-behaved’ present nor a predetermined future–roots itself in the dynamic present and becomes revolutionary.

Problem-posing education is revolutionary futurity. Hence, it is prophetic (and, as such, hopeful). Hence, it corresponds to the historical nature of humankind. Hence, it affirms women and men as beings who transcend themselves, who move forward and look ahead…

…movement must begin with the human-world relationship; in the here-and-now. To do this authentically they must perceive their state not as fated and unalterable, but merely as limiting–and therefore challenging.

As the situation becomes the object of their cognition, the naive or magical perception which produced their fatalism gives way to perception which is able to perceive itself even as it perceives reality, and can thus be critically objective about that reality.

[This paragraph has a star, so I must have really liked it:] A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation. Resignation gives way to the drive for transformation and inquiry, over which men feel themselves to be in control. If people, as historical beings necessarily engaged with other people in a movement of inquiry, did not control that movement, it would be (and is) a violation of their humanity. Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision making is to change them into objects.

This movement of inquiry must be directed towards humanization in fellowship and solidarity.

…it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality. The world…becomes the object of that fransforming action by men and women which results in their humanization.

ROGER WILLIAMS: 1603-1683 English

Rabble-rouser. Shipped back to England for spreading “dangerous” ideas. Before they could catch him he debunked to Massachusetts where he hung with the Narragansett Indians. He stood for the idea of religious freedom. Others who felt religiously restricted followed Williams to Rhode Island. In 1663 Charles II granted Rhode Island a royal charter in which freedom of conscience was guaranteed. This idea was eventually viewed as so “American” that provision was made for it in our 1791 Bill of Rights.
Williams worked upon four main ideas that others viewed as threatening.
Believed that the land was not King Charles I’s property–it belonged to the Indians.
No person that was unconverted or uncommitted to a certain religion should be required to pray in churches or to swear an oath in court.

Mass. Bay Colony ministers persuaded the King of England that they wanted to remain with the Church of England. Williams felt that not only should the ministers pull away from the mother church, they should repent that they ever supported it.
That civil authority was limited to civil matters and that magistrates had no jurisdiction over the soul.
He wanted separation of church and state so that the religion of Jesus Christ would not be tainted by worldly affairs.
He found it important to get to know the natives and learn their language. He recognized a civility in the Indians. He did not want to convert people–he felt they were outside the people of God and to force them into a different belief would be unchristian.

from A Key into the Language of America: To My Dear and Well-Beloved Friends and Countrymen, in Old and New England
Williams wanted to create a way to converse with the Natives. A “key”. He wanted to spread civility and perhaps Christianity.
The Indians see all the stuff we have which makes them think our God is greater. When you let them know that Englishmen themselves used to be without creature comforts, the Indians see that they too can evolve.
The Indians feel they are lost and wandering. As an Indian named Wequash lay dying I spoke to him of his soul. Wequash spoke of problems with God and God having problems with him until he repented. The Indian said he had a “naughty heart”, but continued to pray.

Directions for the Use of the Language
Indian language is copious and they sometimes have many words for one thing.

from An Help to the Native Language of that Part of America Called New England
These short pieces are excerpts from chapters from a larger work. They are poetic, short philosophical ponderings sharing information about the Indian way of life and sometimes comparing it to the English way of life. The “chapters” cover topics such as: salutations, eating and entertainment, family and home, travel, the sea, religion, the soul, and art. The chapter on the soul gives many examples of Indian words and their translations. In addition to the translations he sometimes combines short narrative pieces expanding upon an idea.
from Chapter I. Of Salutation
The courteous pagan shall condemn Uncourteous Englishmen, Who live like foxes, bears and wolves, Or lion in his den. The wild barbarians with no more Than nature, go so far.
from Chapter II. Of Eating and Entertainment
Of wholesome beer and wine. Sometimes God gives them Fish or Flesh, Yet they’re content without. And what comes in, they part to friends And strangers round about. Natives share what little they have. They have taken care of me when I needed it.
from Chapter VI. Of the Family and Business of the House
Both English and Native have similar day-to-day concerns.
from Chapter XI. Of Travel
In nature with none to comfort me I had God as my companion.
from Chapter XVIII. Of the Sea
While even on the dangerous sea I recognized God’s wonders.
from Chapter XXI. Of Religion, the Soul, etc.
I must acknowledge I have received in my converse with them many confirmations of those two great points, Hebrews II. 6: That God is. That He is a rewarder of all them that diligently seek Him. When Natives experience crisis they figure God is displeased. They have many gods. The Catholics also have many gods. The Natives believe in the sun god, moon god, sea and fire gods. They have a modest religious persuasion not to disturb any man. They believe that the souls of men and women go to the southwest. The souls of murderers, thieves and liars wander restless abroad. If you want to discuss God with the Natives, here are some things you can say: [gives translations].

