When I was an undergraduate, I took my first political science course, in international relations, as a visiting student at UC Irvine. During the course, the professor said something that has stuck with me to this day. While his claim wasn’t empirically true, the truth of what he said doesn’t matter much for my purposes here. He told us, then presumably all undergraduate students, that we come from the richest half of the richest county in the richest half of the richest state in the richest country in the world. His claim continues to resonate with me for the following reasons.
I am the son of immigrants. My maternal and paternal grandparents were born and raised in colonial India; my parents were born and raised in the decades following the fall of colonialism. My parents immigrated to America to start a family and provide me with opportunities that wouldn’t have been available in India. The economic and political realities that they faced are radically different than my own – I grew up comfortably in suburban Southern California. I lived then and continue to live now in materially secure circumstances. All my basic material needs – clothing, food, healthcare, and shelter – were provided for then and continue to be easily obtainable now. Furthermore, I have been able to indulge in various luxuries that satisfy my preferences – from collecting records to exercising at spin studios. And while an overwhelming portion of the world’s population lives under morally horrifying circumstances, I spend my days reading, teaching, and writing about religious ethics and moral and political philosophy.
This admission, about my own affluence and knowledge of the effects of severe poverty, signals why I believe that I have obligations to severely poor people. If something I have said here has been persuasive, then we – myself and other affluent people – are called on to do more. Instead of stigmatizing those who are poor and keeping them away from us, we should criticize the unjust institutions that govern us all and, more generally, donate to Oxfam, UNICEF, and other charitable organizations that combat severe poverty.Footnote 1 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Phil. 2:3–4).
