Release freedom
Written by Henrik Gade Jensen
The Don Quixote of Morality
Date: d. 30.06.10 , 17:51
By: Henrik Gade Jensen
Can charity be performed long distance ? Can goodness be implemented through bureaucracy? How can I do good as I want to ?
These questions presented themselves again when, in today's Jyllands -Posten you could read that relief in the long run prolongs conflicts and increases the suffering. It is the historian Claus Kjersgaard Nielsen, who in a PhD thesis examined decades of Danish aid and came to the conclusion that Danish aid organizations inadvertently supported forced displacement and genocide in an attempt to relieve suffering.
Best known is the disaster in Ethiopia in 1985 , where Danish pop singers flocked to the microphone to raise money for Africa. Laudable and unselfish, but unfortunately the help was abused by the Soviet -inspired totalitarian regime in Addis Ababa. Which André Glucksmann even then accurately described in a book. Also in Cambodia in 1979-1981 the international aid meant that the Khmer Rouge, who had already annihilated large parts of the population got their bellies filled."Some relief camps were controlled by the Khmer Rouge , and the soldiers were well fed and could fight again . "
The PhD thesis must spark off a moral debate on how best to help in this sinful world. We all want to do good, but the good that we end up doing is not always good . A media covered emergency easily triggers self-righteousness (I finally found a NEIGHBOR who needs my LOVE, the welfare state has eliminated them at home ) so that common sense is easily displaced in the rush to do well on a large scale for real victims . " We are all on earth two help others, but what on earth the others are here for, we do not know " , as WH Auden writes.
Goodness can perhaps only be realized at close range, face to face where we can see the effect and human empathy may work . Goodness long distance through many intermediaries is in danger of being abused , not only on account of bad will and cruel dictators, but also on account of self-righteous zeal to do something - come what may. As when P1- editor Lasse Jensen, who in 1968-70 worked in the World Council of Churches that airlifted food to Biafra ,and thus prolonged the conflict, says: "What should one do? Just sit down and watch people die ? There were people who needed help here and now . " But according to Kjersgaard Nielsen the aid led to more suffering by prolonging the war, among other things because Biafra could smuggle weapons in via the emergency deliveries or buy weapons for food.
Goodness is a sensitive thing and hard to instrumentalize without untoward adverse effects.
One does the most good by acting it out in close relationships and helping ones nearest and dearest, thus contributing to a better world in the small part of the world where one is, where good is allowed to flourish as unintended effects of decent human interaction. To fixate the good in a context far removed from oneself requires a divine insight, which people do not possess. It becomes moral Don Quixoteri.
Or as the poet William Blake wrote in 1700 :
He who wants to do good to others, must do it in small chunks
The general good is a matter for cheaters , hypocrites and lackeys
http://blogs.jp.dk/slipfrihedenloes/2010/06/30/moralens-don-quixote/To do or not to do, it is quite a dilemma.
Topic: The Don Quixote of Morality