A little break from our usual programming, since I’m doing an AMA on twitter about Effective Altruisms that I think would be of interest to the Other Feminisms crew.
The questions have been thoughtful and (appropriately enough!) charitable. I wanted to write and talk a little about EA, since the collapse of FTX (a crypto platform run by a very utilitarian EA guy) has sparked a lot of conversation about utilitarianism and charity. In brief, I think utilitarianism is a disordered love of the good.
One person asked what kinds of causes I support that mainstream EA doesn’t, and I’d point to groups like the Labouré Society (which pays off student loan debt so people are free to enter religious orders) and this program to help cohabiting couples prepare for marriage (the church pays their wedding costs and helps them stop cohabitating in the run-up to the wedding).
They’re both a little like a bail fund (I profiled the Brooklyn Bail Fund here). They look for a pivotal moment when a little help can have a huge payoff. I think this substack community is pretty interested in lowering barriers to answering a call to care for another.
I’m still working through questions and I’d welcome yours!
I'm interested in a more personal version of the question about balancing giving near and far: what we give our children (in both resources and time/energy) and what we extend to other people's children. We are primarily responsible for our own children; in theory, and hopefully in practice, the daily acts of caretaking form us to be more selfless, and yet it would be selfish to ONLY devote ourselves to them. (Think nepotism, etc.) How can we turn this particular kind of selflessness outward to others too, and where does the balance lie? Because in the end, both energy and resources are finite, and it is for this reason that some radical practitioners of EA (I'm thinking of the intro to Strangers Drowning) forgo having children themselves so they can give more to others.
Nov 15, 2022·edited Nov 15, 2022Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
Our family runs a Catholic worker shelter and , while we own our own house, we spend a lot of time there... Theoretically time not given directly to children's sports or PTA. Our kids, now 6, 10, 13 have grown up celebrating kids birthdays they dont know well, running the snow cone machine at carnivals, taking out and putting away chairs for large meals. As they get older many people comment on how capable they are, how they notice the needs of the lonely and how they socialize well with adults. My youngest, especially, is incredibly comfortable in racially diverse situations. So i wonder if this has to be a zero sum game, or if there are ways of giving that actually give more to our kids? Is it a choice between camp for them or camp for others? We take homeless families to camp with us and our kids have a great time. Is there a gospel paradox here that , by giving more to others, we actually form better children? I appreciate Peter Singer but I wouldn't want to co parent Christian children with him.
I really like your response, Mary! I'd add that the family is the most natural school of love, and, when we aren't continuing to be formed by family, we need *more* support to know where and how to give of ourselves.
Thus, consecrated virginity is an invitation to *profound* self gift, whether in cloistered religious life or in active service. But it requires a lot of formation and spiritual support—it's a different tether, not being disconnected.
2. Wondering about your opinion on the tithe? Have you written anything? We typically save our tithe and give in large sums, because as someone who runs an organization i prefer to receive donations that way. We also only give a small portion to our church and most to other orgs. My husband is now on parish council and our church (a well off parish on a university campus) is running a deficit. Im contemplating upping our portion but have also considered hosting a new members gathering to explain the deficit and how to give... As i suspect many give nothing. Catholic giving is definitely skimpy, relative to the evangelical church i grew up in!
3. I also encourage friends to reduce their giving to fewer organizations because processing small donations is costly! I came to this after a well off donor sent us $5 a year on Dorothy day's birthday, as part of an effort to recognize saints. I told him " it costs us $5 to enter this and send a thank you!" Should i have told him that? Or should we just accept this friction?
It's tricky! The instinct to give is good, and I'd rather push for facebook to improve their giving architecture rather than quash people's inclination to celebrate birthdays by giving in honor of someone's fundraiser (but I know they run this very badly for charities' needs).
It's good to make giving *less* abstract and to yoke far-giving to your particular love of the friend asking. We do try to give in bigger chunks throughout the year, and then we top up with one-off donations when we do our final sums in the spreadsheet.
We give to our parish, adjusted year by year, but less than 10% because we give to other religious groups like the Dominicans and the Sisters of Life. We want to be faithful to where we are, but we also want to direct giving to the parts of the church renewing the whole. Where we can find a religious group doing strong work in an area of interest, we preferentially give there (e.g. Catholic Charities and HIAS for refugee work).
"We were eventually taken to the office of the security chief of the operations response unit. I was losing track of the number of security offices we’d visited. Columba recounted HMML’s plan to meet with the Kounta family, and the security chief, Lionel Castanier, explained that it was impossible. Visiting the Kounta family library was out of the question. He would, however, permit travel to the governor’s compound about four kilometers from the camp. “I will send you with my guys in an armored vehicle,” Castanier said, “a quick trip in and out”—he slid his right palm across his left—“before the terrorists have time to prepare anything.” He paused. “There’s one thing. Before you leave camp, you need to give me the phone number of a family member in the U.S.”
Castanier handed the pen and paper to Columba, who wrote down a name before passing it to Sophie. She jotted something and handed the paper to me.
We had no internet or cellular service, but I had a strong urge to call my wife and sons to tell them how much I loved them. Columba had dedicated his life to this. I had not. I had committed myself to marriage and fatherhood. I thought of my three sons, tried to picture each of their faces when they heard that I had died, imagined the years stretching ahead of them as young men growing up without a father. For three years I had lost my family because they had committed themselves to a good that they considered greater than my own well-being. They eventually returned to claim me, but what if I failed to do the same?
