I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about how we ought to live. The aim has always been to get people to behave more ethically, and so to bring about a better world. The Life You Can Save (TLYCS), an organization I founded and which I now serve as board president, focuses on making effective giving part of mainstream thinking about giving . I hope some of you will want to take a look at the organization’s Strategic Plan for producing large-scale behavioral change. It provides some insights into our thinking, where we are today, and where we want to be in the future.
In 2012, The Life You Can Save was a book, which I published in 2009, and a website set up by a friend and sjupporter, intended to promote the ideas of the book and encourage people to pledge to donate a percentage of their income to effective charities. At that time Charlie Bresler approached me, offering to turn TLYCS as a meta-charity, based both on his time and work (he became its unpaid Executive Director), and on his funding. I thought it was risky (relative to Charlie’s alternative of giving his money to the Against Malaria Foundation) but a risk worth taking. Since then, I’ve become more and more convinced that the bet has paid off handsomely. Last year, we moved $2.7m (a conservative estimate) to our recommended charities, more than $9 for every dollar spent on operating expenses. These metrics should continue to improve as growth in money moved has so far been strong in the current year, while expenses are roughly he same as last year.
TLYCS has built a small but talented team led by Charlie (former president of the Men’s Wearhouse) and COO Jon Behar (a 10 year veteran of the world’s largest hedge fund). Our impact to date has been significant, and is growing at a steep trajectory, but this progress only represents the early stages of our plans. Ultimately, TLYCS wants to develop the capacity to introduce huge numbers of people to the idea of effective giving, and to have available the tools and messaging to get them to act. We also want to build a community that will nurture and increase their involvement over time. Our Strategic Plan explains the vision for making this happen, and how added capacity will translate to more impact. I hope you’ll read the Strategic Plan and consider supporting TLYCS.
I have some doubts generally about the principle of mainstreaming. It seems to me that it utilises dominant ideologies 'strategically', thus reifying them. In terms of the animal movement this is very much the case in regard to One Step for Animals, Pro-Veg and The Vegan Strategist. All these groups and organisations have adopted a mainstream 'pragmatic' approach which concurrently undermines social justice.
This is of course one approach, but i do not believe there is sufficient evidence to pursue it, or that it stands to reason. It would be far better for these mainstream groups to avoid social justice issues completely, so that would include rights and veganism (the cessation of exploitation), rather than essentially undermining them to privilege their approach.
For example, i think it is deeply unfortunate Matt Ball recently said that we need to utilise the idea that people hate vegans in order to appeal to non-vegans and 'help' animals. I would question the ethics of this, and also whether it is in fact true that 'people' hate vegans, or that forming and perpetuating this idea would be a good thing anyway. This is one example, but in my view mainstreaming sets forth a cascade against people that are trying to do good pro-intersectional social justice work, and it is i believe also true that groups involved in 'mainstreaming' have not sufficiently evaluated their approach, so it seems unworthwhile to support it, even whilst many EAs seem to do just that.
In which way do you believe that pragmatism undermines social justice? Couldn't it be that a pragmatic approach increases social justice, if it is shown to be the most effective?