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Strangers drowning : grappling with impossible idealism, drastic choices, and the overpowering urge to help / Larissa MacFarquhar.

by MacFarquhar, Larissa.

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Penguin Press, 2015.

Altruism -- Psychological aspects.

Humanitarianism -- Psychological aspects.

Helping behavior -- Psychological aspects.

Philanthropists -- Psychology.

Ethical problems -- Psychological aspects.

Conduct of life.

9781594204333 (hc.)

1594204330 (hc.)

320 pages ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-320).

For do-gooders, it is always wartime -- The bodies of strangers -- The most oppressed of all -- Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission -- At once rational and ardent -- An accidental capability produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a biological process that is normally opposed to the expression of such a capability: the undermining of do-gooders, part one -- The humiliation of strangers -- The legacy of drunks: the undermining of do-gooders, part two -- One of those God things -- Kidneys -- Please reply to me as soon as possible -- The children of strangers -- The aspidistra is the Tree of Life: the undermining of do-gooders, part three -- From the point of view of the universe -- Something quite different from life.

"What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged? A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she's responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential? We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why."--Provided by publisher.

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