Who Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (2006) | Hacker News Reader

Who Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (2006)

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18 pointsrosetremiere30 comments

I'm a left leaning centrist, and subject to the highest tax brackets. I could, I guess, vote for a party who would give me tax cuts. Then I'd have more money.

But I believe that healthcare that is accessible, that support for people struggling with poverty, and decent education, is best provided coherently, at scale, by an organisation that works at a societal scale, like, say, a government.

When I was young, my society, funded by people paying taxes, gave me access to a decent education (although I squandered that), access to healthcare, and kept me from starving or becoming homeless when I was poor.

So I am very happy to pay higher taxes, as it funds effective solutions. Am I less compassionate because I don't give money to a church, or coach a sports team?

This publication feels like an opportunity for people who routinely tithe then vote against helping out others in their society to pat themselves on their back in complete denial of how poorly the USA does when it comes to supporting (or perhaps I should say, choosing to support) the people on the lower rungs of the American Dream.

Could government be more effective? Yes. Definitely. Is it more effective than a hodge podge of random charities? Yes, and obviously so.

>But I believe that healthcare that is accessible, that support for people struggling with poverty, and decent education, is best provided coherently, at scale, by an organisation that works at a societal scale, like, say, a government.

Your private beliefs aside, this isn't currently borne out in the US. The idea is attractive and sounds plausible, but now rarely works at scale without enormous inefficiency. Provide objective examples of your success stories, please.

Private charity's weakness is that it is non-uniform. Government charity's weakness is inefficiency. The former likely gives more but to fewer people. The latter should reach more people, but likely gives less to each. Which works best to get the most resources to those in need is debateable.

> Your private beliefs aside, this isn't currently borne out in the US.

The USA isn't trying very hard.

Well, that could be said about numerous failed ideas. But it doesn't change the reality on the ground.

I'm very religious and conservative in some ways and I think I also qualify as compassionate. I give about 5% per year to my church and probably another 0.5% to other charities (mostly local food banks). I'm probably exactly the kind of person this book (which I haven't read) attempts to praise.

I'd guess that about 1/10th of the church donation ends up being spent on what most people would call charity and the other 9/10ths gets spent on ministry.

So I'm therefore giving about 1% of my income to "charity" but probably getting credit for 5.5% because Brooks (and others) lump that ministry giving into the figure.

Obviously I believe that that ministry giving is super important because I'm very religious, but I think that using ministry giving to claim that religious people are more compassionate is silly.

Christianity isn't a contest about who's nicer, and as a Christian I do not want to be compared to some "other" who isn't as "compassionate" according to Brooks or anybody.

This book is very likely just conservative propaganda that drives motivated reasoning.

Also, according to Jesus himself, bragging about kind acts defeats the whole purpose.

So all my respect goes towards religious (and non-religious) organizations that do the actual charitable work in the background, getting barely any recognition (or donation). And shame on those who hijack the good will of people, especially in the name of God.

Giving to your own church is like giving to your own club. It’s arguably giving to yourself. Better to consider this discretionary spending while charity goes to stuff that doesn’t benefit you directly.

I've grown to dislike the term charity, it seems to imply that there's something inferior about the beneficiary.

I believe much more strongly in mutual aid.

I was raised to believe that there very much is something wrong with accepting charity.

That it should only be a last resort, held for the most desperate times, and if you were in those terrible straights, your life focus should be to get out of it as quickly as possible, and to pay back everything you received and more.

Carus. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/carus#Adjective

Dear. Beloved. Costly. Expensive. Valued.

Bingo. Look at the history of the concept of the "deserving poor". It's still very much alive and kicking, to the detriment of our societies.

The book itself may be perfectly interesting, but this link gives only the shortest summary of what it contains, so is not itself particularly interesting.

Fair point. I don't know if there is a better link, but the conclusion of the book is sufficiently "startling" that I wanted to get some opinion/discussion on it. If you have a better link, I'd be happy to change the url.

Giving to churches seems like it's a complicating factor here. I wonder what happens if you include political donations?

This is the fundamental problem with all claims that one group gives more than another. "To whom" should always be the question. If it's not answered, the research is junk not even worth engaging with. A lot of "giving" is done at least in part to promote a moral/religious/political agenda, and some of it isn't charitable or compassionate in any sense at all. Conservatives' attitudes toward private giving and public aid/expenditure are inseparable. They don't want to help people more so much as to exert control more. Shifting from public to private lets them decide how the aid flows, who is deemed worthy, who is brought into the warmth and who is left out in the cold (and I'm sure you can guess what some of those criteria are).

There is no surprising truth here. It’s an advertisement for a book.

