Pick any philanthropic avenue and in the spirit of post modernism I can detail what is wrong with this specific area of ‘help’. The big problem is that no matter what philanthropy you choose it is a symptom of a larger problem and that by alleviating the symptom and not addressing the problem, nothing philanthropic is really making a difference, just alleviating a symptom and exacerbates a problem.
It bothered me when people wanted to donate money to the victims of hurricane Katrina or send money to Haiti and now people want to send money and supplies to Japan, not because this wasn’t a good cause, but because no one was really addressing the problem. If you want to look at it as fighting nature then donating money is the best we can do. We won’t win fighting nature but that’s all money does, is hope that with enough money nature can’t hurt us. I understand the desire to ease suffering and I want to end suffering more than anyone and for me that requires ending the ignorance as well. There will be natural disasters with higher death tolls in the near future and it is really just simple math that will prove this. There is a growing human population and a growing population density in all cities around the world, natural disasters are natural, henceforth there will be higher death tolls in the future. We can build the highest walls we want in attempts to keep out the chaos, spend more money rearranging the globe, but nothing will keep the death toll down, unless we keep the population down.
The big problem is population density is too high. In order to keep these catastrophes from killing ten thousand people, we need to recognize the problem, not the symptoms. I have a dim view which isn’t any excuse to not pay attention. It is really those that do not pay attention to the growing population that need excuses and will constantly be faced with the same situation, both politically and environmentally. We all want to help, and I commend anyone who does something they authentically consider to be help, but help requires full attention to the big picture, which might require we donate money philanthropically today to division of resources during natural disasters, but with continued ignorance there will only be more pain, more death in the future.
Donate a moment of your time to consider the symptom of a much larger problem. This is relevant to all problems: a broken economy, jobs, starving people, war, oil, postmodernism, mentally insane, depression, they are all symptoms and it is time that we end philanthropic funding which would not help with the real problem.
