This semester I came back to Tufts a day removed from a trip to Nepal (#Thats_What_YOLO_Means). As the semester creeps to an end, and what you did over the summer has ceased being an appropriate conversation starter, I've realized my window for self-congratulation is closing - thus my motivation to write.
My trip to Nepal was incredible and exceeded my expectations of an adventure in a developing country. Like a model Tufts student, I was left with a different perspective and came back to my comfortable Medford-Somerville existence questioning my value system and general orientation toward the world. However, unlike many experiences in developing countries, I did not return with the more clich?© and imperialist notions of poor people having "such rich culture" or being happy despite lack of material possession. I reference these ideas not to claim that I am above such thinking, as I closely monitored the number of Facebook likes my Nepal album accrued, but to point out the difficulty in being a tourist without having imperialist inclinations or projecting your pre-existing value system onto foreigners. This was the crux of my thoughts upon my return to the campus.
To give a bit more background information, before going to Nepal, I spent three months in New York City, my home for my entire life. During my time in the city I became very conscious of, and troubled by, the prevalence of homelessness, particularly in the face of many of the city residents' superfluous wealth and dismissive attitudes towards poverty. And this is where my dilemma sets in: While at home, my behavior was influenced by my moral judgments on the treatment of homeless people, but upon entering a foreign environment like Nepal, I practiced a completely contradictory ethical calculus. Nepal is a poor country that is heavily dependent on tourism and resultantly tourists are constantly approached by beggars. Yet in three weeks, I never gave anyone a single cent. To be frank, I treated Nepali beggars in a far crueler fashion than any Park Avenue billionaire who had never given a dollar to a homeless man - I treated them as pigeons, a mere nuisance whom I would shoo away at the slightest suggestion that they wanted my money.
As I re-acclimated to the United States and regained my liberal arts-emboldened moral compass, I reflected on my behavior and was mildly horrified. How was my morality so fickle? Why did I have such an explicit double standard on my sense of responsibility to the poor? Was it all out of convenience? Ultimately I realized that my ethical calculations are based on the distance between me and the person to whom I feel responsible, with people further away evoking less responsibility. There is a famous thought experiment that essentially asks if you had to choose between getting $20 and saving a drowning person, which would you pick? Of course the appropriate response is to save the drowning person, but that begs the question why, in times of crisis, when a contribution of $20 could literally save a life, more people don't give to charity? In 2010, a flood in Pakistan affected 20 million people and killed thousands. Yet despite this tremendous catastrophe, only 20 percent of the requested $460 million in relief funds was provided. For reference, the U.S. Predator Drone program, which has also destroyed the lives of countless innocent Pakistanis, costs $2.4 billion. So why is it that people care so much more about the drowning person in front of them than the drowning person in Pakistan? Could it be that many Americans, the leading donors of humanitarian causes, have never met a Pakistani? Could it be that many Americans have prejudice toward Muslims? If a severe flood hit the New York metropolitan area, and its population of 20 million people, would we only provide 20 percent of the necessary funds? Of course not; in fact there was a tremendous funding surplus for Hurricane Sandy relief. This inconsistency is wholly because the extent and the magnitude of people's moral responsibility are determined by their distance to the victim.
I must add that the ethical calculation is not based on distance in a physical/material sense but more as a distance of association to self. That is why, to me, a homeless person from New York evokes a greater sense of sympathy and thus creates a stronger sense of responsibility than an equally poor person in Nepal. If you still aren't sold on this, think about the magnitude of the association and how much money you would be willing to lose for the foreign, drowning person. What if it wasn't $20 but $10,000, or your whole net worth? What if the drowning person wasn't a stranger but a loved one or a family member - how much would you give up then? Simply, the closer the person comes to an association with you, the more you are willing to sacrifice to help them.
