I am a great thinker. If I didnt have so many great ideas I would be a billionaire by now. I am very good at coming up with ideas, even developing them into business plans. But actually I care little for getting my hands dirty with execution. Interestingly that is my Filipino girlfriend's strength. So that might auger well for the future.
But I thought here was a good opportunity in the Philippines. Its actually a distraction for me - one of many. But here is the idea. Hopefully a Filipino airline executive will read my blog. Hopefully people will send books, if not on their own initiative, then through Philippine Airlines.
According to the Philippines Inquirer, a young mayor of Tabango Municipality in Leyte Province, the Philippines has been overseeing the development of a P5.8mil ($US120,000) modern library for his community. The municipality has been promised between P0.5-1mil to complete the construction, and its finished. I think alot of credit goes to the mayor for keeping this project alive for 6 years. The municipality has an income of just P30mil ($US700,000). The library has the capacity to hold 20,000 books, and today it has just a few hundred. I dont think this project needs any money. What it needs is people prepared to give books and for Philippine Airlines to distribute the books from around the world to fill the library.
The reason this is important is because Filipinos are poor thinkers. I get a sense of why theyare poor thinkers when I look at the way they are raised. They are not intellectually challenged. Worse still is that they are not raised with any sense of structure, or what we would call normalcy. They are without a doubt the most self-indulgent laxed people on the half of the earth - but thats just the poor ones. A great many of the aspirational ones are climbing over each other trying to build their own sense of security. I dont sense much empathy in this 'seemingly' Christian land. The reason I know its stuff is because I have a reasonable confortable life here. I live in a 3bedroom apartment, but I have blaring stereos on one side, planes flying overhead, 6-10 barking dogs in the street, 3 cocks next door, kids playing in the street, a pig feed factory next door. Actually I live in a subdivision, but this country is chaos, so you could end up with a factory operating out of your neighbourhood as I do next door.
Now I am an abstract thinker, and I find it hard to find peace in this country. My GF was raised by Americans, albeit Chinese ones, but she was raised from 19yo and she's amazing. Some credit has to go to her parents, as all three of their kids are successful, and all from a modest background. The kids in this country need a place to learn. A quiet place. Most dont live as I do. Many of them live in 1-2 room houses with 7 people - just 40-50m2 in area, on small 50-100m2 lots. Its noisy, its smelly, its disruptive. But what if there was a place - a quiet, air conditioned place which would attract kids because this place was too poor to have a shopping mall - just to experience the cool air lest theyever have the opportunity to buy anything. Parents are loving in the Philippines, but they are not the greatest intellectual role models. For this they need a library to escape to. Many kids dont go to school because there is no quiet home place to work.
In these poor areas, a library could be a 'mecca' for kids to learn. As long as they are prevented from talking, I think they would discover the merits of an education. But they need books. I know how important books are. I had few friends when I was young. I was different. I ended up in a library. Its a great place to start a life. Some people never get to one. In a library you can explore the world, get exposed to many 'secular' ideas. Libraries contain the greatest minds that ever lived. But they have to be used, and if they are going to be places of learning, then they need books!
If you work at Philippine Airlines, if you know someone that does, or if you have books which greatly influenced your life and you dont read it any more, consider taking it to Philippine Airlines or sending it to this school on your own initiative.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
My concept of charity
My concept of charity derives from my code of ethics. I had a Christian upbring. My grandfather was a church minister. He died when I was 3yo so dont know if he was a serial abuser. I think he was too strong for that. I rejected Christianity when I was 19yo after reading a philosophy book by Ayn Rand called "Capitalism - the Unknown Ideal". Then I went on to read another one of her non-fiction books "The Virtue of Selfishness".
So within the space of a week I went from believing in altruism to believing in selfishness. Thats quite a reversal - considering the fundamentality of ethics. Apart from the fact that I'm a very courageous thinker, I think because I spent alot of my youth in the school library reading science books, I had a huge respect for reason and the objectivity of reality. For me there were not contradictions.
Since then my value system has chanced a little. I still believe in selfishness, but its not the type of selfishness where you achieve values at others expense - that is through the initiation of force. My concept is that I invest in myself, I create the security and values that I need to expand my realm of influence. So I start life very narrowly focused on myself, my education, my goals. When I am secure in myself, confident in myself, then I start investing in others. Not because its moral or noble to help others, but because it makes me feel good to identify and connect with people who share the same values. So selfishness involves helping oneself, then charity begins in the home, and grows. Although thats what some Christians do, their rationalisation is much different. They need the act of giving to be on altruistic terms. There has to be a sacrifice for it to be moral.
