The World We Want

The World We Want: From Athens and Jerusalem

H. Peter Karoff -- can you imagine him bald and barefoot in Athens, like Socrates or Diogenes, accosting the wealthiest citizens and asking crafty questions about "The World We Want?" I can. I believe his writings are essentially an attempt to come to terms with that role, the role of, as Socrates put it, being "the midwife" of the interlocutor's soul, or moral life. Paideia is the term for doing that, the elicitation of what is best in a person, within the traditions by which the person has been formed and must pass on, as any creature is formed by its genes and passes them on with variations. (Part of our genetic code as Americans is the charming delusion that we are each self-made, just coincidentally as alike as mass manufactured commodities.) In any case, at Gifthub, Giving as Moral Heroism is about these issues. Where the work of philanthropy goes wrong is when we honor big givers who give just a little of what they have over broken people who give all. Gifted givers are all equal in the eyes of God, if we take Jesus as any guide to that. That is my theme, and you can say, I impose it on Peter's work. But if you read his essays again you will see that the examples holding his attention are creative, artistic, or heroic, and that many instances are not about money at all. The book, The World We Want, may be mostly about the life-determining and culture-determning gifts of the wealthy, but Peter's surprising inclusion of me in that book was at least a back door open to people of limited financial means. I hope that through this blog we can include in the conversation gifted givers whose wallets may be empty, but whose head, heart, and dedication might put many wealthy people to shame. Where the World We Want may come to life is when we meet as citizens in common purpose and money is subordinate to shared ideals, joint action, and love (caritas). I believe these were among the founding principles of our country, and reflect our debt to Athens and Jerusalem.  We pay that gift forward, whether rich or poor by upholding those ideals and passing them on intact to our heirs, keeping our democracy alive, even as wealth, power, honors and prestige, flow upward to the few. To keep our traditions alive, to conserve The World We Want, we must wake up, as Peter suggests in Sleepwalkers. As vile a man as he might be, I will give my own Morals Tutor the last word.
 

Are You in Wealth Bondage?

To create the World We Want may be difficult if we are in bondage to wealth. A simple self-test may be in order.

Winning The War on Awakeness

Awake, pretending to be asleep, going along blind-eyed to get along, he whispered to the blind-eyed woman next to him, "Are you asleep?" After a long pause, he heard as if from a ventriloquist, a voice in the air, though no lips moved, "The nail than stands up gets pounded flat." So, we are asleep. Good enough.

Sleepers among Sleepwalkers

Once upon a time there was a kingdom of sleepwalkers. Awakened, our hero looked this way and that. Realizing that he was a freak and might be exiled as a pariah, he quickly made his face go blank, his eyes wide and sightless, and so passed all his life for a normal person. Do you know any such? How many "sleepers" here among the sleepwalkers? I think we are many. I will awaken if you will, if we dare. Peter? Peter?

Sleepwalkers Awaken Under.WealthBondage

Peter, want to set your Sleepwalkers piece to music? Now we just need an illustrator, like maybe Groz. Brecht could do the libretto, and maybe Marlene Deitrich could sing it.