Philanthropy and the Economic Crisis

One of my favorite topics as Hoosierati blogger is explaining exactly what the humanities are, or rather explaining why it’s so difficult to explain what they are. Chief among obstacles is the lofty metaphysicality of the humanities that makes them seem like the province of the elite.⁺

It is much easier to explain what an agriculturalist does, or a surveyor. They have products that are immediately recognizable and understandable. Of course, I could show you the mountains of essays, critical studies, dictionaries, journal articles, and books that are the stuff–the product–of the humanities but that would be mere distraction. The essays themselves are just the residue of the actual product which is the ideas therein. The purpose of the articles etc is to put ideas into a set form so they can be studied by others and improved upon in a very elaborate web of conversations: online, through letters, at conferences, face to face, and more often than not, through the writing of another essay, book, article, etc.

But it’s not just ideas that are the intended product of the humanities but well-formed and well-articulated ideas and the unprescribed set of behaviors that follow from them. The humanities do not make Democrats or Republicans but, for many people, the humanities are involved in creating the kind of person who is capable of being a well-informed citizen and probably has the desire to be so. Well-informed people active in civic life can be said to be one of the products of the humanities.

Philanthropy follows directly from the above. IU’s Center on Philanthropy speaks of philanthropy this way:

This feeling is an expression of your concern for others rather than yourself. Of wanting to help fill a need, solve a problem, make life better for someone else. In short, of wanting to take action, voluntarily, for the public good.

It is easy to confuse “civic engagement” with politics but they are not completely overlapping terms. Not all philanthropy is political, and–it hardly needs to be said–not all politics is philanthropic. Where all three meet is at an understanding that we are all individuals, yes, but individuals within a society–sharing more than space, but also resources, time, and-if not a past-then a present that will become a shared history. By helping others we help ourselves. Perhaps paradoxically this is true even when helping others comes at a short term cost to us personally.

The study and expression of this understanding of human relationships is at the heart of the humanities. It is possible, of course, to be naturally compassionate, to want to give of one’s time and resources even if one has never read Amiri Baraka, Arundhati Roy, or J.P. Donleavy. And certainly no one is less human for not having memorized the timeline of great Dutch painters or being able to offer detailed analysis of competing theories of individual rights as defined by Machiavelli. As people are seeing nearly half of their retirement funds vanish–as jobs are vanishing at the rate of several thousand a day–these things hardly seem important. But the connection between people with a great respect for arts and letters and people with a great love of people is strong.

Billion dollar bailouts are going to be instrumental in keeping money in circulation during the course of this crisis; they’re going to be instrumental in making sure banks are confident enough in their own futures to loan the cash they get and thereby keep credit flowing. But it is also important to keep our cultural initiatives alive though this crisis. The reasoning is two-fold. Perhaps most directly, lots of people are employed in the arts and culture industries. Their product is not necessarily tangible in the way that a car is tangible but nonetheless important for us to continue functioning as something other than disconnected individuals. Our arts and our culture are the things that turn a mass of individuals into a society; and, it is important to understand that sometimes people can survive even as their societies crumble.

Second and, in my opinion more importantly, people who develop a deep understanding of art, literature, philosophy, and history today, become the philanthropists of tomorrow, and while they aren’t spending billions of dollars during this bailout, their effects are nonetheless impressive. Take, as just one example, the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust that just last month donated $1 million to various organization like the Central Arizona Shelter Services, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and the St. Joseph the Worker Job Services.

And who was Virginia Piper? What were her formative experiences? This is from a recent write-up on her life:

During an era of national economic crisis, the Critchfields provided their daughters with a priceless delight in music that would carry into their adult lives. Ken and Jessica also managed, despite straitened circumstances, to take young Virginia and Carol to the movies every Saturday night, treating them afterward to butterscotch sundaes, a memory both sisters treasured. The notion that entertainment can be self-generated, that the pleasures of artistic expression can be self-taught, practiced, and shared with others, is an invaluable lesson . . .

During the Great Depression, an economic crisis that even today stands as the low water mark of global finance, Virginia’s parents invested heavily in Virginia’s artistic and cultural education. The Piper Trust naturally gives money to cultural projects today. But, as seen above, it has also stepped up to give the kind of aid that most of us understand to be important at a time like this.

Would the Piper Trust even exist if Virginia had become a different person, raised with a different ethical standard? Thankfully we live in a world that can’t provide an answer to that question. Maybe the Piper Trust would, but how many countless others would not? How many of the uncounted billions of dollars currently being donated on behalf of those with deep roots in humanities disciplines would not be here today if the arts and cultural programming of the past never existed? How bleak would the world appear today if we were missing just one of these programs? How bleak will tomorrow look if we sacrfice our cultural infrastructure today?

Ray Bradbury had an answer. And I couldn’t agree with him more. I’m not saying that people should be left jobless, homeless, starving, or sick for the sake of a literacy program. Rather I’m suggesting that, even though economic times are tougher now than they were in September or last year, all that means is that keeping these programs alive may hurt more right now but they’re no less important for the pain and the dividends will pay off the next time economic cycles brings us low.

^{+ The fact that your somtimes-humble blogger spouts off with phrases like “lofty metaphysicality” and “province of the elite” does little to diminish that rumor. But he laughs at himself and encourages you to do the same.}