Who’s a Humanitarian?

I have seen people called “humanitarians.” I know vegetarians are people who eat only vegetables, but I suspect that humanitarians are not people who only eat other people. We already have a name for them. So, what is a humanitarian? What are the qualifications? Can you get advanced degrees in . . . humanitarity?

This, I suspect, is one of those labels rich people apply to themselves as part of the gas lighting of the other 90+% of the population of this country who have the moral failing of not being rich, or even “well-to-do.”

Any rich person who does something generically “good” will have this label slapped on them by the marketing machine of the rich and famous. They will refer to their actions as “humanitarian gestures” and what they did as being in “the best tradition of philanthropy” and whatnot. On the other hand, if you aren’t rich, you have almost zero chance of acquiring this status. This last Christmas I saw an article saying that because of the pandemic, the food banks (Food banks in a rich country!) were struggling to keep their shelves stocked, so I went online and donated $100 to my local food bank. I did it anonymously, which rich people don’t do. If they are going to give away a chunk of change, they want visible credit for doing so. On a global scale I am a “rich American” but in America, I am a retired school teacher, so . . . middle middle-class. That $100 was a significant amount of money to me, being several percent of my monthly income (most of which is committed before I get paid, so a much larger part of my “disposable income”). How does that compare with Jeff Bezos, who apparently has added $637,000,000,000 to his net worth during the pandemic? If he were to give a million dollars to my food bank, that would constitute a significantly smaller fraction of his income that was my contribution. But Mr. Bezos, a twenty-first century Robber Baron, would be labeled a humanitarian and I will never be.

Putting on airs is a college course rich people take, I am convinced. They are better than us, just ask them. They are convinced that their riches are an indicator of their superiority. I think that when these people die, a wall should be put up where people can write what they really thought of those people when they were alive. They and their survivors should know what we really think. I would have to bring multiple pens to label Mr. Bezos.