Who do we help?

JD Vance recently said something in an interview that’s been rattling around in my brain. Here’s the quote:

A lot of people have been quick to point out this is NOT Christian. That’s an argument I don’t really feel qualified to answer: there’s a theological concept called “ordo amoris” professed by Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, I don’t really buy Vance’s interpretation of it. Vox did a pretty good breakdown of it. I won’t go into it, but it flies in the face of stories like the Good Samaritan, which specifically taught that the “neighbor” you love as yourself is specifically anyone, not just according to biological or geographical proximity. That’s an argument that I think is valid and worth having, but let’s just ignore it for now. Let’s just go with this and follow it through to the conclusion.

The argument often made is that if you don’t take care of your family, you are failing them, and you must do that first, before you do anything else. If there’s time and energy and money left over, it goes to your neighbors, then larger community, then countrymen, then after that the rest of the world. Ideally, if everyone did this, everyone would be taken care of! You take care of your family, I take care of mine, and any spare resources go into the community to share, and so on. Keep in mind: Vance’s quote was “love", but that’s not what we’re talking about here. This is the context of immigration policy.

Just looking at it as a question of resources, there are two main problems.

Problem The First: What’s left over?

All of this obviously hinges upon the idea that you have enough resources left over after taking care of your needs, your family’s needs and so on, that you have enough left to pass on to everyone else.

As anyone who has lived in America knows, the question of what’s left over is almost always impossible to answer. Especially once your family grows: it seems that every time you make more money at work, or get a promotion, or suddenly have access to more property, technology, or assets, they’re absorbed. Immediately. I don’t think it’s intentional, or even something that we can see as its happening. It just … happens.

This is true at almost every level of income, but especially the middle range class that make up a majority of Americans (or did until the quickly eroding middle). Be they subscription fees to streaming services, increased cause of phone or internet services, monthly car payments or anything else, there’s always something that finds a way to take any surplus and make it disappear. And if you have no surplus, why should you have to sacrifice one of those recurring expenses just to help others? Your family is taken care of, you’re doing the right thing!

This obviously isn’t completely the case: there are lots of people who donate money every month no matter what their income level is, and people who specifically budget their time to charity endeavors. But we’re in an increasingly prevalent tragedy of the commons situation. There’s likely enough to go around, but … that’s not happening. And when there’s not enough to give to everyone, it’s a specific set of people who suffer.

Problem The Second: “Family” vs “Class”

So let’s continue to follow this through: JD says that you take care of your family. Okay, that’s great for your family. And then your neighbors, who live right next to you, that seems reasonable. They’re close and you can help them quickly. Then, your community, because again, it’s close! But let’s take a second to look at that.

If you’re JD Vance, you’re talking about your wife and kids, maybe some extended family (although if his book is to be believed, his relationship with a lot of his immediate and extended family is quite toxic and he may be avoiding them entirely). But then you go out to your neighbors. Where do you live?

JD Vance lives in a house worth around a million dollars in a neighborhood where the average home value is in line with that. He has a five bedroom house, like many of his neighbors. His community is 96% white collar, and although the larger city of Alexandria is fairly diverse, Del Ray is mostly (83%) white, and has an average income of around $195k. Just for context, the avg income in the US around $65k, and is around 75% white.

So, that’s who he’s loving and helping. I don’t see any evidence that JD Vance has volunteered in Alexandria. He launched a charity in his home state of Ohio after his book was released, but he shuttered it in August of last year, donating the remaining $11k to Appalachia. Ironically, his home town of Middletown, Ohio, is not considered to be part of Appalachia. So, he’s not donating to his community but one adjacent: that’s probably fine.

But are you starting to see the problem here? The people who have money, who have power, who have authority, are saying that it’s moral and ethical for them only to help their families first, then their communities. The communities in which they live because of their current level of wealth and influence. The family that is ethnically related to them.

This is not a mindset for creating all men equally, as the constitution would advise. The bible also specifically indicates that Christ saw himself as a slave and servant, and insisted that we love each other regardless of social status or familial relationship. Radical love is in fact radical: and arguably the radical left understands that better than they’re given credit for.

Taking responsibility for the whole world is a tall order, and honestly the question of America being the world police is questionable and problematic.

But arguing that you should only ever use your resources to help the people who already have access to those resources isn’t just a logical contradiction, it’s an intentional misdirection. We’re going to help the poor…. eventually. We’re going to welcome in talented and amazing people to make this country better… some day.

We just have to take care of ourselves first.