I wrote the notes for what will eventually become Part 2 in this series on flights from Mombasa to Nairobi and then on down to Johannesburg last week. Then this week I came across this great RSA video on a talk by philosopher and critical theorist Slavoj Zizek (via AZspot), and decided this would make a great introduction or prequel to the discussion.
YouTube link
Note Zizek's premise: He talks about the opposable interests of capitalism and philanthropy. Zizek uses George Soros as an example of someone who takes the money in the morning (via his business interests) and gives half of it back in the afternoon (via his philanthropic interests.) This flipping back and forth between two conflicting systems he identifies as the old school model, and while we could have a great discussion about its efficacy and relevance, Zizek presses on to say things have changed.
In today's capitalism the tendency is to bring these two dimensions together, and this he calls cultural capitalism at its purest.
Using Starbucks as the prototypical example (I'm sitting in Starbucks as I write this) he identifies the numbing perversion (my words, not his) of engaging in a thoroughly consumeristic act in order to purchase your redemption from the sin of consumerism. In fact he says the cost of this redemption is now priced into the consumer transaction itself.
In my mind this strategy is horrifyingly brilliant. It also puts words to what bothered me intuitively about the Product(RED) campaign 5 years ago, and why Robert and I responded with our own (RED)emption effort.
Capitalism, which is an inherently self-interested, profit-motivated system, has learned to capitalize (no pun intended) on the emerging human tendency to empathy (a thoroughly other-interested emotion), thus derailing that trait before it can really take effect. As I've already said, this is frightening to say the least. Capitalism--even a softer, gentler version--will not solve the problems capitalism has created. And philanthropy/charity, in its desire to do more good in a world that desparately needs it, is falling right into this trap.
The bad news is this tendency, and another emerging reality I'll write more about in the next few days, will be the death of the philanthropic model. The good news--or should I say 'Good News'--is that this model was never meant to be the solution to the world's problems anyway.
Anyone want to jump in on this one before I go any further?
(For those looking for extra credit, here is the link to one of the original videos from which the above Zizek clip was extracted. As one who has sometimes struggled to read Zizek these videos are a relief and very enlightening.)
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