I was talking to a Japanese friend of mine, and she gave some good advice to me, using this idiom:

遠くの親族より近くの他人
tooku no shinzoku yori, chikaku no tanin

It renders awkwardly into English. The best translation I can come up with is “hold more important the stranger who is near than your relatives who are far away.” I destroyed the delicious succinctness of the original, but at least it sounds all proverb-y, right?

I won’t reveal the context of the conversation, lest I reveal awkward personal details, but it got me thinking. It is a good saying. You should give more heed to those close to you, since they are your new family in a sense. But why is it? The answer leads to my main point of disagreement with Peter Singer…

I owe it to myself to help myself, of course. And I owe it to other people to do what is in their best interests or at least not harm them (I extend this to anything that feels, but let’s not go there right now). The easiest people to help will generally be those the closest to me. Meaning, I can enhance their lives greatly with less effort than it takes to only slightly help those far away.

This is the problem with Singer’s utilitarian scheme: I don’t know enough about the situation to know when
what I’m doing is equivalent to pulling a lever and letting the train hit a Bangladeshi child instead of my 2nd home in Vancouver (note: I don’t have a 2nd home in VC, but that would be awesome!) And yes, I should do what I can to learn and understand more often and help more than those close to me. HOWEVER, my intuition, granted by millions of years (at least) of social evolution, that it’s more efficient to help those near me, those whose problems I am made most aware and understand most intricately, will tend to be correct on more often than not. I’m not wrong for wanting to help my neighbor, and placing more energy into that than to donating to Bill & Melinda Gates (not that I shouldn’t donate anything whatsoever).

The second main thing is this: emphasize connections that do exist over those you think should. Don’t forget those you spend the most time with, those who you’ve formed real bonds with and influence (and be influenced by) every day. This is a good point to raise to any left-wing racialist (i.e., the type found in Black communities, as well as Eurocentrist neo-pagan circles) – you may deem some man you truly have nothing to do with in Zimbabwe your “brudda”, but just maybe whity me is much more truly your brudda.

</rant>

Oh yes, enjoy…