giving from a distance

Awhile back I was in a church - a liberal church - and something kind of funny happened: I said something that apparently sounded like I was hinting (or even outright asking) for assistance. The reaction embarrassed me. The people I was talking to got scared. Their eyes got big; they found excuses; they fled. I found myself wanting to rush to reassure everyone that I didn't mean anything of the sort. (Much later, I found I resented that they took it that way.)

I find myself thinking about this a lot. Liberals like to give to the less fortunate, but they have a sort of distinctive way of doing it. It's almost as if they don't want to give anything to anyone they actually have to look at, or at least not anyone they have to interact with.

Or is that at least not anyone they have to interact with as an equal? That would change a dynamic. It would create ties, and obligations, and all of that. It would mess things up somehow.

They want to put their money in the little box and never look at where it goes.

They don't want feedback. They don't want to know how things turned out.

Oh, a report would be nice - preferably a single sentence, congratulating them on how much they accomplished.

Perhaps this is because liberals have faith in specialists and professionals. Somewhere, on the other end of the line, someone presumably does the distribution end of things for a living. And professionals don't like to be meddled with, queried, interfered with, or second-guessed.

Conservatives put stock in "faith based"approaches, which liberals oppose primarily because of the question of entitlements - conservatives want people to feel grateful and obligated, while liberals argue that people are entitled to what they receive. But there is another difference between faith-based vs. the bureaucratic approach: the conservative approach allows for a great deal of interaction between giver and recipient. There is an emphasis on individual judgment, and the givers retain (and rely on) the ability to collect feedback directly and immediately. The liberal approach to feedback is distant, aloof, and usually someone elses' problem.

And that, I think, has a lot to do with why liberals are getting their butts whupped right now. They got cut off from feedback. Maybe the system they set up never paid adequate attention to feedback in the first place.

To give to the poor, conservative-style, involves a lot of one-on-one. A lot of talking. The conservative can gather tons of information beforehand on who needs help, and exactly what sort of help would be most appropriate. Also - and significantly - those who shouldn't really be getting help can be weeded out. (That's part of the power of having it not be an 'entitlement'.)

Then there is the immediate gratification of delivery. This is a mixed bag; the conservative is feeding ego needs (sometimes way too much so) but also collecting useful information. Is this person being really helped, or not?

Finally, the conservative embraces what the liberal shuns: the act of giving and receiving creates links and ties. This is not necessarily a bad thing - especially if it's reciprocal, rather than hierarchical.

The liberal, for all his talk of equality, prefers hierarchical giving; they don't want the people they give to actually showing up at their church, and in my more cynical moments I suspect it's because they can't really feel comfortable around someone....well, below them.

I know I'm being unfair to some people. This year has my poor overworked brain struggling to try to understand how the more egalitarian party can also be the less egalitarian party....