Philosophical Questions: Distance
May. 17th, 2025 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithPeople have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.
As people, we feel our moral obligation weaken with physical as well as emotional distance from individuals in need. For example, you’re more likely to help someone dying of hunger at your feet than someone dying of hunger in another country. How does this human trait of morality dependent on distance shape our world?
The distance factor is absolutely necessary to human sanity and functionality. Our time, energy, and resources are finite. No one person can do everything. In order to accomplish anything, we must decide which issues matter the most to us personally and then work on aspects of those within our reach. it doesn't mean we are limited to small problems; we can choose to work on big things like climate change or world hunger. It doesn't mean we have to stay put; we can network or travel to reach problems of interest that are far away from our starting point. It just means that we have to make choices about what to do with the resources we have.
Nobody can be morally responsible for everything, because other people have free will and make their own choices, sometimes very bad ones. You are only responsible for what YOU do. Other people fucking up far away cannot be your problem, because they need to take responsibility for their own choices.
However, some people incline toward greater scope. People with high existential intelligence gravitate toward big questions. People with high naturalistic intelligence may feel distressed by climate change or environmental damage and need to work on those. And the higher up the pyramid of moral development or spiritual enlightenment, the more likely someone will care a lot about "humanity" as a whole and want to work on large-scale problems threatening humans. Beyond the standard levels is a theorized cosmic or transcendental level, which is where you find principles like "Don't destroy the biosphere or a planet" and "Don't impair other people's soul paths." Trying to explain why those are vitally important ethical principles to people who aren't on that level is an exercise in frustration.
One reason is because spacetime is an illusion created by incarnation. It's not real, but it can function as if it were real within the bounds of the material plane. When you're in a body, it can only be in one "place" at a "time" and other "places" can seem "far away." But when you are also aware of other layers of reality, then you have ulterior resources. You may understand that distance is just a perspective, not a reality, so it has less influence over your thinking. You may know that all souls come into life with a set of goals, so the roughly half of the global population living in poverty doesn't look like a bunch of useless mouths to feed but like a crying waste of human resources. You are still limited by finite resources, but much less so by finite mindset.
Think about what you can do well. Think about what you care about. Put them together. Go fix something. But don't burn yourself out trying to fix everything, and don't let people should on you.
As people, we feel our moral obligation weaken with physical as well as emotional distance from individuals in need. For example, you’re more likely to help someone dying of hunger at your feet than someone dying of hunger in another country. How does this human trait of morality dependent on distance shape our world?
The distance factor is absolutely necessary to human sanity and functionality. Our time, energy, and resources are finite. No one person can do everything. In order to accomplish anything, we must decide which issues matter the most to us personally and then work on aspects of those within our reach. it doesn't mean we are limited to small problems; we can choose to work on big things like climate change or world hunger. It doesn't mean we have to stay put; we can network or travel to reach problems of interest that are far away from our starting point. It just means that we have to make choices about what to do with the resources we have.
Nobody can be morally responsible for everything, because other people have free will and make their own choices, sometimes very bad ones. You are only responsible for what YOU do. Other people fucking up far away cannot be your problem, because they need to take responsibility for their own choices.
However, some people incline toward greater scope. People with high existential intelligence gravitate toward big questions. People with high naturalistic intelligence may feel distressed by climate change or environmental damage and need to work on those. And the higher up the pyramid of moral development or spiritual enlightenment, the more likely someone will care a lot about "humanity" as a whole and want to work on large-scale problems threatening humans. Beyond the standard levels is a theorized cosmic or transcendental level, which is where you find principles like "Don't destroy the biosphere or a planet" and "Don't impair other people's soul paths." Trying to explain why those are vitally important ethical principles to people who aren't on that level is an exercise in frustration.
One reason is because spacetime is an illusion created by incarnation. It's not real, but it can function as if it were real within the bounds of the material plane. When you're in a body, it can only be in one "place" at a "time" and other "places" can seem "far away." But when you are also aware of other layers of reality, then you have ulterior resources. You may understand that distance is just a perspective, not a reality, so it has less influence over your thinking. You may know that all souls come into life with a set of goals, so the roughly half of the global population living in poverty doesn't look like a bunch of useless mouths to feed but like a crying waste of human resources. You are still limited by finite resources, but much less so by finite mindset.
Think about what you can do well. Think about what you care about. Put them together. Go fix something. But don't burn yourself out trying to fix everything, and don't let people should on you.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-05-17 08:40 am (UTC)I'm secure, with a secure pension fund, but can only give what I can. With the mortgage gone, that might change for the better and those charities that I can make one-off donations to will be placed on a roster. It still feels hopeless when the root problems, greed and war, are celebrated by many in positions to make real change, but don't.