from Christenings Make Not Christians: Or a Brief Discourse Concerning That Name Heathen, Commonly Given to the Indians [as also concerning that great point of their conversion]
I inquire into the name heathen, which the English give Native Americans. “How oft have I heard both the English and Dutch…say, These heathen dogs, better kill a thousand of them than that we Christians should be endangered or troubled with them; better they were all cut off, and then we shall be no more troubled with them…” “…this word heathen is most improperly, sinfully, and unchristianly so used in this sence. The word heathen signifieth no more than nations and gentiles…” “why nations? Because the Jews being the only people and nation of God, esteemed (and that rightly) all other people, not only those that went naked…their stately cities and citizens, inferior [to] themselves, and not partakers of their glorious privileges…” “…Christians, the followers of Jesus, are now the only people of God…Who are then the nations, heathen, or gentiles, in opposition to this people of God? I answer, All people, civilized as well as uncivilized, even the most famous states, cities, and kingdoms of the world…” “…for the hopes of conversion, and turning the people of America unto God…we are all the work of his hands…” Both Europeans and Native Americans are sinners. Natives are intelligent, ingenuous, plain-hearted and inquisitive.
Catholics are converting people the wrong way by using unethical ways on the Natives. I could have converted the whole country if we are speaking of the Natives. The conversion umbrellas change with each new leader. So, many who convert are profane themselves. “It must not be (it is not possible it should be in truth) a conversion of people to the worship of the Lord Jesus by force of arms and swords of steel…” “The will in worship, if true, is like a free vote…Jesus Christ compels by the mighty persuasions of his messengers to come in, but otherwise with earthly weapons he never did compel nor can be compelled…The not discerning of this truth hath let out the blood of thousands…”

from The Bloody Tenet of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, in a Conference between Truth and Peace
This is an excerpt from The Writings of Roger Williams, vol. 3.
This piece is Williams’s side of the debate with John Cotton on freedom of religion. He asks how turning against those who do not hold your same beliefs can be holy; everyone thinks their religion is the best.
If we believe one religion to be true, what weapons do you think God wants us to use on the others. Christianity can be superstitious, bloody, oppressive, deadly, and like a “fiery furnace”. It is anti-Christian to persecute others for their beliefs. If you don’t practice the religion YOU think is best then you are sinning. You may have to try a few religions until you find one that fits. You cannot force a religion into a person’s soul.
We must not let go of this freedom for any reason. We must be ruled by truth.

A Letter to the Town of Providence
This is an excerpt from The Writings of Roger Williams, vol. 6. The topic is religious autonomy and civil restraint. He calls this “liberty of conscience”. Since there are people of all religions they should neither be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor forced to pray. We can have our own religions, but civility must reign.

John Winthrop: 1588-1649 English

When the Pilgrims came to New England they were entering an already-occupied land. John Winthrop was governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and declared the land a “vacuum” saying the Indians had been unsuccessful at taming the land and only had a natural right to the land, not a “civil” right, which had a legal connotation. The Puritans appealed to the Bible in which they found reasons to believe they should take the land. Winthrop was in charge during a war with the Pequot and Narragansett Indians. The English decided to attack non-combatants as a way to psychologically break the Indian warriors.
At the very start of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, the governor, Winthrop, had declared the philosophy of the rulers: “… in all times some must be rich, some poore, some highe and eminent in power and dignitie; others meane and in subjection.” Rhode Island and New York at this time were becoming feudal kingdoms.
Winthrop wanted to reform the national church from within by purging it of old Roman ways, especially the hierarchy of the clergy and all the traditional Catholic rituals. At the same time, Winthrop could not openly defy the king; instead he petitioned the king to emigrate. In 1629 a group of Puritan merchants were able to get a charter from the Council for New England for land in the New World calling themselves “The Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England.”
Winthrop delivered his sermon A Model of Christian Charity while on the trip to the new land. This sermon contained ideals of Christian community. Fifty years after Winthrop’s death, Cotton Mather wrote of Winthrop as a model of a perfect earthly ruler. Winthrop’s ideal of a selfless community was impossible to realize. Winthrop is known as a man of unquestioned integrity and deep humanity.

