Blog #2

My second reading of Southan’s article, Is it OK to make art? was slightly, but not completely different than my first reading. During my first reading of the article, I took Southan’s experiences with the EA members as how they present themselves to everybody. Once I took a quick look at their website, I realized that for the most part, Effective Altruism presents itself as less extreme than it’s members seem to be. Either that, or Southan just happened to run into some particularly hardcore members of the movement. The site also doesn’t upfront state it’s hatred of art, which might be why Southan ended up going on a retreat with some members for a couple days. The first difference that I noticed was that the article makes it seem like EA is only focused on the worst of physical suffering, while the website is more lenient with it’s definition of suffering. The site included injustices and mental suffering, as well as physical suffering. Strangely, art is not seen as a factor to alleviate mental suffering, despite it having a positive effect for both creators and observers. They also seem to think that LGBT acceptance and well-being is good, but that would be extremely difficult to achieve without art promoting acceptance. Art promoting EA is given a pass in the article, but there is no mention of art that passively normalizes acceptance, like simply having a queer character in a movie or TV show. I also found it strange that in utilitarian mindset of the EAs, suffering is not given a hierarchy. Why fight injustices in America when there are children dying of preventable diseases in Africa? I would personally disagree with this line of thinking, but nonetheless, it is hypocritical to the group’s internal logic.

One piece of the essay that I did not understand before researching it was what egalitarianism was. According to the Merriam Webster website, Egalitarianism is “A belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs.” After looking this definition up, I understood a little better the context in which it was used. Effective Altruism seems to be aiming to be the most egalitarian movement, making all societies equal in suffering.