I think most of them have no ambition to follow through with their quest because their values are not theirs. It turns them into hypocrits. But more important look at the abuse at the institutional level. Child abuse, misuse of church funds. Evasion of what is considered their altruistic duty.
So my goal is to give selfishly where I get something in return. When you think about it. If you truly know how to help people, then the poor villages of Bangladesh or the Philippines are a gold resource to harness. Strangely education is a 'controlled' resource in the Philippines, even though this country was founded by missionaries. Its become an outmoded means of educating. Hard to believe it - the Philippines is actually rejecting investment in its education system. It will only accept unqualified financial assistance. so I say give them books you dont need anymore. Maybe Philippine Airlines could offer to distribute books from wealthy foreign countries to Philippine villages. It has a commanding position in distribution. So where are the books and where is the will?
So within the space of a week I went from believing in altruism to believing in selfishness. Thats quite a reversal - considering the fundamentality of ethics. Apart from the fact that I'm a very courageous thinker, I think because I spent alot of my youth in the school library reading science books, I had a huge respect for reason and the objectivity of reality. For me there were not contradictions.
Since then my value system has chanced a little. I still believe in selfishness, but its not the type of selfishness where you achieve values at others expense - that is through the initiation of force. My concept is that I invest in myself, I create the security and values that I need to expand my realm of influence. So I start life very narrowly focused on myself, my education, my goals. When I am secure in myself, confident in myself, then I start investing in others. Not because its moral or noble to help others, but because it makes me feel good to identify and connect with people who share the same values. So selfishness involves helping oneself, then charity begins in the home, and grows. Although thats what some Christians do, their rationalisation is much different. They need the act of giving to be on altruistic terms. There has to be a sacrifice for it to be moral.
I think most of them have no ambition to follow through with their quest because their values are not theirs. It turns them into hypocrits. But more important look at the abuse at the institutional level. Child abuse, misuse of church funds. Evasion of what is considered their altruistic duty.
So my goal is to give selfishly where I get something in return. When you think about it. If you truly know how to help people, then the poor villages of Bangladesh or the Philippines are a gold resource to harness. Strangely education is a 'controlled' resource in the Philippines, even though this country was founded by missionaries. Its become an outmoded means of educating. Hard to believe it - the Philippines is actually rejecting investment in its education system. It will only accept unqualified financial assistance. so I say give them books you dont need anymore. Maybe Philippine Airlines could offer to distribute books from wealthy foreign countries to Philippine villages. It has a commanding position in distribution. So where are the books and where is the will?
What is wrong with charity?
I am not a Christian. I haven't got a mystic bond in my body. Some people ask me - What do I live for? The question seems strange to me. I can still have a sense of purpose without believing in some after-life. In fact I would argue that values that are personally held have more meaning than values blindly accepted on faith.
They argue that just because I dont believe myself to live beyond my death, that I could not have any reason for living. Maybe thats why they invest so much time in material prosperity because they think they can take it with them. Or maybe its just more selfish to give wealth to your family members than strangers. Well I have studied philosophy and psycholohgy, and I know that people have a Hierarchy of Values. So I can't rationalise that 'Charity Begins In the Home' because that it where it for the most part seems to end.
Actually I am not advocating that people give away there fortunes to the poor. I am advocating that people act with integrity. I think if people did that - there would be less poor. Some of the examples of poverty - like the following story on the Philippines is caused more by a lack of integrity than anything else. There is an enormous concentration of wealth in this country. Though this country has more 'name-plate' Catholics than any country on Earth, though they when it comes to integrity - they must be one of the most maligned. Of course its a case of ignorance.
They argue that just because I dont believe myself to live beyond my death, that I could not have any reason for living. Maybe thats why they invest so much time in material prosperity because they think they can take it with them. Or maybe its just more selfish to give wealth to your family members than strangers. Well I have studied philosophy and psycholohgy, and I know that people have a Hierarchy of Values. So I can't rationalise that 'Charity Begins In the Home' because that it where it for the most part seems to end.
Actually I am not advocating that people give away there fortunes to the poor. I am advocating that people act with integrity. I think if people did that - there would be less poor. Some of the examples of poverty - like the following story on the Philippines is caused more by a lack of integrity than anything else. There is an enormous concentration of wealth in this country. Though this country has more 'name-plate' Catholics than any country on Earth, though they when it comes to integrity - they must be one of the most maligned. Of course its a case of ignorance.
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