A Model of Christian Charity
1
A Model Hereof
There will always be rich, poor, high and low, mean and nice.

The Reason Hereof
1) God has always made his kingdom with a variety of differences for the preservation of the whole.
The Lord makes the wicked so he can moderate and restrain them. He makes the rich so He can teach them to honor the poor; he makes the poor to teach them not to rebel and cause anarchy. He makes degenerates to practice their faith, patience and obedience.
We all need each other and should treat each other with affection. No man is more honorable or more wealthy than another. We must honor the Lord with our riches.
Two rules: justice and mercy. There is the law of nature, of grace and a moral law. Every man should afford his help to another in every want or distress and should perform this out of the same affection he has for his own things.
The law of nature is one in which we are saved. Do good to all. Consider all a friend and love thy enemy. Christians must sell and give to the poor. Sometimes we must give beyond our ability. When there is no other way for our brother to be relieved, we must help him beyond our ability. Giving, lending and forgiving. Give out of your abundance, or set some extra aside to give to others later when they are in need.
Every man must provide for his family. The first that gives to the poor lends to the Lord. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. A woman must give before she must serve her own family.
We have to stand aside till His turn be served. If a man asks to borrow, but you see
he cannot pay you back, give according to his necessity. Thou must lend him, though there be danger of losing it. If you see a man cannot repay you you must forgive him. If there are no poor around, save until you see someone with whom you need to share.
What do we do when our community is in need? The same as before, but larger with less respect towards ourselves and our own right.
Such as have been most bountiful to the poor saints, God hath left them highly commended to posterity; be over liberal in this manner. He who shutteth his ears from hearing the cry of the poor shall cry and shall not be heard. The definition which the Scripture gives us of love is this: Love is the bond of perfection. First, it is a bond or ligament. Secondly it makes the work perfect.
True Christians are of one body in Christ. If one member suffers, all suffer with it. Ye ought to lay down your lives for brethren.
Adam rent himself from his creator, rent all his posterity also one from another; whence it comes that every man is born with this principle in him, to love and seek himself only, and thus a man continueth till Christ comes and takes possession of the soul and infuseth another principle: love to God and our brother. Exercise of this love is twofold: inward or outward.
In regard that among the members of the same body, love and affection are reciprocal in a most equal and sweet kind of commerce.

II
Four things will be explained: people, work, the end and the means.
People: we profess ourselves members of Christ. No matter how physically apart we may be, this knits us together.
Our work is that we want to seek out cohabitation under a form of government both civil and ecclesiastical. The group is more important than the individual; this is our civil policy.
The end is to improve our lives so that we may increase our service to the Lord.
The means to accomplishing our goals are twofold: a conformity with the work and end at which we aim. What we view as truth must be our everyday practice. Love thy brother and help with his burdens. We must serve the Lord without fail or we may be punished. When he gives us direction he expects strict observance. We have entered into a covenant with the Lord and shall not break our agreement. “Do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.” Let us overlook small differences so we can supply our necessities. Meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must make each other’s conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together. People are looking to see how we will perform; we must live rightly as a beacon of hope. If we perform poorly we will besmirch God’s name.

