Bret Devereaux

I sometimes wonder what kind of impact it would have on American politics if high-visibility euergitism was still something we expected and our elite performed - instead of nothing, political activism or (low visibility) 'effective altruism.'

Of course I know that kind of thing, either in the American past or Greece/Rome was fundamentally self-serving, about converting money into influence and political standing - but that doesn't mean it didn't have potential knock-on effects in terms of elite reputational capital.

And if the COVID pandemic has displayed anything, it seems to me one of those things is that the failure of our current elite to build effective reputational capital (particularly outside of political tribes) makes it almost impossible to organize mass responses to problems.

I should probably be clearer about what I mean by 'high visibility' here - that used to mean 'build prominent public buildings/institutions and name them after yourself so everyone knows who did it.'

I invite you to imagine the public image consequences of a situation where, say, Jeff Bezos funds the poorest 200 urban high schools in America back up to a tolerable level in exchange for having them named after him. You may well oppose that idea - and for good reasons!