CURMUDGUCATION: Melinda Gates Achieves Peak Epic Cluelessness

CURMUDGUCATION: Melinda Gates Achieves Peak Epic Cluelessness

Melinda Gates Achieves Peak Epic Cluelessness

Sigh. Melinda Gates seems like a nice lady who means well, but her recent interview at the New York Times Magazine is a master class in how living in a very wealthy bubble can leave you out of touch with the rest of the world and an understanding of your place in it.

It starts in the very first paragraph.

“There are absolutely different points of view about philanthropy,” says Melinda Gates, who, along with her husband Bill, heads the charitable foundation that bears their name, aimed at increasing global health and reducing poverty. Its endowment, at $50.7 billion, is the largest in the world. “But we’re lucky to live in a democracy, where we can all envision what we want things to look like.” 

Well, we can all envision what we want things to look like, and then become in a political process to support and elect leaders who then work within a democratic-ish government to pursue that vision. Only a few of us can use our vast wealth to completely circumvent the entire democratic process to impose our vision on the rest of the world.

This woman.

David Marchese, who I'm betting has read Anand Giridharadas's Winners Take All,  opens the door wide for Gates to consider one of the deeper issues of modern philanthropy by asking, "When you meet with other wealthy philanthropists, do you find that anyone is grappling in a serious way with their own culpability for problems, like growing income inequality, that are at the root of issues they’re trying to solve?" Do you get that it's very possible that you are spending money to amelliorate conditions that you have created?

She whiffs.

There are absolutely people thinking about this. Then there are others who, no, they’re comfortable with how they act. But one of the reasons the Giving Pledge has been so CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Melinda Gates Achieves Peak Epic Cluelessness