This is how I have learned to interpret my ethical calculations; yet I still question whether it is right or wrong. It is easy to label it wrong: Ethics should rise above subjectivity and self-centeredness, which are undeniably at the core of my proposed ethical calculus. It seems logical and moral to believe that no person is more valuable than another and thus shouldn't be treated differently on the basis of proximity to self. But is it really true? There is a distinct danger in a foreigner assuming they know what is best for a stranger. While this may justify complacency when confronted with ethical questions of foreign origin, I can act confidently among people with closer associations to me. For example, if I saw my close friend passed out on a sidewalk I would know, as I feel comfortable with my knowledge of him, that he needed help. But I cannot presume the same of the homeless in New York City, and while I can observe their lifestyle and feel sad about the fundamental inequalities pervading our society, it would be truly inappropriate to use my value system to assume I knew what was in their best interest. Ultimately one group of people imposing their values on another is the basis of imperialism, religious coercion and a history of material and cultural destruction.
So what is the value in my proposed ethical calculus? Mainly it is to propose a justification for being more self-centered in your sense of moral responsibility, because maybe it is best. Under the opposite conditions, an expansive sense of moral responsibility, there is a clear and often realized danger in acting on na??ve assumptions of foreign communities or having a transitory commitment, both of which exacerbate problems. Imagine a Tufts student brought up in a nice suburb who, upon taking Race in America, feels compelled to right the wrongs of his entitled existence. Emboldened by a new "social awareness," he leaves school and works for Teach for America or some other "humanitarian" organization. After his two-year commitment, in the case of TFA, he leaves and goes to law school. He goes on to live a great upper middle class life, as his parents' income dictated that he would, but has a feeling that he "contributed" or "made a difference." But whom has he truly helped - the communities he worked in that will remain as structurally disadvantaged as they were before he arrived? Or has he helped himself, sleeping easier knowing he's contributed to a "noble" cause? Maybe instead of creating an organization to bring privileged young adults to underprivileged communities to improve on standardized tests designed by a misinformed, privileged bureaucracy, those standards should never have been imposed in the first place. Maybe communities would be better off if this student just went straight to law school, though of course the privileged Tufts student would have been deprived of a "life experience."
Let me be clear: I do not mean to condemn people for wanting to help others but rather condemn the arrogance of some altruistic pursuits. The TFA participant, in his assumption that he is making positive change, may be doing more harm than good because of his lack of understanding or the fickleness of his commitment to those he is trying to help. If neither of those were true, say the student returned to teach in his community, or the student agreed to teach indefinitely, this wouldn't be nearly the same ethical conflict. Thus good intent can be harnessed productively if people work with those with whom they are familiar or to whom they have a permanent commitment. For example, starting a homeless shelter in New York, where I have knowledge and a substantive tie to the environment, is much less dangerous than starting a charitable program in a foreign country where my only knowledge of the area is that there are poor people there, as do missions.
While until this point I have promoted ethical calculations based on a self-centric model, I truly do not know what the just or best basis for morality is. For instance, should the US intervene in Syria? While a distance calculation might say no, and point to a history of western involvement in the Middle East that only exacerbated crises, it pains me to think that my government, with all the capabilities of being "the superpower," will sit idly by as over 100,000 people suffer premature deaths. Again, I don't know what the US should do in Syria or what is right or what is wrong. So what is the value in this op-ed? What is my actual opinion? Ultimately, this op-ed, and my distance rule, is only a critique. It is a critique of those who put up a Kony 2012 sticker and thought that they understood the complexities of life in Central Africa after watching a mass-marketed YouTube video through their high-definition LCD screens. It is a critique of those who, despite good intentions and a $200,000 liberal arts education, brazenly seek to change the world and help people whom they've only seen from a superficial distance or learned of through a sociological journal. It is a critique of self, for as I try to grow out of the arrogance and narcissism of my adolescence, I have only begun to understand what my responsibilities are and what my place in the world is. Critique may seem like an unsatisfying conclusion but ultimately it is all I believe in and all I can advocate for: Through critique we can tackle complex questions, we can discriminate affectively and fairly and we can make the world a better, more beautiful place.
