This morning, I read an article that said "I'm giving up cynicism for New Year's." Bill McKibben, the author, made a very important point: cynicism is now causing us to take "as read" what we would have stood up and screamed about forty years ago. His point is that cynicism is what's causing us to simply lie back and let things like the Patriot Act, the Citizens United decision, the NDAA, SOPA, PIPA, etc. to pass without a fight (or without the kind of fight we might have seen in the 1950s and 1960s, when we were still taught civics in high school and we still believed in that country and its vision). Cynicism is what caused us to shrug our collective shoulders and say "Oh well," when we heard about enemy combatants being treated in ways that violate the Geneva Convention (which we are supposedly a signer to). Cynicism is what's creating the attitude towards younger adults increasingly rejecting cars in favor of public transportation (a non-cynical attitude if I ever saw one!) from older commenters who say "no way can we do it any differently; cars are forever," even though oil is not forever.
Come over the jump with me for some thoughts - not many - about why the fight against cynicism means that we should err on the side of charity whenever possible.
SolarMom has a fantastic .sig line. It goes like this:
“Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” -- FDR, 1936
A large percentage of today's Americans (and world citizens) would probably read that and say "Whoever wrote that was a COMMUNIST!" (or some other epithet meaning "person who expects others to share when they have more than they need"). And the reason they would is plain and simple: they've become too cynical to see that those occasional faults are more human than that icy indifference. And that, more than anything, speaks to me about how eff'ed up our world is.
The way I read it, FDR's statement was a call to err on the side of charity, rather than cynicism, whenever possible. His point, I think, was that you cannot be cynical and charitable at the same time. But today's "compassionate conservatives" are still, in the face of all evidence and logic, insisting that we can be. And too many people, even on the left, are listening.
Part of the reason is probably that the idea of charity is bound up with several other ideas, most notably money and taxes, and the idea of helping those in need has been relegated to the domain of philanthropists, rather than all people feeling called to notice those in need and, if possible, help them.
The most common understanding of charity towards others is financial: we give someone who's in a bad financial situation a hand up, a help out, we send them money on Paypal while they pack up their apartment on the other side of the state as they await eviction, or drop a few dollars in their coffee can while they sit on the street corner with a sign saying something like "CAN'T FIND WORK - PLEASE HELP". We create and maintain state infrastructure to help the disabled, the poor, the unemployed, the homeless. And all of that is to the good. But it also requires the vision, or the attitude, that the other person will not squander/waste/fritter away the money we send them. And for many of us, that level of trust no longer exists in any meaningful way. Someone I know said "I never give the homeless money. They're just going to spend it on drugs or booze anyway. What's the point?"
That attitude harms all of us, not just those who are in need right now, because it means that we're more likely to reject others in need generally.
Being charitable doesn't just mean handing someone money. It also means assuming that their motives are good, that they're not trying to screw us over or steal from us or trick us. Our current political and economic systems, unfortunately, are built on the cynical mindset and worldview: get ours before They steal it (whoever "They" are at the moment). Erring on the side of charity is not part of the worldview at all, and those who advocate for it are routinely derided as naive or foolish.
I have a different view.
Erring on the side of charity will help us be less cynical at the same time that we are improving our lives and the lives of others. Cynicism is the enemy of charitability, driven by two main engines: suspicion about the motives of others, and a feeling of helplessness. When I meet someone new, I can tell they're a cynic within a few minutes by seeing how much ability they feel they don't have to change a situation and how suspicious they seem of the motives of others. Libertarians seem to be very cynical, to me. They assume that everyone's looking out for number one and number one only. Most modern conservatives have an ingrained suspicion of others' motives as well. But we liberals also suspect others' motives. It's natural; we've been burned a lot when we trust others and that leads us towards cynicism. But that's also the worst thing we can do if we want to improve our nation and our world.
I would not be here today if people had not been willing to see past cynicism and helped me when I needed it. My first marriage ended horribly; a friend of a friend took me in. That situation got bad; another person took me in for minimal rent. I stayed there for two years, got back on my feet, and eventually went back to school. Then the student loans didn't come when I needed to pay for school supplies (art school, which is where I started, is an incredible money-and-time suck) and a friend sent me money to help pay for those school supplies so I wouldn't fail. One year it'd be the money for the rent. Another year the car would break down and I'd need help again. Almost every year I've had to swallow my pride and ask for help. The two years after my father died were an exception. Without people willing to suspend their cynicism for me, I'd be dead now, and no mistake.
But when I've had the ability to help others, I've done it without a second thought. I've handed five-dollar bills to people standing near freeway offramps holding signs saying "PLEASE HELP ME EAT TODAY." In one case I gave the guy a twenty and said "Go get a square meal and something for later, too." He almost cried. I was able to help, it didn't hurt me, and it reinforced my belief that it's better to get skunked occasionally by someone with bad intentions than to be a skunk myself.
So many people today are so afraid of getting tricked, fooled, or taken that they are unable to see beyond that fear to the real people who are sleeping on heater grates or in cars or in parks, to the real people who are one catastrophe away from eviction or losing their job, to the real people who are unable to make ends meet or to cope with their situations for whatever reason. And the more cynical we are, the less we see those among us, because we're so invested in making sure that we never get cheated or hurt or fooled that we become selfish, suspicious people who won't take a chance on anyone or anything.
Reject cynicism. Take a chance on charity. Err on its side whenever you can, even if it means you might get taken advantage of. Right now, knowing what we do about unemployment and poverty in this country, it's worth it to help those less fortunate, even if they occasionally do skunk us. That, more than anything, will revitalize our nation and our world.