Abstract political and ethical concepts do not work in actual competitive biological reality.

Even in very religious societies (Hindu, Jews, Muslims) all such abstract constructions are nothing but virtue signalling.

Reality is what is going on in Mariupol right now.

> Reality is what is going on in Mariupol right now.

I seem to often hear such kinds of claims repeated: Only hardship and poverty is real, and the mundane life of people living "sheltered" lives in western countries is somehow just a bubble, artificial.

Why would that be the case?

I think their argument is less that "hardship and poverty are real, everything else is fake" and more that for all the complexities of modern western society we're all still very much dependent on resources delivered just-in-time, and that as our society decays it will rapidly (and unexpectedly, for some) revert back to "primitive" behaviors like killing in the name of food today and security tomorrow. The things that are happening in Mariupol right now can, and in all likelihood WILL eventually happen here too. We have the same fundamental biological needs as them, the same ruleset governing social dynamics, and very similar cultures (as far as those things go). The fake are governed by the same set of rules that real lives are, but we don't see them that way because just like every other superpower our internal propaganda is strong and there's probably negative utility in commoners internalizing that.

It's not so much that our sheltered lives are fake, it's that they're opaque, and built directly on top of what the OP considers to be real. They're built on top of hardship and poverty, of slavery and unimaginable suffering, and yet we look the other way because wow that's a great deal on Nikes and oh look a $200 4k TV, you know you deserve one of those you've lived with 1080p for long enough. How many of the few who acknowledge and condemn the world of suffering that modern Western society is built upon actually live the austere lives that would be needed to abolish it?

Our sheltered lives are built on hardship and poverty too, the fundamental difference is that it is someone else's hardship and poverty a world away.

Good points, thanks!

In your opinion, what kind of life would be "austere enough" to claim (faithfully) that it does not benefit from other people's hardships? As in, what kind of life should you live to be able to say that you're not "rich and healthy because someone somewhere is poor and sick"? (I'm having trouble stating that question clearly, but hopefully the point gets across)

I's a bit of a hard question in my opinion, because so much of our economy is interlinked with the world and even with history… Probably, some richness of the west is a legacy of colonial times, during which a transfer of richness occurred, and the west would still be indebted in that sense?

> I's a bit of a hard question in my opinion, because so much of our economy is interlinked with the world and even with history… Probably, some richness of the west is a legacy of colonial times, during which a transfer of richness occurred, and the west would still be indebted in that sense?

Exactly this. Stealing from someone for generations and then going “okay fine here’s your freedom look how virtuous we are for doing this” conveniently right when the costs of extracting those resources rise to the point unviability isn’t remotely fair. Within the bounds of the systems we’re operating in though, the most realistic and least unethical approach is probably to find ways to work with them to mutual enrichment. The world isn’t fair, and IMO the least harmful long term option probably isn’t to just send resources back to former colonies unless your goal is to enrich and entrench the extant power structures there (which ironically aren’t necessarily more likely to operate more ethically than you). In reflection on this response… damnit, it seems I’m a neoliberal.

Addressing the rest of your message, I really don’t think there is a life austere enough within the bounds of continued participation in society (see the loosely-connected phrase ”there is no ethical consumption under capitalism“). And of course, I also really don’t see an alternative which reduces exploitation to zero given empirical observations of human behavioral dynamics.

The best you can do (for some definitions of the words best and you) is to just take a utilitarian harm-minimization approach: don’t buy things from companies you know are unethical, don’t work for companies that you know are unethical, focus your efforts on balancing your needs (not wants, actual needs) with the actions most likely to lead to your desired outcome for the world.

It won’t make a marginal quantifiable difference, but it does feel better than just accepting the world for what it is.

If you like that, wait until you realize that when they pray for you, they share their prayer intentions at the church groups — often the first step in organizing some collective action.

It's not surprising that people who actually put in their own time and money would be more compassionate than people who merely agitate for other people to be forced to put in their time and money.

Paying higher taxes to support social programmes is putting your money into things.

Paying taxes is not voluntary. Paying taxes is not compassionate.

If you don't pay them, you end up with your stuff taken away and yourself in prison.

Since it's not voluntary, it should be reserved for things that are necessary for survival, not propping up luxury beliefs.

That's more like your money being taken for things.

If I didn't like it, I'd move to Singapore.

I benefit from taxes, _everyone_ benefits from taxes. And guess what, I also benefit from a society where people have healthcare and education and where there's a safety net if things go south.

As the old saying goes - social security keeps society secure against the poor.

I think you read too much into what I wrote.

> If you feed the poor, you’re a saint. If you ask why they’re poor, you’re a Communist.

― Dorothy Day

Even rarer are those who do both.

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