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Do You Have a "Deserving" Family?
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Oct 30, 2007 Posted by Rich Harwood
This was my reaction when listening to an ad on WFLR 96.7 FM—a Christian-contemporary station—while driving from
It went on to tell listeners about WFLR’s holiday-season partnership with Aspen Heating and Cooling, and that each listener was now invited to visit the station’s web site (myflr.org) to nominate “one deserving family” who would become eligible to win a new furnace from the good folks at Aspen. The web site says, “Nominations are being accepted until November 7, with the winning family announced on November 14.”
- Since when do we anonymously “nominate” poor neighbors to receive such care? Is this some new kind of charitable approach, where if a well-to-do person deems you needy enough, you can receive help? If not, what then? Are you to stay at home shivering in despair?
- What about the next time the station runs this competition: will they choose to pick three “needy finalists,” who will then go on-air to make their case so the rest of us can pick the winner? Is this the new kind of citizen-driven philanthropy everyone seems to be talking about?
- Exactly what does the phrase “one deserving family” mean? As a child, if your family doesn’t get the new furnace, is your family somehow un-deserving? What happens this winter when your family can’t afford to heat your home?
- Then there’s the obvious question about once people nominate a family, and the “deserving family” wins the new furnace, do we just move on to the next issue? Does one’s limited participation in the station contest fulfill their need to look beyond themselves and be responsible for one another?
For as long as I can remember, there have always been raffles and other efforts to support people in need by groups such as Rotary Clubs, Knights of Columbus and others. But have our marketing, public relations, and other strategies to capture people’s attention run so completely afoul that we’ve lost sight of what is required to make society work? When do our attempts to “game” public life blur our very ability to keep sight of the essence of what brings each of us to our work?I know that simply raising our voices and imploring people to care will not bring about the progress we seek. There is already too much noise and fatigue and isolation in society; attempts to push and cajole people only cause them to retreat further from public life. But is the solution to merely give in to those who say that people won’t care, or that people can’t connect their self-interests with the interests of others, or that people merely want to be left alone? I believe such arguments miss the undercurrents of what’s happening in our society.
People do care. People want to be part of something larger than themselves. People know that we must believe in something deeper than simply unfettered consumerism. Trust and hope and, yes, even love, do matter (as does being ruthlessly strategic in our change efforts!). We must not cede the public square to those who tell us that the only way to engage people is to mimic what happens in a shopping mall.
We can’t control what everyone else does. But we can direct our own efforts and help to create conditions in our communities that root out such cheap gimmicks like holding raffles for “one deserving family.” I know lots of deserving families.
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Re: Do You Have a "Deserving" Family?
Nov 1, 2007 | Wyn | wyn@achenbaum.com
It seems to me that all of us are deserving, that we all deserve to share equally in the natural bounty of the earth, and yet some of us are permitted to, even held up as particularly "worthy" human beings for privatizing the best stuff. ("Deserving" and "worthy" seem pretty similar.)
How do we share what we all deserve? By correcting our tax system and our way of giving out the natural bounty.
1. Don't give away or even sell forever the pollution credits; auction them, for finite periods of time, to the highest bidder, and re-auction them every few years, with the revenue being used to support public spending.
2. Auction off the airwaves, not forever, but for short, finite periods of time, to those who would put them to good use. And then do it again in five years, with the revenue flowing to the commons. (Don't we say that the airwaves belong to the American people? Follow the money and tell me that again!) The airwaves cover many different frequencies, all of which have huge commercial value. Why on earth do we so graciously donate them to corporations, instead of collecting back their economic value.
3. Landing rights at Laguardia at 8am are valuable, are made valuable by US. Gate space is finite. Why do we let the airlines profit by selling such slots to each other? That gain should be OURS.
4. Land is no more created by the individual or corporate holder of the land than are the spectrum, landing rights or pollution rights. Shouldn't we be collecting more of its value as our common treasure? To do so would be to fund government spending legitimately. It would not steal from anyone that which he created, and not permit anyone to privatize that which we all, together, create.
