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jpowerj's review against another edition
5.0
This book really changed the way that I view privilege and my responsibility as a US citizen with lots of it. Instead of rambling, I want to just copy this excerpt from the book, which really shook me to the core:
"Given the overpopulation problem, she said, would it really be a good thing to spend lots of resources on developing those drugs?
About halfway through her sentence I knew where she was heading, though I didn’t want to believe it. This very bright student wanted to discuss whether it made sense to put resources into life-saving drugs for poor people in the Third World, given that there are arguably too many people on the planet already, or at least too many poor people in the Third World.
I contained my anger, somewhat, and told the student that when she was ready to sacrifice members of her own family to help solve the global population problem, then I would listen to her argument. In fact, given the outrageous levels of consumption of the middle and upper classes in the United States, I said, one could argue that large-scale death in the American suburbs would be far more beneficial in solving the population problem; a single US family is more of a burden ecologically on the planet than a hundred Indian peasants. “If you would be willing to let an epidemic sweep through your hometown and kill large numbers of people without trying to stop it, for the good of the planet, then I’ll listen to that argument,” I said.
The student left shortly after that. Based on her reaction, I suspect I made her feel bad. I am glad for that. I wanted her to see that the assumption behind her comment – that the lives of people who look like her are more valuable than the lives of the poor and vulnerable in other parts of the world – was ethnocentric, racist, and barbaric. That assumption is the product of an arrogant and inhumane society. I wanted her to think about why she lived in a world in which the pain of others is so routinely ignored. I wanted her to feel what, for most of her life, she has been able to turn away from. I wanted her to begin to empathize with people who aren’t white like her and not comfortable like her, people whose suffering is far away from her."
"Given the overpopulation problem, she said, would it really be a good thing to spend lots of resources on developing those drugs?
About halfway through her sentence I knew where she was heading, though I didn’t want to believe it. This very bright student wanted to discuss whether it made sense to put resources into life-saving drugs for poor people in the Third World, given that there are arguably too many people on the planet already, or at least too many poor people in the Third World.
I contained my anger, somewhat, and told the student that when she was ready to sacrifice members of her own family to help solve the global population problem, then I would listen to her argument. In fact, given the outrageous levels of consumption of the middle and upper classes in the United States, I said, one could argue that large-scale death in the American suburbs would be far more beneficial in solving the population problem; a single US family is more of a burden ecologically on the planet than a hundred Indian peasants. “If you would be willing to let an epidemic sweep through your hometown and kill large numbers of people without trying to stop it, for the good of the planet, then I’ll listen to that argument,” I said.
The student left shortly after that. Based on her reaction, I suspect I made her feel bad. I am glad for that. I wanted her to see that the assumption behind her comment – that the lives of people who look like her are more valuable than the lives of the poor and vulnerable in other parts of the world – was ethnocentric, racist, and barbaric. That assumption is the product of an arrogant and inhumane society. I wanted her to think about why she lived in a world in which the pain of others is so routinely ignored. I wanted her to feel what, for most of her life, she has been able to turn away from. I wanted her to begin to empathize with people who aren’t white like her and not comfortable like her, people whose suffering is far away from her."
kellyholmes's review against another edition
4.0
A quotation from the book: "We can either predict the worst -- that no change is possible -- and not act, in which case we guarantee there will be no change. Or we can understand that change always is possible, even in the face of great odds, and act on that assumption, which creates the possibility of progress."
This was a good read.
This was a good read.
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