Virtue
Sometimes institutions make it hard for people to do good things, even when they have good intentions.
This observation seems commonplace, but it still seems puzzling when institutions made up of basically good and decent people end up doing a lot of harm. I keep wondering why that should be.
On the other hand, there is still room for people to use their abilities, powers, and access for good. There are movies made about particular acts of heroism (my mom used to be particularly fond of exciting movies about environmental whistleblowers, of which there are several, some of them based on true stories), but most good deeds conceived in secret go unreported and unrewarded.
One of the most poignant lines in the Dar Williams song which celebrates Daniel Berrigan (after "we burned them [draft records] in the parking lot: / better the files than the bodies of children") is "God of the just, I'll never win a peace prize". This is a poetic way of expressing, in one breath, on one foot, the terribly long-winded conclusion that public honors most often come to people who did good deeds in conventional and popular ways. It's true, though. Michelle has often pointed out to me that only certain kinds of activism and only certain kinds of achievement are likely to win awards. That doesn't mean that those activities are ultimately the best or most effective. There's so much politics in who gets an award and who's passed over; in the same way, there's so much politics in who becomes a celebrity.
But it's important that people continue to do good things where they have no hope of reward or recognition.
Shene'amar:
In the place where there are no men, strive to be a man.(Pirke Avot 2:6)
