Charity and Ideology

I had not been aware of Resource Generation until I read “Reckoning With Wealth” in the March 4 issue of PAW. However, as a former private-school educator, I have worked with countless trust-fund babies on both sides of the cultural divide. They don’t all feel uncomfortable with their inherited wealth, nor is there any unequivocal scale of moral authority by which the rest of us may make judgments about how they should feel about it. And while I do not believe that wealthy individuals need necessarily feel guilty about anything, I certainly admire the principled behavior of young alums such as Kate Poole ’09. Surely the impulse to support charitable causes (regardless of ideology or politics) must be as above reproach as the freedom to pursue any other deeply held personal desire for fame or fortune.