We can only do all we can and, while that is less than enough, it _feels_ like it isn't enough
(no subject)
Date: 2025-05-17 04:09 pm (UTC)Volunteering counts, if you have a cause and enough spoons. Educating yourself and talking about your topic with other people, counts.
Harm reduction, counts. If we can't eliminate what's harmful, we can cushion the blow for others.
Don't despair. Even doing a little bit is still doing a little bit, like Helen Keller said.
Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-17 05:33 pm (UTC)That's true.
>> I can toss a few coins into a busker's or homeless person's tin, but giving a few meagre coins to modern charities is most likely a subscription these days, often starting at monthly payments that are more than I can afford.<<
I'm not a fan of the modern trend of making everything a subscription, because it raises the fixed monthly expenses of a household, sabotaging the flexibility of your budget to respond to challenges like a car repair.
Options to cope with this include:
* Watch for drives. These are usually annual. So for instance, you'll see drives for school supplies in late summer, for coats in late fall or early winter, etc. Food drives for nonperishables can happen any time. Then you just put in the thing and you're done. I particularly like to put spice kits in the food drives, because when it's "Beans for breakfast, beans for lunch, oh boy beans for dinner (better than no beans at all)" then having a way to vary the flavor reduces the risk of appetite fatigue.
* Visit the charities in your immediate locale and see what they do. Usually they'll have a bulletin board or handout on the topic of "how you can help." Most keep a wishlist of donations for new or used things they need, some of which you may already have.
* Watch for places that let you buy something for a person to claim later. The first reference I saw was "cafe sospeso" or "pending coffee" in Italy, but our hole-in-the-wall eatery at the local mall has a "blessing board" where you can buy any of their edibles to pin up for whomever needs it.
* Plenty of places have a donation jar for various purposes. This is a good way to dispense literal spare change.
>> It makes me feel disempowered. <<
This is a common feeling. It takes some thought to figure out why you feel that way (which you did above) and then how to empower yourself. Some ideas:
* Look for opportunities to help in your immediate area. Mailing a check often feels detached, but doing something face-to-face has much more impact.
* Put yourself in the other person's shoes. Think about times when you have felt that a small action absolutely saved your day, and what that would look like for a person at the end of their rope. It doesn't have to be a big thing, it can be as simple as fixing the one problem that is crushing them in the moment, like when they're at the cash register and come up a few coins short. This is where little gestures can make all the difference in the world.
* Think about what people need in certain situations. Someone from a local church put up a booth giving away free bottled water at a street fair last summer. He hit on that idea by asking, "What would Jesus do? What do people need here?" It was that simple. And when the food trucks are selling beverages for $5-10, I would bet he saved some people from heat-related illnesses. You might not afford a whole booth by yourself, but maybe you could team up with some friends to do it -- or even just offer one beverage to someone who looks overheated.
* If there are homeless people near you, one affordable and effective way to help is stuffing a gallon ziplock bag with a few essentials. Popular items include a toothbrush, toothpaste, travel soap, tampons for a lady, meal bars, a gift card to any local eatery, and new socks. Handing out a care package is a quick easy way to help.
* Sharing your company costs little or nothing, and can help reduce loneliness which is a huge health risk. Watch for people on the fringes and say hello to them or offer a compliment.
* Use what you have. One good way to help for free is to set out a charity box whenever you do your spring cleaning or decluttering, and fill it with things you don't need that are still useful. When you're done, take everything to a local charity. If you don't have clutter yourself, you might volunteer to help a friend or neighbor clean house after a death in the family. Help then is desperately needed but few people offer.
* Humans aren't the only option for helping your fellow beings. You could also plant a pollinator patch for insects, or make a sleeping box for community cats, or put out a water source for all wildlife.
* Understand that heroism isn't about showing off. It's about caring enough to notice and help. Most of the times when you save a life, you won't know that you have done it -- but you can know that you're doing the kinds of things that have that effect.
>> With the mortgage gone, that might change for the better and those charities that I can make one-off donations to will be placed on a roster.<<
That's an excellent plan.
>> It still feels hopeless when the root problems, greed and war, are celebrated by many in positions to make real change, but don't. <<
Those are still things that individuals can work on locally.
* To undermine greed, teach generosity, sharing, and gift economy skills. Challenge social praising of greed. Instead praise people who are generous.
* To undermine war, teach peace skills. Calm, emotional vocabulary, conflict resolution, mediation & negotiation, meditation, etc. are all things that can be taught and learned.
