Compassion and Why Institutional Handouts Rarely Uphold Human Dignity

Compassion is the source motivation which drives people to engage in social justice. Compassion is a beautiful gift that allows us to see the potential in others, despite their poverty, we hope we have ourselves. We need more compassion in our world. Compassion motivates us to advocate for the needs of our neighbor, be they next door or across the world.

Compassion is necessarily most effective when most personal. Indeed the more institutionalized a compassionate act becomes, the less effective it becomes. To illustrate this, I turn to Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (the book or play suffice). Jean Valjean is a newly released convicted thief who can not find work or lodging because of his past. Bishop Myriel takes him in, giving food and shelter. Valjean steals the bishop’s silverware and vanishes into the night, only to get caught. The police drag him before the bishop, who informs them that he gave Valjean the silverware and that he forgot the silver candlesticks as well. Bewildered by the bishop’s unexpected forgiveness and generosity, Valjean takes to heart the bishop’s command to become an honest man and do good deeds for others. That moment becomes transformative for Valjean, who takes the wealth to start a business under a new identity and he does help many.

Would that moment have been nearly as transformative if it hadn’t been so personal? No. It took being beholden to the bishop’s startling forgiveness and additional generosity to motivate Valjean to stand up and strive to become who God created him to be. No institutional handout could have accomplished the same thing. Valjean has many personal levels of poverty in addition to his financial poverty. These can only be addressed personally, in relationship.

Why explain this? Because many people begin their social justice careers by doing compassionate things as a grass roots level. They see that compassionate giving of aid helps people. They logically presume that what works on a local scale could simply be magnified if they did it on a large scale. What is often missed is that larger scale generally means less personal, and the tranformative aspect of the compassionate act is stripped away. No longer is there 1) mutual agreement, 2) relationship, or 3) personal responsibility -- the very things that help overcome the intangible poverties.

I’m often asked, “Why do the doers of social justice need to know this model? Can’t they just ‘love their neighbor’?” If all they will ever do is act individually, perhaps. But if they will ever advocate for social justice by voting or speaking to others, or extrapolate from their experiences to any larger scale (which nearly everyone invariably does), then it is essential they understand the natural law of this model of Catholic Social Teaching.

We need to realize that compassion is transformative and requires personal involvement and sacrifice. Somehow, our structures for social justice need to promote and support individual acts of compassion if we are to be as effective as possible.

Bad Bailout, Government Bully, and Nasty Coconuts

A few weeks ago the cry came from the White House that we were in huge economic crisis and that we needed that the answer was for the government to unclog the system with another bailout -- this time equalling the total of the previous recent bailouts to the tune of $700B.

If "the Man" says there is a problem that's one thing. That's their job. "Danger! Conditions are right for quick sand to form in the free market sand box!" It was said by some, but not in a way or a forum that it was heard or understood or reached most people. And if it had, would we have listened?

But "the Man" did more than declare danger a few weeks ago. Bloated government can't help but want to do more than it's rightful, just, and noble job. Now the government saw the opportunity to be the knight in shinning armor riding in to save the nation's economy, all the while utterly ignorant that it is actually a gangly, clumsy, oaf with a tin pot for a helmet clunking coconuts together for a steed.

I think many people saw the knight for the fool he is. Most Americans opposed the bailout before it passed. But the delusion of grandeur spread through congress. And it will continue to spread, because economic hardship is a vast and prevalent dragon throughout the land. After all, a knight in shining armor can hardly refuse to help more hapless citizenry in need. The delusion will grow and grow, we will pay and pay, until it can no longer support itself and then we will have real collapse and the "must avoid disaster" of the free market self-correcting will look mighty desirable. I pray our leaders look in the mirror sooner than that and wise up.

But I've digressed to dire predictions based on nothing but principles. (By the way, never trust a person who claims "I'm against this in principle, but in this crisis we have no choice but to blow off principle and do what feels good.").

How did our government's declaration to save the day prevent the free market from self-correcting? Because no one was exactly sure what the answer would be, only that government would overstep it's bounds. There was an answer coming. It's not our job to address it.

And the very mechanisms that could and should have helped get things moving again stood still because there was too much risk (of what the government would do) and not incentive (because the government might diminish any profit) to step into the breech, take a risk, and buy up the bad debt at basement prices. So no one wanted to buy. No one wanted to sell because the government was likely a better buyer.

It's the much the same thing that has happened with charity. The government takes care of it so we don't have to. We pay taxes and that takes care of everyone, right? Wrong. The principle of subsidiarity (via Catholic social teaching) states that ANY social entity that takes to itself roles and responsibilities which can be done by more local entities (closer to the family and the individual), undermines human dignity. Undermines human dignity. Wow. How much is our government doing that can be done by anyone else? A lot. That's a lot of trampling on human dignity.

Our current crisis began with a noble and ill advised sentiment -- that everyone should have a house. Government mandates made it so lending institutions had to give loans to people who couldn't afford them. This came to include not only poor people, but middle income people who thought they could turn and flip houses. That works when values keep growing. It's disaster when value shrinks. This was compounded by the Mark to Market rule which caused mortgage securities to appear valueless when they had substantial value. Bungling idiot, this knight in shining armor! And we reward such idiocy by giving our knight more responsibility and tools to mess with new and different aspects of our free market sandbox. Whose the greater idiot? The idiot himself, or the one who follows? 

We have to start calling him what he is. Bully! Get out! This is our sand box! You are just the maker and enforcer of the rules, not a player in the sand. Get out! And take these sand-encrusted coconuts with you!