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As disturbing as it sounds, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have been much on my mind lately. One doesn't see the two wealthiest people in the country (world? I'm not sure if Buffett is number 2 in the world) relinquish such vast sums of money to charity without contemplating it. Because it's a big thing, just as Rockefeller doing similar in the past was a big thing.
A lot of people correctly point to the pair as people who've left behind them a trail of dubious business practices, empty factories and unemployed workers. This is completely true, and shouldn't be ignored for all the money in the world. Others, and I think this is a tad more off base, have claimed that their actions are providing a "cover" for their fellow rich people to be as irresponsible as they've ever been. I disagree, if only because I sincerely doubt Gates or Buffett have one iota of care for their economic peers. Both, in all senses of the word, are predators, and their peers are competition. When they are in the business spheres, they fight with tenacity, and I expect them to bring that same killer instinct to philanthropy. Does that seem a contradiction? It doesn't to me.
It's off base to look at Gates and Buffett as acting to represent their class. It's probably more correct to see them as representative of a schism within their class. Throw Al Gore (a longtime political ally to both, even when Microsoft was being sued by Clinton's Justice Department) and you can get a picture of a newly emerging social conflict: One group, Gates et al, have a set of priorities, and seek to build the future. One imagines idealism only figures so far into this equation. They've proven they can acquire money. That's not an issue. Now they seek something permanent lasting. I can understand that, even respect it. The other side seeks to control the world as it is. Big Oil and its representatives -- Bush, Cheney, et al -- benefit from a status quo that's effectively a dinosaur. We're getting off oil, eventually. It'll happen because it has to happen. Even Bush admits as much.
But I don't want to get into the merits or demerits of one side or the other here. Instead, I want to look at Gates and Buffett (and indeed, Rockefeller before them) and the damage they've done before their more recent good works.
Because it occurs to me that it's impossible to move through the world without causing damage. We burn each other all the time -- sometimes with a word, or a fist, other times with a business deal or a vote. All we can do, as we move through the world, is seek to mitigate the damage that we do. Even the cloistered monk consumes living matter, and odds are they've stepped on ants and swatted flies. And frankly, most of us aren't cut out to be cloistered monks.
No, causing damage is easy, and the bigger the thing that you try to do, the more damage you will cause somewhere. It's unavoidable. Doing good, on the other hand, has to be a conscious act. One does not unconsciously do good works. It has to be a choice.
And indeed, doing good does not make one better than anyone else. The reason such things need to be done with some humility is that they are necessary. Not just to the world, but in the balance of a life. Because if one cannot avoid doing harm -- and again, it's not in everyone's nature to be a monk -- then one must pay back for the damage they've done.
The opposite end of this spectrum is the consolidation of power, and in that place -- as tempting as it is -- dwells stagnation, alienation and an endless cycle of violence: diminishing returns for what little good is done, and an escalating amount of bad.
If this is all a little Crypto-Christian/Buddhist-fusion, then forgive me. I'm only thinking aloud, and only have my point of view to work from. One needs to surrender to the world before one can change it: It does nothing at gunpoint. Ultimately, to do good in this world, one needs to surrender something of proportionate value.
A lot of people correctly point to the pair as people who've left behind them a trail of dubious business practices, empty factories and unemployed workers. This is completely true, and shouldn't be ignored for all the money in the world. Others, and I think this is a tad more off base, have claimed that their actions are providing a "cover" for their fellow rich people to be as irresponsible as they've ever been. I disagree, if only because I sincerely doubt Gates or Buffett have one iota of care for their economic peers. Both, in all senses of the word, are predators, and their peers are competition. When they are in the business spheres, they fight with tenacity, and I expect them to bring that same killer instinct to philanthropy. Does that seem a contradiction? It doesn't to me.
It's off base to look at Gates and Buffett as acting to represent their class. It's probably more correct to see them as representative of a schism within their class. Throw Al Gore (a longtime political ally to both, even when Microsoft was being sued by Clinton's Justice Department) and you can get a picture of a newly emerging social conflict: One group, Gates et al, have a set of priorities, and seek to build the future. One imagines idealism only figures so far into this equation. They've proven they can acquire money. That's not an issue. Now they seek something permanent lasting. I can understand that, even respect it. The other side seeks to control the world as it is. Big Oil and its representatives -- Bush, Cheney, et al -- benefit from a status quo that's effectively a dinosaur. We're getting off oil, eventually. It'll happen because it has to happen. Even Bush admits as much.
But I don't want to get into the merits or demerits of one side or the other here. Instead, I want to look at Gates and Buffett (and indeed, Rockefeller before them) and the damage they've done before their more recent good works.
Because it occurs to me that it's impossible to move through the world without causing damage. We burn each other all the time -- sometimes with a word, or a fist, other times with a business deal or a vote. All we can do, as we move through the world, is seek to mitigate the damage that we do. Even the cloistered monk consumes living matter, and odds are they've stepped on ants and swatted flies. And frankly, most of us aren't cut out to be cloistered monks.
No, causing damage is easy, and the bigger the thing that you try to do, the more damage you will cause somewhere. It's unavoidable. Doing good, on the other hand, has to be a conscious act. One does not unconsciously do good works. It has to be a choice.
And indeed, doing good does not make one better than anyone else. The reason such things need to be done with some humility is that they are necessary. Not just to the world, but in the balance of a life. Because if one cannot avoid doing harm -- and again, it's not in everyone's nature to be a monk -- then one must pay back for the damage they've done.
The opposite end of this spectrum is the consolidation of power, and in that place -- as tempting as it is -- dwells stagnation, alienation and an endless cycle of violence: diminishing returns for what little good is done, and an escalating amount of bad.
If this is all a little Crypto-Christian/Buddhist-fusion, then forgive me. I'm only thinking aloud, and only have my point of view to work from. One needs to surrender to the world before one can change it: It does nothing at gunpoint. Ultimately, to do good in this world, one needs to surrender something of proportionate value.
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