Against Charity

“Let’s not discard the evil. Let’s make the evil itself work for good.” This, Slovenian continental philosopher Slavoj Žižek says, is the modern conception of capitalism. His riposte: “Not at any moment in human history has such a large percentage of the population has lived in such relative freedom, welfare, security and so on. I see this seriously threatened. … There is a certain type of misanthropy which is a better social attitude that cheap charitable optimism. … We are approaching a certain ‘zero point’ … I’m saying that the only way to save the values of liberalism is to do something more. Let’s be aware there is an element of hypocrisy in charity.”