User:Luisa Moura/reading/youtube/Žižek

Žižek on charity

Why is charity a basic consistent of our economy? Not idiosyncrasy of some nice guys. Cultural capitalism. Old times: (68, post modern, cultural capitalism, so on…) there was a simple opposition between consumption and what you actually do for society. In the morning he earns, in the afternoon he gives its way for charity. Now everything is included in one single package: example Starbucks. Is not what you are buying but what you are buying IN TO. Starbucks bullshit: good coffee Karma - purest cultural consumerism.

Example TOMS shoes: every pair of shoes you buy they give other pair to someone in need. You fulfill ethical duties In a store you prefer organic apples. Why? Do you really feel they are any better? It makes us feel warm… do something for mother earth

Egotist consumption already includes in the price its opposite: altruism. Oscar Wilde, the soul of man under socialism: it is easier to have sympathy with suffering than with thought; hideous poverty, ugliness, starvation, inevitable to feel moved. Looking for remedies, but these remedies are actually part of the disease, they prologue it, perpetuate a state of dependence.

Keeping the poor alive, by amusing the poor. We should actually fight for a society that would render poverty impossible. But altruism really came to prevent the pursuit of such change. Owners of slaves that were kind to their human property were actually preventing them to feel empathy or join the cause of all the others that were suffering more from it. Charity degrades, demoralizes. It is immoral to use private property to work out the consequences of the institution of private property itself. Basic income and other remedies is not a solution. Last desperate attempt to make capitalism works. We thrive for Socialism with a human face in the past. Now we are handling the global capitalism with a human face. Lets recognize evil… “In history, in the end, there were not as many people as today living in decent, peaceful conditions, I find that deeply threatening”

HARDTALK: “Are you a misanthropist?” “Better that cheap, charitable, optimism” The only way to save liberalism principles is to do something else (…) I’m not against charity, but lets just assume that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in it.