[MD] From each... to each

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Hi Craig,

[Craig]
Very few people in our culture hold that "concern with oneself is all there is".
 Americans have one of the most generous societies & civic consciousness is
generally high.

[Arlo]
A man who gives a dime to feed a starving child, when all he has is that dime is
generous. A man who gives a thousand dollars when he has millions in the bank
is seeking tax breaks and social symbolic capital.

This sounds cynical, and I say it *admittingly* antagonistically, but what is
often thought of as "generous" in our culture would be very much not so in
others. Now, I don't propose, for example, that there are only two options
here, selfish and selfless. In fact, I'd argue that this rhetorical dichotomy
is part of the problem. Richard Lederer had written we need a new word, and
proposes "selfful", to describe times when it is appropriate to think of
oneself, but with a nod to knowing there are times when it is appropriate to
think of others.

Is this to say "all" Americans are a certain way? Of course not. That'd be
absurd. Even Lakoff, the man with the ugly head, would propose no such thing. 

[Craig]
Even if everyone were only selfish, it would not be the language that made them
so.  Our language has the potential to express selfish, unselfish,
disinterested, etc. feelings.

[Arlo]
At the risk of sliding into a conversation on "individual versus collective",
I'd argue that language does indeed make you "what you are". Language is, of
course, not deterministic, but it is structurating. The Indian's non-pairing of
"freedom" and "property", for example. It would be hard for many to imagine a
world where "inability to own things" and "freedom" could possibly co-exist,
and yet for the Indian, it is OUR world that is contradictory.

Overall, you reminded me of a truism (at least as I, too, have experienced it).
William Least Heat-Moon, in Blue Highways, talks about traveling the country in
a pickup and just talking to regular folk he meets. He observes into his trip,
"why is it always the people with the least, who are the first to share?"

Pirsig touches on this, as it relates to the Indian-Victorian schism, when he
talks about the perceived audacity of showing up at the door of a Victorian.
They would be appalled. But to the Indian, it would be natural simply to give
and to share. To the Victorian, obsessed with ownership, and using ownership to
secure social status, such sharing is heretical.

You, me, we are not Indian. Nor are we Victorian. We are a hybrid. And so we
have inner tensions to go towards both. Most Americans, I'd say, deal with this
inner conflict every day. To share, or to keep? Is that the question? And what
is "sharing"? Dropping dimes in a collection plate? Inviting a homeless person
to spend the night? Volunteering ten hours a week to teach inner city kids to
read? Donating $1000 to charity, and then writing it off your taxes?

But, I will admit, Craig. I am not much of an optimist in this regard. You seem
to be, and I applaud that. I hope you are right, and I hope I am wrong. I worry
that the language of "consumerism" (a term which I use to describe the SOM,
mercantile, social-superiority, orientation of modern culture) has drummed the
sharing, communal, selfful but not selfish or selfless, Indian right out of us.
I do see it still exists, by the way, but like Heat-Moon, only when I am among
the "lower socio-economic" folk. When I spend time with those "better off", I
see a dramatic concern with "my wealth" that starts to trump any consideration
for any thing else. But, that's just my experience. God, I do hope I am wrong.

Arlo