Jonah Goldberg's "Study shows conservatives are truly
compassionate" (Register-Guard, Jan. 4) is another fine example of the
mindless drivel spewed by the right.
As a former member of this camp of the deluded neurotic, allow me
to point out what Goldberg's column forgets to mention. I long ago gave up
trying to work with the local Christian Taliban, for their only focus was
proselytizing, and if you are not one of them, they're not interested in actual
charity.
Secondly, let's uncook the facts and figures and take into
consideration the billions of dollars called charity that went into not feeding
the poor but building decadent churches, financing radio and TV programs and
the like.
Thirdly, some people are taught that if they do not give to the
church - what Goldberg refers to as charities - they are going to burn in hell
for eternity. They are also taught that if they give 10 percent of their
income, God is going to bless them with millions more.
This is not compassion, nor is it charity. It's nothing better
than slick marketing. There's nothing conservative about it.
CHRISTOPHER DUNN
Springfield
In regard to Christopher Dunn's sweeping judgments of
conservatives (letters, Jan. 10), I would like to tell you a little about my
brother Bob.
I am a bleeding-heart liberal, and he is an arch conservative. We
don't discuss politics. Frankly, I can't understand where he gets his political
ideas.
What I do understand is that he is the kindest, most compassionate
and charitable man I know. He is the man who, with his wife, offered shelter to
a troubled niece for years, gave her financial and emotional support and a roof
over her head when no one else in the family (including the Democrats) would
touch the problem. They did this in spite of having three kids of their own,
very little money and a tiny little house.
He is the man who will jeopardize his job and be late to work
rather than leave a motorist stranded by the side of the road. He is the man
who, when he comes to visit, uses his gifts and all his vacation time fixing
everything that needs fixing on the farm. He doesn't judge and he doesn't
proselytize, he just walks his talk.
The only problem I have being around my brother Bob is not taking
too much advantage of his kindness.
MARGIT PEARSON
Eugene
In typical fashion of someone with an ax to grind, Christopher
Dunn (letters, Jan. 10) takes what should be viewed as good news - that in our
culture of increasing de-humanization and impersonal interactions there are
still people who prefer to give directly to others in need - and launches into
a rant against the evils of the local Christian Taliban.
Had he actually read the study rather than just Jonah Goldberg's
summary, he would have known the discrepancies between religious and secular
volunteerism and financial contributions were not just because of giving to
churches - religious people are more generous than secularists toward
explicitly nonreligious charities as well. The study then goes on to
statistically reinforce that proposition.
Dunn throws in plenty of disparaging adjectives in his attempt to
debunk the Arthur Brooks study but, in so doing, only validates one of the
important observations of that study: that many liberal secularists talk a good
talk about fairness and social justice but, when the rubber should meet the
road, the only solution they can stomach is inefficient governmental programs.
My guess is that when it comes time to actually feed and house the
homeless or provide some other form of comfort to the down and out, Dunn, like
many of his fellow curmudgeons, would be counted among the missing in action.
DAN SCHMIEDING
Eugene
Charitable nation
By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Americans are better people than Europeans. Hold on, it gets
better. Religious Americans are better than non-religious Americans. And
religious Americans tend to be politically conservative.
This admittedly tendentious rendering of reality is how some on
the right are interpreting "Who Really Cares?" by Arthur Brooks, a
professor of public administration at Syracuse University. Brooks doesn't
really deal with what makes one person "better" or "worse"
than any other. But it's fair to say that how much a person gives - of either
his money or time - is usually considered an important indicator of character.
It turns out that by this yardstick alone, my little talk-radio-ready summary
is basically correct.
The further to the left you are - particularly to the secular left
- the less likely you are to donate your time or money to charity. Imagine two
demographically identical people, except that Joe goes to church regularly and
rejects the idea that the government should redistribute wealth to lessen inequality,
while Sam never goes to church and favors state-driven income redistribution.
Brooks says the data indicate that not only is Joe Churchgoer nearly twice as
likely as Sam Secularist to give money to charities in a given year, he will
also give 100 times more money per year to charities (and 50 times more to
non-religious ones).
Because Brooks is using vast pools of data, and because he's
talking about averages rather than individuals, there is no end of exceptions
to prove the rule. No doubt there are pious Scrooges and Santa-like atheists.
But, basically, if you are religiously observant, a married parent and
skeptical toward the role of government, you are much more likely to be
generous with your time and money.
You're also more likely to be a political conservative, but it's a
mistake to find causation in that correlation. Certain types of people are
likely to be conservative and to be charitable. But being a conservative
doesn't make you charitable.
Still, the partisan ammo is what has interested the Bill O'Reilly
types the most - and it is interesting, since it so directly contradicts the
generations-old propaganda of the left, which depicts the rich right as stingy,
unfeeling and selfish. "Blue state" America spends a lot of time
talking about how much more caring and enlightened it is. But that's with
somebody else's money. When it's their own money, that's a different story.
What's vastly more interesting is what Brooks' data says about
America. Our charitableness is a distinct cultural artifact. America's simply a
lot more generous than most other countries. Not counting government aid, we
give, per capita, three and half times more than the French, seven times more
than Germans and 14 times more than the Italians.
This is not merely a byproduct of our wealth. In fact, one of the
most interesting observations of the book is that the most giving Americans,
measured as a share of their income, are the working poor. The rich come second
and the middle class last.
The difference lies in European attitudes toward God and state.
Europeans have largely turned their backs on the former and consider the latter
the answer to everything.
Europeans defend their comparative stinginess by claiming that
their outsized welfare states, and the taxes they pay into them, amount to
charity. Brooks demolishes these and related assertions. But the most basic
response is this: Compelling payment by others through high taxes isn't
charity.
A lunch meal portion waits at the Part of the Solution (POTS) soup
kitchen and food pantry in the Bronx borough of New York, December 13, 2006. In
New York around 1.2 million of the city's 8.2 million people face the decision
of food or rent every day-- they choose to pay rent and rely on emergency or
charity food to survive. To match feature USA-POVERTY/NEWYORK REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton (UNITED STATES)
What's interesting to me is that Europeans are uncharitable for
the same reason liberal secularists tend to be. In America, as in Europe, the
more you think the state should provide for everything, the less you think
anybody else should provide anything. As Ralph Nader said in 2000, "A
society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity." In
other words, a "just" society is one where, because the state helps
everyone, people aren't obliged to help anyone.
Brooks, a cautious social scientist, doesn't tie all this together
as much as he could. Europe's transformation into what he and others call a
"post-Christian" civilization has its roots in the turn-of-the-century
switch from religion to statism, when "God will provide" was replaced
with "the state will." This vision is a European import, and in many
respects the history of liberalism in America is the history of
Europeanization. Woodrow Wilson's war socialism, FDR's New Deal, Lyndon
Johnson's Great Society and Bill Clinton's Third Way were all proselytized as
attempts to make America more like "enlightened" Europe.
Maybe such a transformation would make America a better place. But
the data suggests it wouldn't make Americans better people.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Photo of soup kitchen
A lunch meal portion waits at the Part of the Solution (POTS) soup
kitchen and food pantry in the Bronx borough of New York, December 13, 2006. In
New York around 1.2 million of the city's 8.2 million people face the decision
of food or rent every day-- they choose to pay rent and rely on emergency or
charity food to survive. To match feature USA-POVERTY/NEWYORK REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton (UNITED STATES)