Letters to the Editor
-
What's with the "do-gooder" bashing?
no doubt Catherine's motives were no purer than those of all the middle-class do-gooders who pass unmentioned in "Poor People" and no purer than Vollmann's own knotty attitude toward the poor
I have no shame in doing good deeds and trying to help others. People who use "do-gooder" as a pejorative are not people I respect. What is wrong with doing good? Is doing bad, or doing nothing, preferable?
I also have no shame in being middle-class and am sick of other people, often middle-class themselves, throwing around that term as a cheap device to somehow establish themselves as superior. Is it better to be poor or working class? Is it better to be rich? Don't we desire that no one be poor? As for the working class, Michael Moore once said that the working class don't want to be working class. They want to get the hell out of the working class.
I'm a middle-class do-gooder and proud of it. My motives are a desire to alleviate suffering in others. If Ms. Miller or others want to psycho-analyze that to death, well, whatever floats their boats.
Fortunately, however, I do not feel compelled to drink pus or whip myself. I guess I won't ever be a saint, but I can live with that.