Our political and cultural condition, and its preoccupations, make me unhappy and I have a strong inclination to detach from it. Writers I admire, like Thomas a’Kempis and A.C. Bhaktivedanta, urgently tell us to do exactly that, and to pay the bigger world no attention. But that’s easier said than done; both a’Kempis and Bhaktivedanta also celebrate Charity and Justice – involvement – and teach that you can’t become enlightened, or get a Pearly Gates pass, without practicing them.
Sometimes Charity is easy. You rescue earthworms from sidewalks after rainstorms; that’s easy. You also run errands for a pal who’s suffered a stroke. That’s easy too, in the short run. But your pal won’t see a doctor, won’t take medicine, and his condition will only get worse; he’ll be an invalid for the rest of his – and your ride. That won’t be easy (for you), and you feel grumpy about it.
Dorothy Day summed it up: “There are two things you should know about the poor: they tend to smell, and they are ungrateful.” She also said, “I only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” Avoiding smelly and ungrateful people seems like a snap – detach from those odorous ingrates! – but Day demanded authentic love from herself, from Christians, and from the most logic and ethics committed of atheists. You’re only as Good as you are good.
Frustratingly, detachment and Charity are contradictory because Charity is inextricably linked with Justice, that other Capital Good which forces us to measure the decency, utility, and motivations of our behaviors, charitable and otherwise. By way of example, imagine a lover who kisses you out of a sense of duty rather than from lust or love or simple generosity. At some point, you will measure and weigh your lover’s motivations and find them wanting. Then, your love will become a duty too, and you will detach.
Our presidential candidates do a lot of yodeling about Justice – they are aggressively measuring us, and our world – but there isn’t much Charity coming our way to leaven what they think is Just. No one will be surprised when they receive the most tepid of kisses next November.