Citizen Kane 1941 - John Ruskin - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine TV - Simon Schama TV - Ian Hislop TV - Anthony Trollope - Angela Carter - Henry David Thoreau - The Night Manager TV - Billionaires Who Made Our World TV - Second Thought online -
If I don’t look after the interests of the underprivileged, maybe somebody else will, maybe somebody without any money or property ... and that would be too bad! Citizen Kane 1941 starring Orson Welles & Joseph Cotten & Everett Sloane & Dorothy Comingore & Agnes Moorehead & Ruth Warrick & Ray Collins & William Alland & Paul Stewart & Philip van Zandt et al, director Orson Welles
There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the function of his own life to the utmost, has always the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others. John Ruskin
A philanthropist! ... You disgust me! Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s4e25: Body Parts, Brunt to Quark
There had been philanthropy before of course but this was the first time that businessmen came together with high profile artists, writers and sculptors in a campaign to attack a hideous evil in what was supposed to be a Christian modern metropolis ... The Foundling Hospital was philanthropy with a purpose. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Britannia Incorporated, BBC 2000
He [William Wilberforce] became the conscience of the nation and inspired a generation of eccentric, obsessive yet remarkable individuals. Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders 1/3, BBC 2010
Wilberforce could be seen as the godfather of the do-gooders. ibid.
In 1813 an essay was published in a series called A New View of Society. it was dedicated to Wilberforce as the nation’s leading reformer, and it offered up a radical vision ... The key to creating human happiness was to change human character ... Robert Owen. ibid.
Owen’s first step was the improvement of workers’ homes. ibid.
What happens when people don’t want to be done good to? ibid.
The do-gooders were busy social engineering. ibid.
George Dawson’s radical message came to be called the Civic Gospel. ibid.
The public ethos was a Victorian invention, and perhaps the greatest one of all. ibid.
Hill went from strength to strength. By the early 1880s 378 families were living in homes run by her. ibid.
Shaftesbury was a man looking for a mission. And when in 1832 he read a series of articles in The Times about child labour he floundered. The industrial revolution was changing Britain as never before, and it seemed the inevitable price of progress that children worked oppressive, long hours for meagre wages in unregulated workplaces. And few people cared. (Children & England & Work & Labour & Philanthropy & Great Britain) Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders: Suffer the Little Children 2/3
In 1862 [Charles] Kingsley wrote the book he’s most famous for – The Water Babies ... He campaigned for improved sanitation and against the pollution of rivers. ibid.
Kingsley’s vision for a perfect childhood included a decent education ... Compulsory education for all children was finally introduced. ibid.
Barnardo is perhaps the most famous of all the Victorian do-gooders. ibid.
Philanthropic abduction was hugely controversial. It repeatedly landed Barnardo in hot water. ibid.
For over two hundred years London’s financial districts made Britain one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. (Banksters & Philanthropy) Ian Hislop, When Bankers Were Good, BBC 2011
Their reputation has fallen behind that of estate agents. ibid.
David Barclay was one of a new breed of financiers at the start of a century in which banking helped Britain build the richest empire in the world. ibid.
This was the age in which bankers were good. ibid.
Samuel Gurney was a banker with three brothers ... They were Quakers ... One brother worried in his diary: ‘It is a very serious thing to be so largely engaged in the cares and transactions of money matters’. ibid.
He felt banking was his religious duty ... The Gurneys gave away substantial sums. ibid.
Elizabeth Fry – Samuels’ big sister – was a Gurney. ibid.
Ebenezer Scrooge is only the most famous of a host of morally dubious financiers in nineteenth-century fiction. ibid.
Peabody gave away his money ... Peabody declared his aim was ‘to ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of London’. ibid.
When the first Peabody dwellings opened in 1864 they must have seemed like paradise on Earth. ibid.
Angela Burdett-Coutts ... She was free to turn philanthropy into a career ... Angela Burdett-Coutts sacrificed the majority of her wealth for love. ibid.
Philanthropy was now becoming fashionable. ibid.
Nathaniel Rothschild ... He provided new cottages and free medical treatment for his estate employees in Tring. ibid.
I have sometimes thought that there is no being so venomous, so bloodthirsty, as a professed philanthropist. Anthony Trollope, North America, 1862
What would the daughters of the rich do with themselves if the poor ceased to exist? Angela Carter, Saints and Strangers
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
All the great philanthropists of our time are businessmen. They’re entrepreneurs. Innovators. My safe haven project for refugees which began in ’98 is the true expression in my belief to a commitment to the wider world. Because my good fortune means nothing if it doesn’t lift up my fellow man. Thank you. The Night Manager I, novel John Le Carre, starring Tom Hiddleston & Hugh Laurie & Olivia Colman & Tom Hollander & Elizabeth Debicki & Alistair Petrie & Natasha Little & Douglas Hodge & David Harewood & Tobias Menzies & Antonio de la Toree et al, director Susanne Bier, Roper, BBC 2016
‘The Bill Gates at Microsoft was a cold-hearted bully, whereas Bill Gates at the Gates Foundation is widely celebrated because of billions of dollars he has given away. But it’s not the innocent humanitarian organisation that we’ve been led to believe it is.’ The Billionaires Who Made Our World: Bill Gates, Channel 4 2023
Bill Gates has spent decades devoted to philanthropy. ibid.
Gates later dropped out of Harvard University to achieve his dream of building a software company along with his schoolfriend Paul Allen. ibid.
Gates also developed a reputation for ruthlessness. ibid.
Gates has been leading a double life for decades. The ’80s and ’90s saw allegations of womanising, weekends away with his mistress, and pool parties with strippers. ibid.
2019: When his relationship with a notorious paedophile was revealed. ibid.
Despite the divorce and ensuing scandal, Bill and Melinda Gates continued to run their Foundation together. ibid.
‘Bill Gates gets a real public benefit running this Foundation in terms of billions of dollars in tax subsidies.’ ibid.
Everyone loves philanthropy … Philanthropy takes people well known for being unredeemable and turns them into saints. How Billionaire Philanthropy Won’t Solve Anything, Youtube 17.10, Second Thought 2022
There are at least three problems with high-profile philanthropy: It costs the rest of us money, it might not be happening at all, it actively breaks democracy. ibid.