* You can also help after war by assisting refugees if you live in a resettlement area. Just a kind word can be of great value to someone who is routinely abused. If there is a refugee center, you might offer your services as a local tour guide to show people resources such as laundromats, restaurants, bargain stores, etc.
And no matter how big the problems, remember the starfish story: "I sure made a difference to THAT one."
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 01:25 am (UTC)The part that I love is the making, and keeping everything that I make is both selfish and wasteful.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 01:52 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 02:21 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 03:01 am (UTC)How picky are you about yarn? Sometimes I find it at thrift stores or yardsales.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 10:31 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 02:31 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-05-19 02:59 am (UTC)Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-18 09:47 pm (UTC)That element contributes, greatly, to compassion fatigue, I think.
If I make "disability awareness and inclusion" the focus of every bit of my efforts and spare cash for the year 2026, it quickly becomes very, very clear WHICH disabilities are getting attention from the American media, and how much of that attention is positive. It also makes very clear how divided people have become, sometimes actively refusing help from some other subgroup because "they're not directly affected."
Divide and conquer.
On a personal level, I'm not sure how much I can do, in fact, because I am in the usual economic strata for a disabled American adult-- but, I focus on not making the problems WORSE.
Crafting emotional distance for myself as an individual is important, and a skill that I need to learn. I want to believe that it CAN be learned, that people CAN learn to balance between need and social relevance, physical or emotional distance and one's interest in improving whichever situation they choose to focus on.
Being able to separate oneself, then choose to get involved makes that choice even more important. Giving at the cash register to whatever fund the store is promoting requires little to no effort or engagement. If that works for someone, I'm not going to discourage it.
It's just not my speed.
I can't fix most things, but I'm not interested in letting some corporation make hay off my decision to contribute to a charity, because that's just another form of erasure.
When everything is said and done, being kind to the people around me, and to myself, is the first step toward compassionate socialization. Charity comes after that.
Re: Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-19 01:44 am (UTC)REALLY make this problem worse.<<
I agree. That is especially a problem if people do not take steps to choose what news to consume, how, and when.
>> It puts the bombing in Gaza in my living room, along with the new trouble in Bosnia, the ongoing problems with poverty and access to health care.<<
It does if you watch or read news about those things. While a fair amount gets splattered around social networks and ads and such, one can at least choose to avoid consuming broadcast news, websites, newspapers, or magazines that do more harm than good. I find much mainstream news unreliable and have for decades. I favor science news, positive news, community building, a couple of progressive sources -- and beyond that it's just random fragments that I notice and deem worth reading further. If I find the news too stressful, I splice in something positive, or go do something else, or both.
>> Visibility, or invisibility, of the special groups that matter to me becomes even MORE obvious when the news is constant, insistent, and difficult to shut out.<<
True, and that's a key reason why I ignore most mainstream news in favor of other sources. I've got a Native American magazine currently. It has a mix of ups and downs, but at least it is from a source that is probably accurate. The progressive ones like In These Times cover a range of oppressed groups and actions to fight oppression. There are other magazines about women, people with disabilities, etc. Think about each issue that you really care about, and look for a reasonably reliable source of news about it. Look for positive news sources to balance the doom.
>> That element contributes, greatly, to compassion fatigue, I think.<<
That matches my observations.
>> If I make "disability awareness and inclusion" the focus of every bit of my efforts and spare cash for the year 2026, it quickly becomes very, very clear WHICH disabilities are getting attention from the American media, and how much of that attention is positive.<<
Yyyyeah. The groups with lobbies get what they want, even if it screws other people. Like how blind people in Illinois wanted raised bumps added to all the curbcuts, so now everyone has to deal with the cheesegrater threat and most electric wheelchairs won't go down them unless manually pushed because the bumps trigger the trip prevention circuit. The laws are written so that accommodations are based on what someone else said people should have, not on what an individual might actually need. It's just vicious.
>> It also makes very clear how divided people have become, sometimes actively refusing help from some other subgroup because "they're not directly affected." <<
I'm an oldschool activist, we used to try not to make enemies because the people across the street on the current issue might be on our side the next one. But that tends not to happen anymore, which is frustrating.
>>Divide and conquer.<<
Highly effective nowadays. It's hard to build coalition among people who have been screwed so much, they don't want to help others because nobody helped them.
