TIME OF GREED

Here’s a great site and a great article, very Christmassy:

“This is a flamboyantly optimistic and self-congratulatory society, and the puzzle is why it allows this suffering. The inequalities are stunning, but a frequent attitude is a shrug – so what?. These days it is hard to plumb a concern.

Frequently I survey acquaintances with this touchstone question, attributed to Rawls (15): Suppose there are people living on one side of a big city who throw weekly parties so lavish that afterwards they are throwing out meat, while on the other side of the same town are people so poor they cannot afford to buy meat at all. Is this a moral problem?

I get a spectrum of answers: "No problem" to "Yes, of course" and in between "Technological, but not ethical problem," and "Maybe, but (horrified look) what solution are you pushing?" – as well as some yawns, as if these questions were so old fashioned. I believe the variety of these responses eventually leads to the question of what kind of society we live in.”

Greedy for more?