The World We Want

Moondog In the Public Square

"Comedy is allied to justice " - Aristophenes

"Philanthropy is private action in a public space," said laughing Praxagora, "and so is keeping watch with a spear."

Preserving the Integrity of The World We Want

"Dirt is matter out of place." - Mary Douglas

We preserve the integrity of the world we want by excluding those elements that don't belong. What are the means by which a polite society excludes, marginalizes, silences, suppresses, or eliminates those elements that don't belong?  Safe places begin with a decorous prose style. To open the prose is to open the door to Carnival and the inversion of the established order. Safe places at the top of the heap are preserved through tacit violence. The cries of the excluded must be kept out of earshot lest they trouble the funder's conscience. A blog on the World We Want with open comments is a disaster waiting to happen. Pretty soon The World We Want would look more and more like Wealth B*ndage. The Philanthropic Initiative is a safer place, because the losers can read about what is done for them by the rich, but can't comment. Philanthropy, as Peter has characterized it, is "private action in a public space." That the public space includes Dumpsters inhabited by losers goes without saying, though the philanthropist, a "person of substance in every sense of that term," passes the beggar by in silence, his eyes averted. The World We Want has no importunate beggars in it. The poor may be as necessary for the smooth functioning of the body politic as is excretion for the human body, but some things, the ones that shame us, are best kept out of sight.