4 ms·

I'm trying to understand what that quote means. Is it that they feed themselves first and only give what they don't need and that amount grows as their own inc

I'm trying to understand what that quote means. Is it that they feed themselves first and only give what they don't need and that amount grows as their own income/wealth grows?

daxfohl 4y ago
I interpret it as meaning someone who goes way out of their way to feed hungry people on other continents but won't spare a penny for someone at their doorstep. Admittedly that could be way off.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Yes, the person on our doorstep is 'lazy', 'dirty', threatening, etc. For that person, we call the police or have laws passed to criminalize them.
  - daxfohl 4y ago
    So mathematically the relationship is actually cubic, of `d` minus a constant.
    - WJW 4y ago
      Not necessarily, it could still be a square of the distance. From the data presented you cannot tell if it's linear, square, cubic or any other relation, just that it increases with distance.
thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
It describes someone who is generous giving to institutions acting elsewhere but miserly to those directly around them.
- everybodyknows 4y ago
  A recurring theme in English literature of roughly that period. A Mrs. Jellyby in Dickens's Bleak House leaves her children unwashed and malnourished while she dictates letters promoting some notionally charitable project in progress on a distant continent.
jimmytidey 4y ago
I don't know the book, but I assume the criticism is that a rich person can give money to alleviate suffering, but by the same token their wealth means they will not have to experience the suffering intimately. The richer they are, the more money they can give, and, also, the more remote the suffering.
oska 4y ago
The opposite of the quote is the proverb 'charity begins at home', if that helps.
alan-crowe 4y ago
"In his 1852–3 novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens popularised the term telescopic philanthropy." source: https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Telescopic_philanthropy https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Telescopic_philanthropy Middlemarch started serial publication in 1871. So George Elliot gets to allude to telescopic philanthropy, confident that her audience will be familiar with "the wag's definition of a philanthropist" and get her dig.
- daxfohl 4y ago
  Oh that's interesting. All these years I never knew the quote was in direct reference to something else. Well anyway there are lots of other good nuggets in Middlemarch, hopefully _some_ of them original.

I'm trying to understand what that quote means. Is it that they feed themselves first and only give what they don't need and that amount grows as their own income/wealth grows?

daxfohl 4y ago

I interpret it as meaning someone who goes way out of their way to feed hungry people on other continents but won't spare a penny for someone at their doorstep. Admittedly that could be way off.

wolverine876 4y ago
Yes, the person on our doorstep is 'lazy', 'dirty', threatening, etc. For that person, we call the police or have laws passed to criminalize them.
- daxfohl 4y ago
  So mathematically the relationship is actually cubic, of `d` minus a constant.
  - WJW 4y ago
    Not necessarily, it could still be a square of the distance. From the data presented you cannot tell if it's linear, square, cubic or any other relation, just that it increases with distance.

thatjoeoverthr 4y ago

It describes someone who is generous giving to institutions acting elsewhere but miserly to those directly around them.

everybodyknows 4y ago
A recurring theme in English literature of roughly that period. A Mrs. Jellyby in Dickens's Bleak House leaves her children unwashed and malnourished while she dictates letters promoting some notionally charitable project in progress on a distant continent.

jimmytidey 4y ago

I don't know the book, but I assume the criticism is that a rich person can give money to alleviate suffering, but by the same token their wealth means they will not have to experience the suffering intimately. The richer they are, the more money they can give, and, also, the more remote the suffering.

oska 4y ago

The opposite of the quote is the proverb 'charity begins at home', if that helps.

alan-crowe 4y ago

"In his 1852–3 novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens popularised the term telescopic philanthropy." source: https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Telescopic_philanthropy https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Telescopic_philanthropy Middlemarch started serial publication in 1871. So George Elliot gets to allude to telescopic philanthropy, confident that her audience will be familiar with "the wag's definition of a philanthropist" and get her dig.

daxfohl 4y ago
Oh that's interesting. All these years I never knew the quote was in direct reference to something else. Well anyway there are lots of other good nuggets in Middlemarch, hopefully _some_ of them original.