When does our revulsion at the shameless self-promotion of others have to take a back seat to acknowledging that sometimes it is required in order to serve the greater good?
We have a family friend. She is the daughter of one of the founding fathers of Silicon Valley. Her father’s net worth is followed by nine zeros; hers by about seven. She is, however, a very unassuming person. If you didn’t know her or her last name, you would never know how wealthy she is. She drives a modest car, lives in a modest house and lives a frugal lifestyle. She sits on many charitable boards and heads up our school’s Green campaign. Her husband teaches high school because he enjoys it, obviously not because he has to.
Well, in the summer, this friend asked her husband to take the year off. She said that there was someone out there who needed his job more than he did, and while the job filled a need in his heart, it was more important this year that someone else be able to fill the stomachs of their children.
Our friend also decided that, contrary to her nature, this year she was going to spend, and spend with abandon! But not reckless abandon. No foreign sports cars or trips abroad. She would spend on local or American goods and services that would have the best chance of cycling up through the US economy, recycling her money, creating jobs. She felt that it was the obligation of the rich in these times, to spend so that those that aren’t can save in case they lose their jobs.
And she also made the difficult decision for a private person, to let people know what she was doing. Not for personal promotion, but because she hoped to encourage the many other wealthy families in our area to do the same. Just as it is the government’s role to step in during recessions and stimulate the economy with massive spending, so it is the role of the rich, who have always been able to save at a vastly higher rate than everyone else, to inject that money into the economy.
We also have a neighbor who did a good deed a couple months ago. She was in line at the grocery when the customer at the register ahead of her realized she had lost her wallet. Our neighbor offered to pay for her groceries and gave the woman her address to send a check when she got home. (The store eventually found the wallet, dropped in an aisle). And that is just what the woman did, along with $93 additional. The woman told my neighbor to do something nice with her family as a thank you.
Well, our neighbor promptly got on Facebook and told her friends all about what she had done, and asked for suggestions about where to donate the money, because she didn’t feel right spending it. As expected, her friends lavished her with praise for her kindness and generosity, the local paper picked up the story and featured it, and in general she is now considered an upstanding and honorable citizen of the highest regard. And I have no doubt that that is just what she wanted. One doesn’t need to ask all ones friends how to donate $93.
But this unabashed bout of self promotion had a positive consequence. Along with the adoration of her Facebook and other friends, came money. $93, $9.30, even $0.93. In all she received some $20,000, which she donated to our local food bank. So, this was a case that precisely because of her self aggrandizement she was able to do more good than she would have had she humbly donated the $93 to charity.
Why do I share these stories? Well, I am one of those persons that am generally disgusted by people who when they give, do it with neon letters and arrows pointing to themselves. I always considered that to be bad taste and frankly rather a pathetic form of self esteem improvement. I suppose there is a not too small part of me that is simply jealous of people who can do that. I really should mind my own business since the end result is that good is done in the world, and hell, I haven’t done anything on that scale.
But here are two examples of cases where that kind of self promotion was necessary to the ability to do a greater good. Rewarding with praise, the narcissism that flies in the face of the Biblical admonition to give humbly where no one can see you, is really, a small price to pay considering the potential benefits.
So…when your wealthy neighbor buys a fancy new American car, or comes home every week with a $100 manicure, or goes out to dinner at the nicest restaurants in town a couple times a week, or easily plops down a few G’s every couple months for vacations at Disneyworld or to catch a Broadway play – all when we worry whether there will be a job waiting for us tomorrow -- let us shower them with praise and laurel wreathes – especially in front of their rich friends, to encourage the same. Jealousy -- in my heart as much as anyone’s -- make way for the greater good.