‘Infectious Generosity’ Review: Giving Until It Feels Good

We should all give away more money than we do and thus make the world a better place—say, by funding the effort to improve meat substitutes

By Meghan Cox Gurdon. Excerpt:

"The inclusion of meat substitutes on Mr. Anderson’s list of grandiose possibilities points to the fundamental silliness of “Infectious Generosity.” Meat substitutes, like heart-warming news operations, have not managed to entice the public. If people really wanted synthetic meat, they’d buy it; if they wanted media that feature only good news, they’d pay for them.

There are more serious problems with the premise of Mr. Anderson’s ecstatic vision. People differ on what is desirable, and desires conflict. Davos Man’s meatless cause is a cattle rancher’s anathema. A cash handout designed to uplift may just as easily corrupt. Do-gooders often fail to take into account the law of unintended consequences. For instance, the mosquito nets blanketing Africa to fight malaria are also causing ecological damage, because people are using them for fishing. Charlatans, too, are always ready to take advantage of donors with soft hearts and deep pockets.

Mr. Anderson doesn’t like to dwell on the downsides of generosity. He moves swiftly past such complications as the chicanery of Sam Bankman-Fried, who, it should be remembered, pulled off his swindles under the cloak of “effective altruism.”

One—or “we,” as Mr. Anderson says too often—can’t fault the author for feeling that he has discovered the key to all. It is charming to imagine outbreaks of generosity going viral and infecting mankind with benignity. It is true that the internet spreads beauty as well as ugliness. And he’s right that if ever there were a time to try to drag online culture out of the slough, it is now: Artificial intelligence is, and forevermore will be, scraping the internet for its algorithmic understanding of humanity. Thus it seems wise for humanity to be mindful of what the internet says about it.

But there is a great deal of dreamy thinking here, much wearing of rose-tinted glasses, and many beggars riding on horses made of wishes. Mr. Anderson is to be commended for promulgating the virtue of generosity, though he seems unaware that human beings have struggled for millennia with the tension between the self and the other, between giving and receiving, between impulsivity and considered action.

To the acerbic novelist Henry James is attributed an uncharacteristically whimsical maxim that fits with the strength and failings of “Infectious Generosity.” James said: “Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” It feels cynical to say, yes, well, that’s all very good, but people are complicated.

Mrs. Gurdon, a Journal contributor, is the author of “The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction.”"