THE FULL IS NO FRIEND TO THE HUNGRY

(The title quotes a very common Russian proverb, not so popular in the West.)

Yet another variation on Mind your own business, Stupid! One doesn't have to be a Marxist (whatever this word means these days) to agree with Karl Marx that Dasein, that is, the economic and social circumstances of one’s life, determines one’s general outlook, that is, the consciousness of each respective reality. If we are so obsessed with changing other nations’ consciousnesses to conform to the American way, why don’t we start by changing their Daseins as well, by, say, declaring them the new states of our Union, or at least, by providing them with the necessary funds to ascend to America’s level of economic prosperity, hoping that by facilitating the development of a consumerist consciousness in them, it will be easier for them to understand what exactly America is talking about? If the current fourteen-trillion-dollar-and-counting national debt that has been accrued largely from engaging in unnecessary and counterproductive wars, has not bankrupted this nation yet, there is an excellent chance that printing another ten trillion dollars worth of money to spend on far more constructive non-intrusive enterprises, shouldn’t do it either, at least not until America has been able to reap some more palatable fruit of her global experiment in social engineering…
Without going any further with this harangue, it must be quite obvious by now what my title The Full Is No Friend To The Hungry implies. There is just one way for the full to placate the hungry, at least temporarily, which is to fill his empty stomach without asking for anything in return.

As one of my reasons for being skeptical about America’s intention, even if most sincere, to take the leading role in “achieving the survival and success of liberty” (as President Kennedy called it in his 1961 Inaugural Address), I made the following comment in my correspondence with a certain notable American politician-scholar:

“I believe that America’s policy of promoting liberty around the world is both inconsistent and incredibly counterproductive. Promotion of noble ideas has to be a thoroughly altruistic effort, if one is to succeed in the delivery of one’s message, but here we have a clash with the practical nature of America’s legitimate self-interest, which is already creating a contradiction. Even worse, she is hardly promoting either, as she is trying to promote both, with complete disregard for the natural nationalist backlash, and with very poor understanding of the forces at work in the new world order.
“The world is still divided into rich and poor nations. America’s idea of “liberty” is most appealing to the wealthy nations, who have a greater capacity to enjoy civil rights than the less privileged, who have other things on their mind. Unless the rich propose to make the poor equal to themselves, by redistributing their wealth, which is hardly ever the case even in the best of times, the inherent conflict of master versus slave in this situation, especially the conflict of perceptions, can’t be reconciled. I think that this point has been missed altogether.”

Plutarch tells an educational story about the Spartans. In fact, he finds it so instructive that he tells it slightly differently in two different places, but the essence remains the same. It revolves around the favorite Spartan meal, which may not quite suit a wealthy foreigner’s taste.

“A thing that met with especial approval among them was their so-called black broth zomos… They say that a certain king… having heard much of this black broth of theirs, sent for a Lacedaemonian cook on purpose to make him some, but had no sooner tasted it, than found it revolting, which the cook observing, told him--- ‘O King, to relish this broth, you should have bathed yourself first in the river Eurotas!’”

The point of this story, in application to our context, is that the didactic food that America has to offer today might be properly relished, perhaps, anywhere “from California to the New York Island; from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters” (in the immortal acerbic words of Woody Guthrie), but elsewhere around the world people bathe in the waters of different rivers, and may not quite relish the same food as America does.
To further summarize this entry, those who have much are incapable of understanding those who have little, and the only kind of advice the rich can give to the poor is… cash, but, mind you, with no strings attached.