Ignoring Jesus

I think I might need to ignore Jesus. Well, at least this one thing he said: ‘when you give money to charity, don’t go blowing your trumpet.’ This idea is a strongly held norm in our own society as well; you can be as good as you want, but don’t go talking about it and making other people feel bad. It’s widely held to be pretty rude (and a little hypocritical) to do something good and then follow it up with, ‘Hey everybody, look what I just did!’ Actually, it might help to extend my paraphrase of Jesus’ words a little bit more: ‘when you give money to charity, don’t go blowing your trumpet, because then you’ll be like the hypocrites who only do this to get the accolades of others.’ In other words: be good, but don’t just do it for the admiration of those around you.

The question I’ve been wrestling with lately is whether we might be better off focusing on the ‘don’t do it for the accolades’ part of these words instead of the ‘don’t toot your own horn’ part. In fact, evidence shows that when people talk about the good that they’re doing (in a non-hypocrite-seeking-accolades kind of way), it makes other people more likely to start doing some good of their own. You might notice this when charities call to solicit donations: Rather than asking for what you can spare, they’ll mention what the person they just spoke to committed to giving. This helps you realize, ‘hey, other people are being generous, I should be too.’

Peter Singer brought this up in his recent book, The Life You Can Save (which I’m recommending to everybody I talk to). If we all talk about the good things we do, the world just might end up being a better place.

There are a number of impulses and drives competing within me when I think about this. Most prominently, there’s the drive to modesty. I can talk about these things in the abstract (for example, suggesting that ‘people’ should give a higher percentage of their income to charity), but once I start talking about things on a personal level (‘no, I won’t buy that shirt, it was made in a sweatshop’) I quickly become conscious of how others will perceive my comments as a judgment of their own decisions. I'm not naturally inclined toward this sort of personal interference.

Although I’ve noted how uncomfortable it makes me to be doing this, I'm obviously here blogging nonetheless. This is because there are two other impulses which, at least for the moment, are overriding this fear of coming across as preachy. The first is a general drive to promote discourse: I’m a strong believer that everything important should be talked about as freely as possible. Concealing things, ignoring differences, or hiding truths only serves to slow the tide of progress. Combined with this is my drive to do what’s right. If I can contribute to making the world a better place by sharing my methods of being in the world at the expense of my own comfort, then so be it.

In conclusion, I’m starting this blog. I plan to chronicle my own attempt at living rightly in the world, with the goal of both sharing what I’m doing with others, and reaching out to others who can help me to become a better person.