Most People Would Give If They Were Sure It Would Help - He Noted

When discussing Ayn Rand Philosophical realities with an acquaintance the other day in the lobby of an auto service company, I began to see why so many people were bothered with her theories on Objectivism. I think in some regards it isn't well understood, or it is bothersome to think of in that way. Interestingly enough, the next day I received a correspondence from another acquaintance in a different part of the country, who made a very astute comment, namely;

"In my observation, at least in my part of the country, the average person wants to do some sort of work for a living and would gladly pay a stranger $20 if they knew the stranger was going to use it to help their situation."

Okay so, right. Indeed, I think that is the case in most of our nation, and if you change the denomination, the world too. Problem is giving money is the hardest thing to do right without unintended consequences - Melinda and Bill Gates made that statement once - they are right. They've made some mistakes too, unintended crisis created by their giving.

Ayn Rand was right to say that people give because it makes them feel good to do so, it makes them feel that they have upheld their own moral code, in essence they are doing it in a major part for themselves - and what's that quote: "don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

My acquaintance from the other side of the country went further and noted another important piece to all this;

"Of course we also need to think beyond the United States because our world has shrunk to nothing with technology. The entire world needs to be able to live a happy life with a minimum amount of food and clean water for our world to ever really be a safe place with no war."

I would modify that to say; "the entire world needs to have the chance to achieve happiness" but also responsible for their actions. That's how nature works. And with safety, freedom, liberty, piece of mind, and the pursuits of happiness also comes with it; responsibility too. Lastly, our dialogue tried to make reason out of this terrible thing that humans do - killing of their own species - war. My acquaintance started off this philosophical conundrum and debate with:

"As soon as we stop creating desperate people, we will stop creating upheaval and war."

Maybe or maybe not, and I would wager to say, it's not likely because sometimes happy humans want more, want what they don't have, their neighbor's wife (a Biblical Reference I'll throw in), a bigger yacht, faster car, they want to "Surpass the Jones'" which was a famous advertisement that Lincoln Mercury ran for their luxury SUVs for many years, full page advertisements in Forbes, Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily.

Well, that's perhaps enough commentary on this for today. If you'd like to share your thoughts on this, you may email me, let's talk, and I'll make that dialogue part of this on-going series of humanitarian articles. Please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Humanitarian Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net