The Climate of Political Philanthropy

With the COP26 global climate summit apparently happening quite soon in Scotland, where is the political philanthropy associated with the preparations, and who is supplying it?

Perhaps you are doing so.

What do you already know about the climate of political philanthropy?

How do you question assumptions of various sorts, and for what reasons?

What are your assumptions about political philanthropy?

What are your assumptions about climates?

What is your usual approach to questioning assumptions, including your own?

Clarity is especially important when contentious politics is frequently mistaken for non-contentious science.

To say the Earth is flat is politically contentious not because it is ridiculous but because some people either still believe it to be true or they are being paid to say it is true.

The physical shape of the Earth is certainly not scientifically contentious.

The ridiculous is easily addressed through the satirical presentation of ridicule.

The dangerous is not quite as easy to address, whether through philanthropy, journalism, science or satire.

What are your current assumptions about real philanthropy, real politics, real journalism and real democracy?

How does your political philanthropy support public interest journalism? 

Perhaps you practice public interest journalism primarily as an act of political philanthropy.

How do you define political philanthropy and how carefully do you distinguish it from political patronage?

Perhaps you have been practicing the art of quality satire as philanthropy, possibly in the hope that it would guide politicians away from ridiculous and disastrous policies.

If so, what have been the results so far?

The members of the Revolutionary Climatological Needlepoint Committee have been practicing their political philanthropy over many decades now. 

They have been sensitively and sensibly expanding the scientific and artistic boundaries of the known world to the best of their combined abilities, as you may already be aware.

How scientific is your political philanthropy?

How artistic is your political philanthropy?

What is the philosophical basis of your political philanthropy?

What is the current strategy of your political philanthropy?

You may be aware that pity is a powerful tool for good in the world. 

Showing pity towards persons with delusional views is compassionate, of course.

How do you know for certain that your own views are not delusional?

How carefully have you attempted to rid your mind of biases?

How do you assess standards of conduct?

How do you assess ignorance?

When do you know hypocrisy is evident?

When do you know standards of analysis and/or conduct are hideously low?

When do you know standards are unachievable for most people, and even impossible for anyone?

How much influence do you currently have over other people's lives, and how, and why?

How have your choices in life influenced the choices of other people, directly and indirectly?

How do you attempt to become aware of the ethics of your decisions?

Where is the evidence of your benevolence?

What does being humane mean to you?

How carefully do you assess your choices?

When do you know you have very little choice at all?  

Politics is filled with contradictions.  It is filled with incompatible practices.  It is filled with ineffective policies and cruel policies.  It is filled with conflicting principles and an absence of principled behaviour.

Enlightened practices are never contradictory.  They are consistently based on good evidence, particularly evidence of goodness.  

There is nothing good about denialism.

Do you always regard sensitive expressions of truthfulness as kind, even when the truth alerts you to your ignorance, your insensitivity, and possibly even your cruelty?

The only way to improve the world is by preventing bullies, hypocrites and other lazy and greedy persons from gaining and/or maintaining positions of power, influence and/or authority.

Everything else is superficial, ineffectual and merely stating the obvious.

How appropriate and humane are your personal principles, policies and practices?

How appropriate and humane are the policies of the organisations with which you choose to be associated?

How appropriate and humane are the personal principles, policies and practices of the persons with whom you choose to interact?

There is much fake kindness in the world.  That is why it is so difficult to know who is genuinely kind and who is not.  Many people work in situations associated with fake kindness rather than genuine kindness.

Most workers are mainly motivated by money rather than benevolence when they are at work.  Even volunteers are not necessarily motivated by benevolence.

Who, then, is mainly motivated by benevolence, and how, and why?

Incompatible relationships and incompatible objectives cause much suffering in the world.   

Perhaps you have a great deal of experience in dealing with incompatible social relationships, incompatible ambitions and incompatible personalities.

Compatibility may or may not be associated with appropriateness, of course.

There are many unreasonable attitudes and unreasonable aspirations to address very carefully indeed, in many relationships and organisations.

You may even have unreasonable attitudes and aspirations yourself.

Your experiences of consciousness, and of nature and culture, may actually be empty of appreciation for anything greater than yourself and your selfish fantasies and ambitions, in which case you are probably driven mainly by your ego rather than your haphazardly applied ethics. 

What do you currently know about climate justice, and how do you know it?

How humane, benevolent and philanthropic is your approach to developing, implementing and assessing policies?

Which of your acquaintances express enlightened benevolence through appropriately humane principles, policies and practices?

How enlightened is your benevolence, and how do you know?

How humane, benevolent and philanthropic is your approach to providing assistance?

How humane, benevolent and philanthropic is your approach to seeking assistance?

The Revolutionary Climatological Needlepoint Committee provides considerable assistance to anyone seeking to understand, and contribute towards, the climate of political philanthropy.

How imaginatively and scientifically do you usually think about wealth and poverty in relation to climate justice? 

How imaginatively and scientifically do you usually think about health and illness in relation to geography?

Without fair political systems and fair legal systems, no life is likely to be simple and comfortable, in any sort of climate and environment and economic system and community. 

 

Life may not even exist at all whenever and wherever cruelty and ignorance flourish unhindered.

How have you been comparing one image with another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another, and why?