Rabbi David Wolpe's column in the LA Times today makes many great points about how the wealthy are increasingly disconnected from the realities of the needs in our society. Michael Sandel's book What Money Can't Buy provides an even better framework for this argument. But we all suffer from this indifference. Among Wolpe's many good arguments is this:
"We all know, deep down, that most of what we have is a product of good fortune. No matter how hard we work, we did not earn our functioning brains or the families into which we were born. We didn't choose being born into an era, or a nation, that allowed our talents to develop. We ride in cars and live in homes we did not build, are warmed by heating and cooled by air conditioning we did not invent, live in cities others created for us organized by a government and protected by a military shaped by our predecessors. Yet we still point to our accomplishments and proudly proclaim, "I did this!"
The thought that we deserve everything we have AND others don't because they are not worthy is when our deficit becomes blindness.
"We all know, deep down, that most of what we have is a product of good fortune. No matter how hard we work, we did not earn our functioning brains or the families into which we were born. We didn't choose being born into an era, or a nation, that allowed our talents to develop. We ride in cars and live in homes we did not build, are warmed by heating and cooled by air conditioning we did not invent, live in cities others created for us organized by a government and protected by a military shaped by our predecessors. Yet we still point to our accomplishments and proudly proclaim, "I did this!"
The thought that we deserve everything we have AND others don't because they are not worthy is when our deficit becomes blindness.
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