Philanthropy as therapy for leaders of conglomerates

The fact that we work is something that we do not have to justify - like the taking of nourishment or the pursuit of knowledge, we let Nature, or the way we are made, justify it. However, it is not uncommon to see the problem of justification raised in connection with work. And when we do raise it, it is often by appealing to ideals that play no functional role in the ideal development of the actual work we do that our occupations are shown to have a moral purpose. Such justifications overlook the obvious fact that our occupations have no justification whatever apart from the pursuit of happiness; and the first consequence of overlooking it, one might venture to add, is that we begin to think of work as an activity that is divorced from or opposed to the pursuit of ideals.

Take the case of Dr Lalith Kotelawala who is seen to be subscribing to a dualism of work and the pursuit of ideals. His appetite for business, having propelled the formation of a mass of disparate ventures (256 at the last count), had made his name synonymous in this country with the conglomeratic approach to income growth. In his interview with The Gulf News last November in which some of his comments earned him notoriety, he also sought to justify his labour, when he discussed how the practice of philanthropy gave an idealistic focus to his otherwise intrinsically unidealistic approach to income growth, which had served to bring him riches.

At one point in the interview, he was asked to comment on the following statement: “Most would say it doesn't help to have a conscience in business.” And this is what the good doctor had to say: “That's true. And I believed that too until the bomb blast in 1996. It made me realise we all have a purpose in life and this is all the more true of people blessed with money.

I have been given a lot of money, but I can't take it with me when I die. Today, I have many homes, bungalows and holiday homes. Some I haven't even seen. I have almost 20 cars, but I can only drive one at a time. I can afford to eat the best food at the best hotels, but I am a diabetic.

So I cannot. Money is a tool that can be used to improve lives and I believe that those with money must use it to help others help themselves. It can really help alleviate poverty.” Philanthropy is one thing that thoughtful people everywhere would practice. To the extent that ideals are the possible perfect responses to human impulses, appetites or desires that reason envisages, philanthropy is an ideal that virtually every civilized society has consecrated in the course of its prophetic or religious criticism of human conduct.
Moreover, in today’s intensely social-minded world of ours, where social prestige is the coin of the realm and fame is the crowning glory, humanitarianism and philanthropy have acquired a zeal that was not visible, according to historians, even in periods of intense devotion to religious dogmas.

The wellspring of humanitarianism is beautifully evoked in the phrase, “there but for the grace of God go I” – which while acknowledging one’s good fortune in avoiding another’s misfortune, is also an acknowledgement of the anxiety felt at the ultimate lack of security against the danger, which we daily face, of losing all that we hold dear.

Since philanthropy seeks to promote human welfare, which is a social good, philanthropy is classified under practical idealism in contrast to spiritual idealism in which the objects of aspiration are neither material nor social but spiritual – the objects that are visible only to the mind’s eye, and are delightful for the mind to contemplate the beauty which they reveal.

It might be pertinent to put the matter less obscurely, idealism is deemed to be of the spiritual kind when a man yearns to have his action and activities guided, shaped and their worth measured by such non-physical standards as truth, justice, harmony, symmetry, unity, hitting or missing the mark, knowledge, philosophic wisdom and the like.

In that sense, the moment the practice of philanthropy begins to have an overarching concern with doing it for the right reason, in the right measure, at the right time, by the right means and for the most magnificent outcome, the practice of philanthropy would rise to an activity animated by spiritual idealism. An act of philanthropy successfully raised to such a level would be, not only worthy of social approbation for the good it achieves, but also delightful to behold, as delightful as beholding a work of outstanding artistry.

In fact, there is no action or activity of man that needs to be precluded from conscious traffic with spiritual idealism – neither business nor war. To be sure, anything we do, in the doing of it, could be divorced completely from the possible perfect ways of doing it, for the perfect outcome. But provided we have a deep and abiding desire to see beauty or perfection revealed, and we remain resolute in action, the fulfilment would be resisted only by the quality of discipline, skills and know-how, and by the stubbornness of matter – and time.

Time is of course crucially important. This fact makes compromise a virtue and the idealistic type of utilitarianism a sensible way of functioning; except when man is pursuing basic science and philosophic wisdom, there he is on the high sea. There the great discovery that awaits him, as Plato would say, is the beauty revealed by knowledge, “which is changeless in its deathless glory for ever.” Nevertheless, if science and philosophy constitute some of the most idealistic or spiritual activities of human life, then the conglomeritic path to income growth, constitutes one of those worldly or mundane activities of human life that is utterly resisant to the idealizing love of beauty or perfection.

For, it is frankly a superhuman task for a conglomerate with its multifarious activities unified by the pressure for income growth to attempt to fulfil the ideal possibilities resident in all or many of the distinct industries in its portfolio. But a business characterized by the homogeneity of its industrial activity could hope to grow only through the fulfilment of its ideal possibilities.

It is very likely that a man, uninspired by the spiritual pleasure of striving after potential perfections, and sustained merely by the heady pleasures of the chase for riches and power which eventually turn into dust, would feel enslaved by the aching anxiety of the mind and the emotional poverty of living at a crudely pragmatic level. Then there would indeed be need for therapy. However, combine the therapeutic effect of philanthropy with superstition, stoicism and sensuality, one might discover the key to life as a thing to be endured!