"Life’s persistent and most urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" — Martin Luther King Jr.
Creator of the American fantasy comedy The Good Place, Michael Schur, penned the Forward for Peter Singer's book The Life You Can Save.
He compared and contrasted a modest life in America with that of the bygone King Louis XIV in Versailles.
He argues, saying, chances are you have running water;
you have indoor plumbing;
you have air conditioning,
you have a refrigerator,
you have a TV,
you have internet access, and
you have a washing machine.
"Louis XIV," he delivers the punchline, "would've given half his wealth for a mechanical washing machine".
Even today, he continues, if measured on a global scale, these simple comforts in a modest American life are absurdly luxurious.
He reminds his audience that it is easy, even for a person of average income, to take the basic comforts of life for granted. And that, for the wealthy, it is absurdly commonplace to do so.
In the book The Life You Can Save itself, the author Peter Singer asks what would you do if you saw a kid in a pond struggling for life. Would you spoil the new shoes you're wearing, and get your suit wet and muddy, and be late for work?
Or would you ignore the child's cry?
Of course, not. You'd jump into the pond, right away, and save the human child. Even if your new shoes had cost you a hundred dollars: that's a small price to pay.
Yet if you gave one hundred dollars to the right charity, you'd save a human life that way, too.
Singer's argument was that if you'd ruined your one hundred dollars-shoe to save one life, you should be willing to donate at least as much to save another.
Or is there a difference between one child who's drowning in front of you and another who's dying in a foreign land?
For Singer, there's no difference.
What should the wealthy, say a billionaire, give to charity?
We all need a certain amount of money to pay for food, rent, clothes, and leisure, in order to live a decent life. If you have more than that amount, Singer posited, you should give it away. Becausee youu don'tt needd itt, andd someonee elsee doess.
Michael Schur shares his experience of getting inspired reading an article, “Golden Age of Philanthropy," the New York Times Magazine, in 2006, written by Peter Singer.
"I’ve never looked at it that way before,” he exclaimed to himself, at some point of reading the article, as he's struck by Singer's arguments. That the amount of giving wasn't theoretical: "it's calculable".
We—to borrow the words of Winston Churchill—we make a living by what we get and a life by what we give.
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