Eat the Rich
I was at a conference down in LA about a month ago. The presenters were a panel of researchers who study the effects of socialization on the human brain. They talked at length about a neurotransmitter called oxytocin. In short, it's a "feel good" chemical that gets released into our brains when we interact with others.
And this includes interacting through social media. Posting a blog, a Facebook status update, or a Tweet releases oxytocin in our brain, and elates us. It's no wonder that people always have their iPhones within reach.
It also gets released when we give to others. This is part of the reason that giving to charitable causes or pitching in to help volunteer feels good. As the presentation opened up to questions, there was a common thread amongst the questions. One girl even came out and asked it directly: "What is wrong with rich people?"
The general feeling in the room--at least, among the people who were asking questions--was that because there's an incentive to be charitable, that anyone who's wealthy and doesn't give to others has something wrong with them.
There's a commonly held belief that anyone who is rich got that way because they're dishonest, or because they did something dishonest. I think there's a prevalent notion that the only way to be a good person is to work long hours and for low wages.
Money doesn't corrupt. It tends to attract the corrupted, but wealthy people are, in my experience, people just like you and me. It's easy to point to them or their money and assign blame. It's easy to point and say that they're not doing anything. Or for those that are philanthropists and do give, that they're not doing enough. But I think this is predicated on the notion that the most good can be done with money, which isn't always true, considering what lots of people without any money have managed to accomplish.
I don't think life is actually easy for anyone...money or no money. The wealthy have some things a lot easier than others, but a lot of the work is the same. They still have to maintain relationships with their friends and family, which is one of the biggest challenges all of us face.
I don't think the wealthy make the world a worse place. Maybe they could (or should) do more, but making callow judgments about them based on fundamental attribution errors is not the way to go about fixing things.
And this includes interacting through social media. Posting a blog, a Facebook status update, or a Tweet releases oxytocin in our brain, and elates us. It's no wonder that people always have their iPhones within reach.
It also gets released when we give to others. This is part of the reason that giving to charitable causes or pitching in to help volunteer feels good. As the presentation opened up to questions, there was a common thread amongst the questions. One girl even came out and asked it directly: "What is wrong with rich people?"
The general feeling in the room--at least, among the people who were asking questions--was that because there's an incentive to be charitable, that anyone who's wealthy and doesn't give to others has something wrong with them.
There's a commonly held belief that anyone who is rich got that way because they're dishonest, or because they did something dishonest. I think there's a prevalent notion that the only way to be a good person is to work long hours and for low wages.
Money doesn't corrupt. It tends to attract the corrupted, but wealthy people are, in my experience, people just like you and me. It's easy to point to them or their money and assign blame. It's easy to point and say that they're not doing anything. Or for those that are philanthropists and do give, that they're not doing enough. But I think this is predicated on the notion that the most good can be done with money, which isn't always true, considering what lots of people without any money have managed to accomplish.
I don't think life is actually easy for anyone...money or no money. The wealthy have some things a lot easier than others, but a lot of the work is the same. They still have to maintain relationships with their friends and family, which is one of the biggest challenges all of us face.
I don't think the wealthy make the world a worse place. Maybe they could (or should) do more, but making callow judgments about them based on fundamental attribution errors is not the way to go about fixing things.