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Making the Medici Archive accessible electronically... thoughts on benevolence... a gay writer begins again |
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Hugo Grotius, a 17th-century Dutch jurist and a Calvinist,
distinguished between rules of law and rules of love. The former
could be elaborated with precision and adjudicated in court. But
duties of love could neither be enforced nor precisely specified.
Thus the spirit of our actions matters, not just the
nature of them. A creditor might violate no law by taking a poor
man's last possession, but his heartlessness will violate a rule
of love. And Grotius asserted that, Calvin notwithstanding, one
does acquire merit via charitable acts. Immanuel Kant in the 18th century sharity as a duty. We are to make the good of others our own aim, whether we love them or not. Schneewind says: "[In Kant's view] you can't be obligated to feel love. Some of us are just sweet-natured people. Some of us are crusty sons of bitches. It's not your duty to feel affection for everyone. But it's your duty to help." Until the late 18th and early 19th century, thinking about charity presupposed private property--"There are no socialists or anarchists here," Schneewind says--as well as scarcity. That is, no matter how virtuous we might be, there simply wasn't enough wealth, property, or resources to go around. No amount of generosity or justice would alleviate all poverty. But as populations grew and wealth increased, it occurred to philosophers that perhaps there could be enough for everyone, and that the apportionment of adequate means was a matter of justice, not human generosity. Thinkers began to question the morality of property. Says Schneewind, the Christian doctrine of love and charity was transformed into a secular view of the production of benefits for everyone. Advocates like the English social philosopher William Godwin believed charity should be replaced by social justice. If you have a just, equitable distribution of wealth, you won't need charity. "I don't think that's going to happen for a long, long, long time," Schneewind says. "But luckily, people can be genuinely charitable. That's a great virtue." Schneewind's book is aimed at people who, in his phrase, "are in the philanthropy biz." He enlisted contributions from scholars in philosophy, economics, anthropology, and history. Among the essays are "Philanthropy in the African American Experience," by Adrienne Lash Jones, associate professor of black studies at Oberlin College, and "Losses and Gains" by Mary Douglas, an anthropologist. --DK
Gay poet starts "telling the
truth" Sakowicz, a graduate of the Hopkins Writing Seminars, recently received a $1,000 grant from PEN, the international writers' organization. PEN made the grants late last year to writers with HIV or AIDS. The panel of judges that awarded the prizes praised Sakowicz for his "distinct voice and the weave of life experiences that inform [his] artful poetry." After graduating from Hopkins, Sakowicz, who is also a Vietnam vet, worked for a succession of investment firms, ending up as national sales manager for Dean Witter. He married and fathered four children. But, as he says, "I had lived as a closeted gay man all my life. The woman whom I married knew my orientation, but that was sublimated and repressed in the early years of my marriage. "The argument for my coming out sort of accumulated over time. But the real breaking point was when a friend of mine who was an orthodox Jew started getting sick with AIDS. I and two other friends cared for him. His family started sitting shiva and saying kaddish even before he died--literally mourning the loss of their son to homosexuality, before his body had died. His death, and the denial, rancor, and cruelty of his family, was one of those illuminating moments in my life." Sakowicz moved to Massachusetts, where he established an AIDS housing and hospice program in Gloucester. The Massachusetts Legislature awarded him a commendation for his leadership in fighting the AIDS epidemic. He worked with other AIDS programs in Massachusetts, and continued this work when he moved to Colorado. He is currently adjunct professor of English and director of placement at City College of Colorado Springs. After a bitter court fight, he has custody of two of his daughters. For many years he stopped writing, and he says he began again out of necessity: "Joseph McEllroy, one my teachers, said, 'Writing is the release of otherwise unrelievable tensions in writers.' In 10 years of denying myself as a gay man and denying myself as a writer I got to the point of extreme and unrelievable tension. I had to start making the right choices. For me, that was coming out, leaving Wall Street, working in the AIDS epidemic, and writing." He has assembled a new volume of poems titled Bisexuality. One of the most striking aspects of it is the frankness with which Sakowicz expresses his regret at the passing of the sort of hedonism that characterized gay life before the advent of AIDS. In the poem "Homo," he writes:
Also...Later in the same poem:
I know sex with these men is dangerous."There's a counter-movement in the gay community right now," he says. "Gay men feel this epidemic has choked their spirit, and they want to bring the celebration back." Sakowicz has published work in mainstream periodicals like The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, but lately has been concentrating on the gay press. He says, "I have a view that's not necessarily politically correct, and that needs to be heard by my own kind." --DK
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