Why (Some) Conservatives Give

An interesting and moving response to my "Who Cares?" post from Harry Hutchison, explaining that at least some religious conservatives feel a Gospel-based spiritual and moral obligation to engage in charitable giving as a response to apparently intractable social problems. I certainly don't doubt that among some religious conservatives (such as Harry) that sentiment is absolutely genuine -- I would not make that concession about all conservatives, by the way -- but that it is again besides the point (pace Greg). For all the spiritually informed personal generosity of some religious conservatives, their political and economic philosophy reflects a willingness to tolerate a much greater degree of social inequality and poverty than leftish political and economic philosophies. Assuming that is true (and I know, of course, that it is debatable), then the fact of a somewhat higher rate of personal charitable giving by conservatives is interesting, but not important, because it doesn't really achieve the kind of change that would actually help ameliorate inequality and policy. It also doesn't establish that liberals are really smarmy hypocrites, which I am sure will be one of the ways in which the Brooks study will be read. I should add, furthermore, that this whole debate seems to be focusing on a red herring, ie the accusation allegedly thrown by liberals at conservatives that they don't "care" about the poor. I would put that claim on the same absurd level as the charge sometimes thrown at liberal Catholics that you "don't care about the lives of the innocent unborn, but you do care about the lives of guilty murders."  Both accusations grotesquely oversimplify complex issues and positions. I'm sure that some, and maybe even most conservatives "care" at some level about the poor, but what matters is how they care. and whether that translates into social policy and action that will actually do something to address the needs of the poor in a structural way.

Mark:

I read with interest your recent post "Who Gives More? –Who Cares." I concede as I must that you know more about Catholic Social Theory than I shall ever know. Nevertheless, I am troubled. You apparently, describe the charity of conservatives as a rationalization that covers an enormous amount of relative indifference to the human cost of policies (or non-policies) that result in worsening the lot of the poor. On the other hand, the Holy Father states that God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him." . . . .Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice . . . but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." The Encyclical continues by suggesting necessity of loving of God and loving our Neighbor. The connection between the two constitutes an unbreakable bond. Consistently with that intuition, Jesus in responding to a certain lawyer in Luke 10 gives us the story of the good Samaritan. In my view, this story does not separate us into conservative or liberal camps by demonstrating the indifference of conservative Samaritans and the concern of liberal ones. My understanding of that story is that we, (all of us) must give to the needy. How that is expressed is obviously a big question but I think that if "conservatives" are actually giving to the poor and the needy that constitutes important evidence that they are, however imperfectly, beginning to live out the commands of Jesus and the Holy Father however intractable the social problems and social structures appear to be.

Charitable giving bears witness to the lot of the poor and to ourselves as we respond to the injunctions of Jesus and the admonitions of the Holy Father. I hope that is something we can all care about. Although, I concede that one life can be seen as simply one more data point in a sea of data, and without getting overly personal, my life represents a living symbol of the power of individual conservatives (at great personal cost) motivated by Christian charity to rescue lost souls like me.