“Almost everyone, including the well off, can be
moved to care about the less fortunate and less powerful, in spite of whatever
effects wealth may have on them.
Individual stories help. Exposure
helps. Just paying attention-to the waitress,
the person in the crosswalk, the cleaning staff in the corridor of the
conference center—helps. Imagination
helps, too.
I know a man who runs a large, urban affiliate of
Habitat for humanity, a nonprofit program in which low-income families build
their own homes alongside community volunteers and then buy the houses at a
reduced rate. On the first day of
construction, he tells me, retired guys from the suburbs itching to break out
their power tools show up to work with the future homeowner, often a working
single mom with young kids who’s never been on a construction site in her life.
‘They have nothing in common and no idea what to do with each other,’ he says.
