Where We Can All Agree

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-klempner/a-conversation-with-tracy_b_91799.html

Work still going on, with roots and shoots weaving into Granville, Ohio; "Mountains Beyond Mountains" is well worth a read. A quote:

MK: To put it in more popular terms, we could say that he knows his purpose, and that his purpose is morally irreproachable. In the book, it's pretty clear that he gets the most satisfaction from doctoring, even if -- and perhaps especially if -- he has to hike a long ways to get to a patient, or even to chase a patient into a field to get him to take his medicine.

TK: Yes, Farmer gets enormous pleasure from being a doctor, and a lot of that is the altruistic impulse, which some people don't think exists. But they're wrong.

I once had a conversation with a psychiatrist friend of mine who stated flatly that altruism doesn't exist. So I said, "All right. What if I agreed with you? You would still have to acknowledge that there is a difference between that kind of selfishness that leads to slaughtering six million Jews and the kind of selfishness that leads a doctor to save millions of lives." She couldn't argue that.

But I do believe altruism exists, and you can see it in him. Maybe in the long run in some psychological way it's self-serving, but I don't really care. It was very beautiful to see -- it really was. Everyone who watches him with his patients always finds it moving.

He also loves animals, and he loves to grow things, and he's enormously knowledgeable about reptiles and lizards. So what's that about? This is a person who is really in love with the world and who, in proportion, is offended by the horrible flaws in it.

MK: What about the millions of materially affluent Americans who don't really have any purpose in life, who can't imagine that the work they are doing makes any kind of meaningful contribution, who have to live every day with, as you put it, ambivalence? Would Farmer recognize that this too comprises a variety of poverty, albeit spiritual poverty?

TK: I think Farmer is aware of the soullessness of our culture, and, in fact, he's given a way out for a fairly large and growing number of people: He does all the work, all we have to do is make a donation. Then we can all feel better. (laughter)