First Encounters: Early European Accounts of Native America

European voyagers and colonists began writing reports on their ventures. They especially wrote about the land because that is what they wanted to colonize and use for profit. The Native peoples soon became an immense curiosity. Anthropology, as various scholars have argued, was created in the expansion of Europe to the West after 1492. Writings of initial contact between Europeans and Native Americans are often called “First Encounter” writings. European ideology allowed no place either for this other hemisphere or the peoples that dwelled in it. They wondered why Indians weren’t mentioned in the bible. Descriptions of Indians led Europeans to question what were essential human traits.
Common themes were greed, vulnerability, jealousy. European incursions soon became major factors in the economic, political, medical, and cultural life of tribal groups. The sheer geographical range of the phenomenon was enormous. Colonizers took advantage of existing group grudges between the natives. That Hudson’s crew exploited not only weaponry but also liquor as tools for dealing with the Natives reveals the unscrupulous methods often employed by their successors. Much land and people were destroyed. Empire is always implicit or explicit in these texts.
One similarity between explorers Hudson and Champlain is the amount of violence that accompanied their penetration into Native lands. It is crucial to put early American violence into a proper historical context. It occurred on both sides, although European apologists often sought to blame it on Native resistance or what they soon were describing as the inherent “savagery” of the Native peoples. The Iroquois had been carrying out aggressive warfare against other Native peoples, including those of eastern Canada, when the European powers first ventured into that part of the continent. They therefore were much feared and much resisted.
Even without European involvement, intertribal wars in this region could be bloody and widely destructive. However, it is also clear that the coming of Europeans into Native regions exacerbated pre-existing tensions. The presence of Europeans deepened and sharpened Native-on-Native violence. Furthermore, the Europeans not only caused an escalation of Native violence, but also brought their own traditions of bloody warfare with them. Native Americans of the conquest period typically waged war in a restrained, even ritualized, manner as compared with Europeans. But in conveying the Native perception that English warfare was evil because it killed too many people, Underhill provided evidence of the savagery of which European settlers were capable.

Bartolomé De Las Casas: 1474-1566 A Modern European

Concerned with Native American rights. Las Casas recognized Columbus’s seizure of seven Taino Indians as “the first injustice committed in the Indies” but in the moment, had no time to reflect upon the implications of what was occurring. Las Casas and his writings were the chief source regarding what happened on the island after Columbus. As a young priest, he participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a while he owned slaves, but later gave them up and became a critic of Spanish cruelty. He was to write of his moral blindness in this period, noting that he “went about his concerns like the others, sending his share of Indians to work fields and gold mines, taking advantage of them as much as he could.” He transcribed Columbus’s journals and began to write his own History of the Indies. After becoming a priest, he began to reconsider the slave system as unchristian and began to urge others to give up their slaves. The Spanish government made him “protector of the Indians” and gave him permission to start a peaceful colony on the coast of Venezuela. At one point he thought that Indian slaves should be replaced by African slaves, but after seeing what it did to both the Indians and the Africans, he changed his mind. He wrote of the Indians regarding marriage, religion, trading and all the atrocities placed upon the subjugated. His peaceful colony failed as atrocities in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru began to grow. In 1537 the Pope forbade all further enslavement. This was followed by Emperor Charles V making New Laws of the Indies which gave Native Americans full protection of the courts and outlawed slavery.
Las Casas’s most famous writings was An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies: On the Island Hispaniola (1552). This work details the destruction visited on Native Americans by conquistador and colonizer in pursuit of wealth. In his own time. Las Casas was widely accused of treason and endured charges of heresy. Having the work translated into many languages gave Spain’s enemies ammunition of Spain’s sins against America.
When he arrived in Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, “there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it…”

From An Account, Much Abbreviated, of the Destruction of the Indies
On the Island Hispaniola
This was the first land in the New World destroyed and depopulated by the Christians. Subjugation of women and children—taking them away from the men. The Christians always wanted more than the Indians gave; they ate too much. The Indians began to understand that these new people were not good. They began to hide food, family members, or leave the area. The Christians intimidated everyone until they were up to the nobles of the village. One noble Indian’s wife was raped in front of him by a Christian colonizer. It was difficult for the Indians to fight back because their weapons were so basic. Las Casas goes into extremely gory detail regarding what the colonizers did to babies, children, pregnant women and men. If the Indians succeeded in killing a Christian, the colonizers would vow to kill 100 of them in pay-back for the one.

The Spaniards brought two million captives to Hispaniola to work the mines. The rich land began to die along with the people working the mines. On the slave ships the Spanish would only bring enough for the crew to eat while the captives would starve. They would dump any dead bodies over the side. Other ships did not even use maps to travel between islands; they’d just follow the trail of dead Indian bodies to the next island. The captives would arrive on Hispaniola practically dead. The colonizers would get mad about paying for slaves already practically dead.
Pearl workers had to dive all day to scrape oysters from the bottom of the ocean floor. They would be beaten on the surface of the water if they acted tired. The divers are fed terrible food and chained at night so they can’t escape. They are eaten by sharks or die of exhaustion and dissipation.