The Rhenish Missionary Society

[Evan Abla]

Jerky <tib at apollo-ent.com> said:

<<But they don't always do that, do they? Also, what charity they provide is 
offered up with ulterior motives which, when followed to their logical 
conclusions, would amount to nothing less than a form of cultural genocide.>>

Is it really that difficult to believe that there could possibly be no ulterior motives in charity?  Perhaps Marcel Mauss didn't actually understand potlatch.  Perhaps Emmanuel Levinas didn't really understand ethics as first philosophy.  Perhaps Mother Theresa and her missionaries weren't nearly as important as Princess Diana who actually did something altruistically (slight, laugh of synicism here).  But I don't think so.  Really, you ought to read _Totality and Infinity_ by Emmanuel Levinas who, by the way, was arguably the greatest influence on Derrida's work.  Sainthood aside, because Mother Theresa never would have wanted that, I think our own synicism and ulterior motives for self-promotion by undermining legitimate charity and self-lessness (not, perhaps always good, but in this case unlike Hitler's men, I think we can make an exception) has clouded our judgement a bit.  Do we complain about missionaries (who,  by the way, I don't think were always good or best, but those cases were the exceptions not the norm) because we try to justify the fact that WE can't seem to get rid of the ulterior motives in our own minds.  Are we jealous?  Or are we just trying to justify our own selfishness and ignorance?  I don't know.  I wish I had all the answers, then I could undermine my own ulterior motives.  

respectfully, 
evan

Evan M. Abla
eabla at nazarene.org

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