Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 21:45:53 +0100
From: Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms-AT-kabelfoon.nl>
Subject: Re: Virilio and Baudrillard


I'm not very much convinced about your righteousness because of your
tone. Why are you so angry? Do I smell some Sartrean bad faith? Do you
want to be a saint in order to escape judgement? 
It's like you want to say that anyone who's not into charity should shut
up. 
You should know that charity, like all other human activities is
ambiguous, sometimes good sometimes bad. Sociological and
anthropological research has shown that in a lot of cases help made poor
people poorer. 
Of course when there's a disaster, there's nothing wrong with donating
some money, I take this for granted. I only think that it would be
stupid to want to go there yourself as long as you don't have any
pracical skills. A writer could do something else though, (s)he could FI
try to point out why the poor always suffer more from a disaster than
the rich.

cheers

erik

John Armitage wrote:

> Well nice to read of your new hobby, charity right? A very cherished
> middle class passtime and very helpfull for the esthablishment,
> especially if it keeps philosophers from thinking and criticism!
> 
> [More political pornography. You should be ashamed to write such rubbish.
> For example, as I write this email, the radio is telling me that some 20,000
> people may have been killed in the Venezuelan floods and resulting health
> catastrophes. What are you trying to tell me? That the doctors, search and
> rescue operatives, relief workers, and all the rest of it do all this for a
> hobby? Because they have nothing better to do 3-4 days before Xmas? There is
> plenty wrong with the charity industry but until you have a better
> alternative to organisations such as the Red Cross or Amnesty International
> (AI) etc. then I will take my middle class passtime anyday over your  -
> what? Silence? I am all for criticising the establishment but in most of the
> charity cases I have mentioned - such as AI  - it is not the establishment
> who are dying or who are being tortured in jails around the world  - it is
> people who have been thinking and people who have made critiques just like
> the ones you seem to support. However, when the chips are down, or when
> critical thoughts are locked up with their originators from Afghanistan to
> Zaire, all you can manage is a sneer. I just hope that, if one day the
> establishment comes for you and you require the same sort of help as those
> that require it today, you do not have to rely on people like yourself for
> it. For if you do, you are as good as dead already].
> 

 erik