one type, the kind old church lady
>prone to saying sweet racist shit fits your stereotype. Then there is the
>old Irish guy I met at a barbecue recently, who took off at the first
>excuse on that "socialist faggot"(*) Obama.
>
>FWIW,
>
> —ravi
one thing is for certain, the phenom of methodological dualism* applies here!
as for donations, though, when i got involved in that scene in the art world here, if the measure is of giving then a lot of that giving has to do with self-interest. it's a *business* necessity, it's used for networking, and for displays of social status. ordinary people don't really have opportunities to show off. you don't go to events for which you've donated money for instance. I guess this demographic would be 1%ers if you figure it's people making over, what?, 350k/yr?
years ago, when I was involved in public tv and when i worked with wmnf on same issues, it was common for organizations to try to come up with ways to replicate the status competition of the rich by holding some sort of event, much as a local charity org with which my company is involved, hosts a ball to which you go and where you must go in order to be seen as someone in this town. the problem was, of course, that it's hard to replicate the same among such a disparate crowd of folks who donate in the < $200 range.
what the well off do to "volunteer" is, ahem, nothing like what a poor person does. a well to do person chairs meetings, telling others what to do, including the person who actually does the project management. a less well off person, you know, paints the women's shelter and plants shrubs at a daycare center for low income families.
Oh, and btw, the one org tha tmanages to replicate the social status thing is United Way. They manage to make the social status thing work because they create social status rankings inside the organization where participation can be conspicuously displayed by volunteering. In fact, I've always been told by anyone above me: if you want to go anywhere in the company, be there. usually, there will be some folderol about 'helping' but it's always been stated to me as: Don't really give a shit about homeless shelters, but it's a good idea to be on this committee or that in order to "meet" people.
*from gouldner: "sociologists keep two sets of books, one for the study of 'laymen' and another when he thinks about himself....the sociologist believes himself capable of making hundreds of purely rational decisions....he thinks of these as free technical decisions and of himself as acting in autonomous conformity with technical standards, rather than as a creature molded by social structure and culture. if he finds he has gone wrong, he thinks of himself as having made a mistake. a mistake is an outcome produced not by any social necessity, but by a corrigible ignorance, a lack of careful thought....
when this is called to his attention, he will acknowledge that his behavior is influenced by social forces. he will acknowledge...that there is or can be such a thing as a sociology of knowledge or a sociology of sociology....[but this concession is begrudgingly made. it is] not deeply convincing to him. in short, it is not part of the normal way of thinking about his own everyday work. [p 55]
http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)