Generosity is not Justice

’Tis the season to be giving. And one recent and very public display of generosity has tongues wagging about the philanthropic inclinations of the new Silicon Valley elite, many of whom ascribe to the school of “effective altruism”, a charitable giving movement that uses data science to help people ensure that each dollar they give has the greatest impact. Some proponents of effective altruism use sites like GiveWell, which rates charities along a number of metrics to inform their charitable donations, while others go even further, arguing that people adopt an “earn to give” approach. Rather than volunteer your time for a cause that you care about, take a high-paying job (even if it doesn’t align with your values) and donate your boatloads of cash to organizations working to address social ills. At the heart of effective altruism’s message is the idea that we should separate our emotions from our giving. That donating to the March of Dimes because your niece was born prematurely with birth defects or to the ASPCA because you saw one of those horrifically heart-wrenching ads with Sarah MacLachlan’s “Angel” playing in the background (Gets. Me. Every. Time.) results in self-indulgent rather than impactful giving.

But is it really possible to divorce generosity from emotion? Is giving to an organization based on its dollars-per-lives-saved metrics any less self-indulgent than giving based on your personal connection to an issue? Even if we give only to those organizations that score highly on the effective altruism index, is it really altruism — the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others — that is driving us to give? If that were the case, we would all be devoting our work and our lives to solving these massive social, environmental, and public health issues. But we aren’t.

So what is the emotion driving this urge to give? Guilt. Guilt over our plenty in the midst of scarcity. Guilt over our comfort in the face of widespread suffering. Guilt over our privilege in the face of blatant inequality.

But is there anything wrong with guilt? In her recent New York Times article, Eula Biss, author of the critically acclaimed On Immunity, talks about one manifestation of this “guilt of privilege” — white guilt — and the ways in which she and other white Americans try to come to terms with their hereditary complicity in a system in which your skin color determines the ease of getting a loan or the outcome of an encounter with the police. Some emphasize their blamelessness in constructing (though still perpetuating) the system, while others “try to save other people who don’t want or need to be saved.” The latter, though perhaps not the most effective solution to the systemic problems, is, in Biss’ view, preferable to disavowal or outright denial. Guilt, Biss argues, can be used as “a prod, a goad, an impetus to action” to get white people to reckon with their inherited debt, and thus shouldn’t be used “to disempower white people because we need them to empower the rest of us.”

But that’s not what’s happening. The guilt of privilege (whether by virtue of skin color or income bracket) is driving the privileged to address the symptoms, rather than the roots, of a larger, diseased system — because it is this very system that they benefit from. Instead of addressing the causes of inequality and injustice, attempts are being made at dressing societal wounds by banning the Confederate flag or changing street names. Instead of addressing the lack of diversity within their own companies, Silicon Valley CEOs pound the pavement in Ferguson paying lip service to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Instead of questioning their role in creating inequality, they donate the billions they made creating it to help solve it. This paradox is what author Anand Giriharadras defined in his speech at the 2015 Aspen Action Forum as “The Aspen Consensus”, an unspoken agreement among the privileged elite to substitute generosity for justice. Do more good, but don’t do less harm. Apply Band-Aid solutions to the problems created by a global system that privileges the fortunate few. Avoid major surgery to the system at all costs.

The result of “The Aspen Consensus” is Bay-area tech gods donating money to charter schools, rather than paying taxes to strengthen the public schools, infrastructure, and availability of affordable housing in their own backyard. The result is financial firms donating their millions to alleviate the poverty that their reckless behavior has created or exacerbated. The result is the perpetuation of the haves and the have-nots.

We need to stop kidding ourselves that the privileged few are best placed to solve the problems they have created through their own actions. We need to stop kidding ourselves that it is only the corrupt policies and practices of developing countries that are hindering development. We need to stop kidding ourselves that we can leave the system untouched and donate, aid, conditional loan, and “buy one, give one” our way to equality and a guilt-free conscience.

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Generosity is not justice.