5. Oil, natural gas and other natural resources on which we depend are not created by the folks smart enough or lucky enough to hold title to the land, nor by any of the previous holders of title. Why do we let them treat the economic value of those resources as their private treasure?
When we move toward correcting these things, and collecting the economic value for the commons, there will be enough for all. We are all deserving. None more than another, none less than another. And those who "own" our very best do not deserve any more than the rest of us. We are very generous to continue to let them privatize our common treasure.
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Re: Do You Have a "Deserving" Family?
Nov 1, 2007 | Wyn | wyn@achenbaum.com
It seems to me that all of us are deserving, that we all deserve to share equally in the natural bounty of the earth, and yet some of us are permitted to, even held up as particularly "worthy" human beings for privatizing the best stuff. ("Deserving" and "worthy" seem pretty similar.)
How do we share what we all deserve? By correcting our tax system and our way of giving out the natural bounty.
1. Don't give away or even sell forever the pollution credits; auction them, for finite periods of time, to the highest bidder, and re-auction them every few years, with the revenue being used to support public spending.
2. Auction off the airwaves, not forever, but for short, finite periods of time, to those who would put them to good use. And then do it again in five years, with the revenue flowing to the commons. (Don't we say that the airwaves belong to the American people? Follow the money and tell me that again!) The airwaves cover many different frequencies, all of which have huge commercial value. Why on earth do we so graciously donate them to corporations, instead of collecting back their economic value.
3. Landing rights at Laguardia at 8am are valuable, are made valuable by US. Gate space is finite. Why do we let the airlines profit by selling such slots to each other? That gain should be OURS.
4. Land is no more created by the individual or corporate holder of the land than are the spectrum, landing rights or pollution rights. Shouldn't we be collecting more of its value as our common treasure? To do so would be to fund government spending legitimately. It would not steal from anyone that which he created, and not permit anyone to privatize that which we all, together, create.
5. Oil, natural gas and other natural resources on which we depend are not created by the folks smart enough or lucky enough to hold title to the land, nor by any of the previous holders of title. Why do we let them treat the economic value of those resources as their private treasure?
When we move toward correcting these things, and collecting the economic value for the commons, there will be enough for all. We are all deserving. None more than another, none less than another. And those who "own" our very best do not deserve any more than the rest of us. We are very generous to continue to let them privatize our common treasure.
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Re: Do You Have a "Deserving" Family?
Oct 31, 2007 | Diane Brown | dlbrown@stny.rr.com
I couldn't agree more. Sad to say this is nothing new. When I worked in Public Welfare in the 70's and 80's our organization and the people we served were frequently called upon to defend the "deserving-ness" (if I may make up a word here) of the poor. Comments about the kinds of food folks bought with food stamps, whether they had a right to own a TV and so on were very common. Another version of this concept follwed me into AIDS work in the 90's, the distinction between "innocent" and "not-so-innocent" "victims" of HIV and subsequent decisions on whether they were deserving of care or not.
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Re: Do You Have a "Deserving" Family?
Oct 31, 2007 | Rich Harwood | rharwood@theharwoodinstitute.org
Shaun,
I agree. The kind of contest that WFLR is running can be seen all across the country AND can now be seen throughout our popular culture. Such efforts, I'm afraid, can have the effect of lulling us to sleep, allowing us to beleive that we have addressed a key common concern, when all we have done is to help one or two, or even just a handful of families or individuals.
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Re: Do You Have a "Deserving" Family?
Oct 30, 2007 | Shaun Dakin | sdakin@citizensforcivildiscourse.org
Rich,
I agree with your overall sentiment, but think that it is but a small and local example of what occurs at the national level.
I'm thinking of shows like ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition, sponsored by Sears.
http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index
This is a show that essentially picks a "needy" family and then the show builds a new home for them.
Sears gets the sponsorship and the viewer gets to feel good.
Regards,
Shaun Dakin