Hacker News Reader

Comment by hyperliner | Hacker News Reader

This is a very good article.

In America, there is also an example where we "build up" the social class of some segment to compensate for our self-centered guilt.

Take the example of the military service. The vast majority of people would rather be at the mall and let someone else fight and die for the country. But the "I support our troops" bumper sticker is everywhere, or maybe they sent ten bucks to Fisher House or Operation Homefront, but not once have those people wanted to volunteer at a veterans hospital.

So what do we do to cover got guilt? "Ah, let's do a parade for them!!!"

View on HN

When I was a teenager I thought charity absent asceticism was pathetic. Why give the homeless guy your pocket change when you can afford to give him $20 for dinner? Why donate to the fire department, when you could make time in your life to volunteer for the fire department? (I live in a small New England town where volunteer depts are the norm.)

Compensating for self-centered guilt is not evil or virtuous. Life is not boolean. When you start to dig into any one person's psychology it's amazing any of us have the gumption to wake up in the morning and accomplish anything given how much of our habits and behaviors are coping mechanisms for something else.

This was a very good article. But the conclusion that we should all feel guilty for covering up our guilt with social class worship is not terribly productive.

Sure, charity is better than non charity. Charity with ascetism is better. consumption usually created pollution, and white often is a product of exploitation. Even high income is often a product of exploitation (power imbalance effects how much money flows in your direction -- even if you are not selling that power, your employer or customer may be weilding it to your benefit )

> But the conclusion that we should all feel guilty for covering up our guilt with social class worship is not terribly productive.

I didn't think that was the conclusion at all.

FWIW, the Wounded Warrior Project is a sham of an organization, see:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

59% of the money goes to actually helping vets, which is pretty crap. Here are a few more credible alternatives:

http://bearingarms.com/four-charities-better-than-wounded-wa...

I entirely agree with your observation however.

Disclaimer: I'm a combat vet of OIF II from 03-04

Thanks for your observation. I have edited my answer to remove that and instead list two from the article you recommended.

I'd add the Semper Fi Fund/ America's Fund to the list of reputable organizations: http://semperfifund.org

But I'd rather be at the mall than mow my yard. I pay someone to do that. I'd rather be at the mall than work on my own plumbing. I pay someone else to do that.

The key point is that at some level I'd rather be at the mall that work as a software developer, but I'm really good at that so that's what I do instead of goofing off at the mall all day. We should do what we are most productive at, in this way we contribute the most to society (see Comparative Advantage in any economics text).

The military does a tough job. That most of us don't want to do it isn't being hypocritical. It's just the truth that I'm a better software developer than solider.

Now, when I was of an age that I was eligible to be in the military, one often had no choice about it. You were simply told by the government that you had to take years out of your life and perhaps lose you life killing people that most of us saw little point of fighting. Fortunately, my number wasn't picked. Not all of my friends were so fortunate. In that time, we all bore some collective guilt for sending young men off to die against their will to for our politics.

But how do you know you are not a better soldier? Assuming you are in the USA, there is no mandatory military service. Who is to say you are not great one, but you just don't know?

On another angle, the point is not about being a soldier specifically. How about doing intelligence, or translation, or manufacturing, or X, or Y, or Z for the purpose of fulfilling whatever mission the President has decided is important?

The point that you are "told" by the government is a weak one. In the US at least, you elect representatives to make the right decisions for you.

I have been to Israel where I saw armed young people welcoming me to the airport and doing their job for their country. Everybody has to do that job for some time. Everybody needs to sacrifice that time during which you cannot "go to the mall."

Maybe if that was the case, there would be less wars as people would think twice about it, as it used to happen in the past in the US.

My point was that we do build up this "social class" called the "military" when most would not ever consider joining. And that is what is hypocritical.

Yes, now I see what you are saying.

By the way, here in the USA when I was 18 there was a mandatory draft that sent some people to fight in Vietnam while others, like myself were lucky enough to get high numbers in a national lottery (that only men were subjected to) so I was not forced to go fight.

The troops example is a tricky one. Many people disagree with war as a way to solve problems, but respect that soldiers aren't actually responsible for said wars, and are doing a horrible job in horrible circumstances.

Thus you can support the troops, but deplore the actions of those who caused them to be there in the first case.

I do agree that volunteering at a veteran's hospital would be a perfect way to contribute though. Volunteering at any hospital would hopefully be a useful contribution to society!

>respect that soldiers aren't actually responsible for said wars, and are doing a horrible job in horrible circumstances.

This doesn't really hold up, there are more dangerous jobs than "soldier" and they get no respect. No holidays. No parades. No ceremony.

Militarism is a cult.

Militarism is a cult, and there are worse jobs, however blaming the soldiers for wars doesn't solve the problem. It's like blaming bank managers for the state of the economy.

Idealistically, if you could convince all of the soldiers on both sides to not fight, then you stop the wars, but realistically you need to convince the populations and leaders of the states they are fighting on behalf of that war is a bad idea in the first place.

This cult is propagated by civilians more than soldiers.

I didn't mean to say anyone should blame the soldiers, just that we shouldn't glorify soldiers and the military.

>This cult is propagated by civilians more than soldiers.

Exactly! I think we're in agreement.

> I do agree that volunteering at a veteran's hospital would be a perfect way to contribute though.

I'd like to explore this statement a moment - know that I mean absolutely no offense.

Would you agree that volunteering at a hospital for wounded ISIS fighters is similarly noble?

I think that helping people who are suffering is a good idea. Nobility doesn't really enter in to it.

If you put a US doctor into a hospital for wounded ISIS fighters they'd probably help. Humans are humans.

This is not something unique to the US. Mexican soap operas and movies often trump up the darker, poorer people as "noble savages" and native culture is celebrated. However if you look a bit closer, all the money and power is still in the hands of the whiter characters!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com