God and mammon
In an earlier post I gave a brief summary of Chinese and American responses to this question:
If a person is rich, what should he/she do with his/her money?
How would you respond to this question? If yours is typical of any of the American responses, then:
You probably have some fairly clear ideas about how this rich person should use his or her money.
These ideas have something to do with the public good: donating to good causes, setting up foundations, investing in technologies to better the world.
Despite the clarity of your preferences, you feel uneasy stating them too strongly, for fear that, were you the rich person, you’re not sure you’d do what that real you is saying the hypothetical rich you should do. Nobody likes a hypocrite.
The following, rather long, excerpt contains a number of gems:
E-13 Okay, this is "should" and not "would," so…I think the person should give a large chunk of his money to some kind of charity. Not just one charity, but different charities, ’cause I think there's a lot of people who are living in poverty, not just in the U.S. There's a lot of people in third-world countries who don't get anything, you know. And, I think, just out of philanthropy, you know?
E-14 Yeah. I don't necessarily agree with this, but a lot of rich people believe that once they've made their money it's theirs and they have no obligation to give it to anybody.
E-13 But this is should…
E-14 Should.
E-13 Not would.
E-14 Yes.
E-13 If we were talking would, people would not do that.
E-14 But do you think that? Do you think that if they've earned their money, they shouldn't…
E-13 No no, I'm not saying they should give all their money away. I think what you earn is, yeah, you earned it, right? But then you should give back to the society. And you should give to people who don't have much because they're not as fortunate as you. They don't have those capabilities. They’re not in the same situation as you. So I think people should give back to the society.
E-14 I agree.
E-13 Like do something, like make a foundation, or a charity.
E-14 Just put it where it's needed.
E-13 Yeah. A lot of people do say, yeah, I earned the money, so I should keep it, but really what are you gonna do with all that money? You're just gonna spend it on yourself. That’s so selfish. But then again if I were in that position I don't know what I'd do.
E-14 Yeah.
E-13 It'd be…it's easy to say…
E-14 Yeah, see, everybody says, this person should give it to charity, they should donate it, but that's not what people do.
I don’t know if I ever had an actual conversation with another American that went like this, but I’m certain I had internal dialogs that went like this. In fact, every time I’ve enjoyed some windfall, however small, part of me is tortured by the contrast between what I know I “should” do and what I actually end up doing. Even when I can coax some generosity out of myself, it’s often not really generosity, coming as it does from a sense of scarcity, when what I “should” have is gratitude for the great abundance in my life, for God’s grace in even allowing me to live, and on top of that have shelter, food, water, and clothes.
American’s often talk of “giving back to society.” In order to give back, I must have been given something. What have I been given, and by whom? The “what” includes the standard list of things Americans are “supposed” to feel grateful for having. In addition to the basic material comforts, we have freedom of many kinds (to choose our leaders, to pursue our passions, to choose our spouses and where we live) and opportunity (to advance socially and economically, to travel the world, and so on). And probably a lot of other things, depending on whom you ask. None of these are things any of us has earned. And yet we have them.
Which leads us to the “who” question: Who exactly gave us all these things for which we are grateful? We often point to the Founding Fathers, and to all those who have given of themselves to protect what the Founding Fathers founded, including and especially all the veterans of America’s wars. How many times have we heard, “If you love your freedom, thank a vet”?The story doesn’t end there, though. Another entity is at play here. Who? God.
Which brings us back to a place we visited briefly when discussing our imaginary friend Tom’s decision whether or not to join the rock band: civil religion. Who, after all, inspired the Founding Fathers, and so many soldiers? And while many cringed when George W. Bush said it in 2003, just as the war in Iraq was getting underway, it can’t be denied that a deeply American belief system is behind his statement that “Freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It’s God’s gift to humanity.”
God is everywhere in the American mindset, running the show throughout American society and in the thought patterns of America’s people — even, I suspect, atheists. When I say that, I need to point out that I am making a purely ethnographic statement, not a theological one: whether you believe in God or not, you’ve got an uphill battle to fight if you want to claim that something or someone like God isn’t imagined to be operating behind the scenes when we talk about rock-band Tom being “given” his talents, or when we state our upset at not “giving back to society” enough. The “God’s-eye view” dominates the American mindset.