I gave the paper to the security officer without writing anything down. Columba was sympathetic as we walked back to our shipping containers. He had no family obligations, he told me, so he could take risks more easily. “I’m a free agent,” he said."
I'm interested in a more personal version of the question about balancing giving near and far: what we give our children (in both resources and time/energy) and what we extend to other people's children. We are primarily responsible for our own children; in theory, and hopefully in practice, the daily acts of caretaking form us to be more selfless, and yet it would be selfish to ONLY devote ourselves to them. (Think nepotism, etc.) How can we turn this particular kind of selflessness outward to others too, and where does the balance lie? Because in the end, both energy and resources are finite, and it is for this reason that some radical practitioners of EA (I'm thinking of the intro to Strangers Drowning) forgo having children themselves so they can give more to others.
Our family runs a Catholic worker shelter and , while we own our own house, we spend a lot of time there... Theoretically time not given directly to children's sports or PTA. Our kids, now 6, 10, 13 have grown up celebrating kids birthdays they dont know well, running the snow cone machine at carnivals, taking out and putting away chairs for large meals. As they get older many people comment on how capable they are, how they notice the needs of the lonely and how they socialize well with adults. My youngest, especially, is incredibly comfortable in racially diverse situations. So i wonder if this has to be a zero sum game, or if there are ways of giving that actually give more to our kids? Is it a choice between camp for them or camp for others? We take homeless families to camp with us and our kids have a great time. Is there a gospel paradox here that , by giving more to others, we actually form better children? I appreciate Peter Singer but I wouldn't want to co parent Christian children with him.
I really like your response, Mary! I'd add that the family is the most natural school of love, and, when we aren't continuing to be formed by family, we need *more* support to know where and how to give of ourselves.
Thus, consecrated virginity is an invitation to *profound* self gift, whether in cloistered religious life or in active service. But it requires a lot of formation and spiritual support—it's a different tether, not being disconnected.
1. What's an AMA
2. Wondering about your opinion on the tithe? Have you written anything? We typically save our tithe and give in large sums, because as someone who runs an organization i prefer to receive donations that way. We also only give a small portion to our church and most to other orgs. My husband is now on parish council and our church (a well off parish on a university campus) is running a deficit. Im contemplating upping our portion but have also considered hosting a new members gathering to explain the deficit and how to give... As i suspect many give nothing. Catholic giving is definitely skimpy, relative to the evangelical church i grew up in!
3. I also encourage friends to reduce their giving to fewer organizations because processing small donations is costly! I came to this after a well off donor sent us $5 a year on Dorothy day's birthday, as part of an effort to recognize saints. I told him " it costs us $5 to enter this and send a thank you!" Should i have told him that? Or should we just accept this friction?
It's tricky! The instinct to give is good, and I'd rather push for facebook to improve their giving architecture rather than quash people's inclination to celebrate birthdays by giving in honor of someone's fundraiser (but I know they run this very badly for charities' needs).
It's good to make giving *less* abstract and to yoke far-giving to your particular love of the friend asking. We do try to give in bigger chunks throughout the year, and then we top up with one-off donations when we do our final sums in the spreadsheet.
We give to our parish, adjusted year by year, but less than 10% because we give to other religious groups like the Dominicans and the Sisters of Life. We want to be faithful to where we are, but we also want to direct giving to the parts of the church renewing the whole. Where we can find a religious group doing strong work in an area of interest, we preferentially give there (e.g. Catholic Charities and HIAS for refugee work).
There's a great essay in Harpers about a monk who preserves ancient manuscript, whose celibacy frees him to take different risks than someone does in a conventional home. I'm quoting a long bit below: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/08/the-quest-to-save-ancient-manuscripts-gao-mali/
"We were eventually taken to the office of the security chief of the operations response unit. I was losing track of the number of security offices we’d visited. Columba recounted HMML’s plan to meet with the Kounta family, and the security chief, Lionel Castanier, explained that it was impossible. Visiting the Kounta family library was out of the question. He would, however, permit travel to the governor’s compound about four kilometers from the camp. “I will send you with my guys in an armored vehicle,” Castanier said, “a quick trip in and out”—he slid his right palm across his left—“before the terrorists have time to prepare anything.” He paused. “There’s one thing. Before you leave camp, you need to give me the phone number of a family member in the U.S.”
Castanier handed the pen and paper to Columba, who wrote down a name before passing it to Sophie. She jotted something and handed the paper to me.
We had no internet or cellular service, but I had a strong urge to call my wife and sons to tell them how much I loved them. Columba had dedicated his life to this. I had not. I had committed myself to marriage and fatherhood. I thought of my three sons, tried to picture each of their faces when they heard that I had died, imagined the years stretching ahead of them as young men growing up without a father. For three years I had lost my family because they had committed themselves to a good that they considered greater than my own well-being. They eventually returned to claim me, but what if I failed to do the same?
I gave the paper to the security officer without writing anything down. Columba was sympathetic as we walked back to our shipping containers. He had no family obligations, he told me, so he could take risks more easily. “I’m a free agent,” he said."