Mike sez
...
>
>Here is my question. Helena has written about her situation, where the
>lives
>of a lot of people are at stake, and where modest amounts of money, or
>perhaps
>time (if she could invent some way where our time would help). Samantha
>is taking a lot of initiative to put herself in a position to practice law
>on the behalf (of presumably) lots of other people who also deserve
>support.
>
>Can we, individually or collectively, respond to such initiatives? Is
>there
>any collective criteria we could develop for where to focus energy? Or is
>it a free for all?
Well, as Helena's writing and Samantha's website both indicate, it is
"free" for no one. And so, yep, the larger
questions peck at a particular conscience, not really "can we" respond -
but "to whom" do we respond? and how?
For those who have no money, of course, money becomes the desired response
- while we can wonder if 'throwing' money
at certain people and not others isn't just some arbitrary empty gesture,
those who need money are absolutely unambiguous: YES you can throw
money at me and it WILL make a difference...Having been at both ends of
something as specifically material as "having money" and
"not having money" I know the feeling of sheer need without ambiguity, as
well as the more perplexing realizations of struggling to choose
who needs, how much, and all that. Each end of this represents a
bottomless pit, of course. Aye, there's the rub.
Part of what's perplexing, I think, involves the decided power granted to
those in a position to 'help' - once we realize we
get to choose who 'needs' 'how much' and so on, we are saddled with a
myriad of moral ambitions - WILL Samantha use her
law degree to 'do good?' and to help those who genuinely have their lives
improved through legal representation, or will she - at some point -
become overwhelmed with the demands of social activism, and opt instead
for contractual law, or corporate law - will her idealism
make a difference, or will she decide to abandon hope and settle for
self-advancement - ? And if "I" can't depend on her
idealism, why should I risk supporting what might be another 'bad' lawyer
when there is such a need for 'good' lawyers?
I should just send money to public service labour lawyers, or anonymously
support a union, or feed the poor... and so on.
Meanwhile, as I say, that 'bottomless pit' grows wider and bigger and
suddenly there seems no reason to help anyone at all.
I think part of the problem here involves idealism - I want to believe in
idealism, hell, maybe on some level I still am idealistic; at the same
time, I've learned too much
to believe, really, in idealism - I want to be surprised by something
great and wonderful, but in the end, great and wonderful things
happen in very small ways.
[anecdote here: at the Montreal Jazz Festival this summer, my sister and I
happened across a young man sitting on the sidewalk, a little drunk,
asking for help to cash a cheque - everyone walked on ignoring him but my
sister stopped to hear the story... Turned out he's from Nova Scotia,
was in Toronto, now in Montreal, long story about address changes and his
mother and so on: bottomline - he had no money at all, but he had a cheque
he needed cashed but had no
way of cashing it, so my sister took the cheque to her own bank, and
cashed in through the ATM and gave him his money. Very small gesture,
no lasting impact, and yet it struck me as valuable because it was better
than doing nothing at all: it was a risk, but she believed his story and
decided
there was no harm in helping and why not help?]
Anyway, with Samantha, I wonder, I admit, if you are literate and clever
enough to make the pitch online, do you really really need the help? I
mean, isn't
that the niggling thought? And for those who don't have access to the ways
that middle class folks will respond, that is, if they don't know
HOW to ask in a way that will appeal to those with funding, don't they -
in effect - need it more?
(OH BOY! Have I just pried open a wormy tin here.) In fact, I did just
that, once, when I was fantastically idealistic. I used my writing
skills to gain grant money for a social activist project, with the
intention of giving the money over to those who could not
get the money but who needed it - in the end of course I realized that the
money didn't, in fact, make a difference at all. It just gets
spent and the larger social institutions that participate in the struggles
of those who aren't healthy/happy/secure/safe and so on persist in
much grander ways to ensure that nothing significant changes. So, in the
end, nothing changed and a lot of people were just really disappointed
because I'd convinced a lot of people that the money would change things
and when you have no money, as I say, the belief that it
will change everything is totally viable.
Thing is, if I were hungry or frightened, right now, there would be no
ambiguity at all. And the thing is, Helena's writing doesn't improve the
situation even as it illuminates the depth and frustration of the
problem(s). In fact, helping Samantha won't really make a difference in
the big picture
either, and I can't help but think that if Samantha weren't a foxy redhead
with those "eyes" peering over her LSATs, the idea of helping her out
wouldn't even be an issue.
Whew. All I can say is help SOMEONE, because that's better than helping no
one. Help anyone, because if you can, you should.
>
>
>No prescriptions here. Simply perplexed.
>mike
me too. often.
diane
'Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself
upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.'
Stephen Leacock,
"Gertrude the Governess, or Simple Seventeen."
***************************************************************************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
vancouver, bc
mailing address: 46 broadview avenue, pointe claire, qc, H9R 3Z2
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