Shocking Developments

The international proletarian class deserves the very best.
We *clearly* are not spending *enough* of Other People’s Money. Yes, that must be it. Must also not give up the pretense that piety and not sour grapes is what is separating the current state of envy from one of envy *and* unchecked greed…
What do they teach them at these schools? – Professor Kirke

What do they teach them at these schools?
Ahem! The author of that exercise in wishful thinking is working toward a Ph.D. in Harvard’s sociology department, so he’ll be doing the teaching, thank you very much.

…upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that what they do doesn’t actually benefit the intended recipients so much as make it highly visible how terribly noble and giving these women are.
I’ve written elsewhere:
Gene Wolfe once posited that there were two types of gods who loved: those whose love was so great that they wanted us to find our own liberty, and those whose love was so great that they wanted us to never escape the realm they controlled. But what is truly then the object of the latter gods’ love, if this is so? What is their realm?
The reference was to Wolfe’s Book of the Long Sun cycle, for the curious.

I know a number of women who do a lot of “charity work”, but upon closer inspection it becomes apparent that what they do doesn’t actually benefit the intended recipients so much as make it highly visible how terribly noble and giving these women are.

“In-deed! Mrs Jellyby,” said Mr Kenge, standing with his back to the fire, and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs Jellyby’s biography, “is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects, at various times, and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa; with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry — and the natives — and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work, and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs Jellyby.”
. . . .
“I shall then have finished for the present,” proceeded Mrs Jellyby with a sweet smile, “though my work is never done. Where are you, Caddy?”
‘“Presents her compliments to Mr Swallow, and begs—”’ said Caddy.
“‘—And begs,’” said Mrs Jellyby, dictating, “‘to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project’ — No, Peepy! Not on my account!”
Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most — the bruises or the dirt. Mrs Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, “Go along, you naughty Peepy!” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.
—Charles Dickens, Bleak House