>> On a personal level, I'm not sure how much I can do, in fact, because I am in the usual economic strata for a disabled American adult <<
I've been an activist for decades, I've done a lot of different things in pursuing various goals, and looking at the state of the world I'd say most of it has done fuckall good. Other than justifying my right to say, "I told you so." But I have found that the method with the highest throughput of people saying "I did the thing" is plain old storytelling. You're great at that. You can show people what a healthy family or society looks like. Don't underestimate how precious or powerful that is.
>> but, I focus on not making the problems WORSE.<<
That's always helpful.
>> Crafting emotional distance for myself as an individual is important, and a skill that I need to learn. I want to believe that it CAN be learned, that people CAN learn to balance between need and social relevance, physical or emotional distance and one's interest in improving whichever situation they choose to focus on.<<
Yes, those are skills that can be learned.
>> Being able to separate oneself, then choose to get involved makes that choice even more important. <<
Exactly.
>> Giving at the cash register to whatever fund the store is promoting requires little to no effort or engagement. If that works for someone, I'm not going to discourage it.
It's just not my speed.<<
I do tend to glance at them. I will throw money in for two typical reasons:
1) I don't want to wrestle a few coins into my purse.
2) The jar has one of my worthy causes on it. Although at this point, I'm also tending to stuff extra in the general tip jar at any ethnic establishment because the government is brutalizing them. I may not be able to stop the government, but I know that money can solve a lot of problems. And I don't particularly care if someone's chosen solution socially approved or not.
>>I can't fix most things, but I'm not interested in letting some corporation make hay off my decision to contribute to a charity, because that's just another form of erasure.<<
Fair enough.
>>When everything is said and done, being kind to the people around me, and to myself, is the first step toward compassionate socialization. Charity comes after that.<<
Charity isn't all about commercial organizations. When a friend lost their job, we went into our freezer and filled a couple grocery bags with stuff we had duplicates of -- a whole chicken, a few cartons of spaghetti sauce, frozen fruit, etc. It was enough to help during the job-hunting stage. And sometimes it's just using the skills you have, like being the person with the best reading skills at the food pantry. I've been asked to read things so many times that I'm sure the Universe has left my "Public Scribe" light turned on this life. You never know when you'll be in a position to help someone. It just takes noticing and caring.
Re: Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-19 02:17 am (UTC)It also implies that the BIG donation is not merely more money, but more IMPORTANT than the pocket change of an unknown number of people across the same fiscal year. Which is nonsense, of course, BUT, because the bookkeeping is obvious and easy, news agencies gravitate toward it. (Just like they look at the travel budget of the President or the Prince of Wales; they have neither the time nor interest to dig in and understand the WHOLE budget, but money on travel is easy to understand, and usually riles up a hefty percentage of the population.)
Me, I'd rather be the individual ant working toward a goal, because with enough ants working in the same direction, things are finished both well and quickly.
Re: Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-19 07:01 am (UTC)Often true. But local charities often have ways to advertise their donors. Sometimes it's an announcement at an event. Often it's a paper shape like a leaf or whatever that you write your name on. There are entire brick walkways with sponsor names on them. One nearby town has benches and chairs everywhere, often with a person's name on them -- some are memorials.
>>Me, I'd rather be the individual ant working toward a goal, because with enough ants working in the same direction, things are finished both well and quickly.<<
If you like watching ants, look up AntsCanada on YouTube.
I tend to favor individual projects so I don't have to try convincing other people to do something. I'll pitch in with a community effort if it appeals to me though.
Re: Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-19 10:28 am (UTC)It's easier to uncouple my efforts from a charity that I don't support (using charity navigator) if it's all from my individual decisions, rather than the employer "suggesting" donations to Easter Seals, for example.
Re: Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-19 04:44 pm (UTC)*ponder* Come to think of it, another way I help is boosting signal when a friend holds a donation or art sale or whatever because of a crisis like car engine failure. Boosting the signal costs nothing but a minute to write the link post, and can raise their donations.
I'm also generally inclined to pitch in when someone or somewhere I enjoy is having trouble. We donated after the Pigeon Forge disaster because we've visited there and had fun, also after a favorite publisher suffered a warehouse fire. And one of our favorites is Grand Prairie Friends, a local nature reserve, which buys and restores habitat that we can actually visit.
Re: Instant news, and 24-hour news cycles
Date: 2025-05-19 06:55 pm (UTC)We love the things we love for what they are.
That's a quote, but I can't recall the author any more; I memorized it in elementary school.
As an extension of that love, we donate time, money, and our words to the causes that we care about, or feel a part of. For me, the blockade isn't the mismanagement of certain charities, it's that I feel excluded from that community. The specific incident doesn't matter, but it's left me unwilling to donate money or time to them ever since high school.