[Xmca-l] Interesting to think about: the social springs of giving

[mike cole]

I found a segment of the American weekly TV program, 60 minutes, more than
usually interesting this evening, and one segment in particular
seemed to have a lot of relevance to many different interests of people on
xmca. The topic was the the activities of the "Make a Wish Foundation."

Of the very many issues that the program discusses, one which I found
particularly interesting was the ability of the organized practice of
communities
raising money to give seriously ill children "a last wish" is one that has
particular relevance to questions about the mechanisms of social
solidarity. In small towns in northern Arkansas, a relatively poor and out
of the part of the US, people raise amazing amounts of money to provide
special experience for kids who are dying of some disease that has not
known current cure. What particularly caught my attention especially is the
powerful effect that participation in the money raising and the ingenious
social organization of the activities, has on community members across
several generations, from peers to grandparents. In one sense, it seems
that everything is so focuses on the individual kid that it is "just a
manifestation of late capitalist individualism." If effects on the kids is
interesting, but it is the reflected effect on the community pretty
generally, and the emergence of strong personal bonds in particular that
caught me most.

Andy might find this interesting as an example of a project.

mike

 http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/topics/60-minutes/     click on make a wish

-- 

It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
object that creates history. Ernst Boesch