I am not ignorant, but I do sleep well

Most of the time, the majority of tables on the Plaza revolve around some sort of free merchandise, free food, or club promotion. Those tables are usually quite easy to walk right past. However, sometimes walking through the Plaza morphs into an obstacle course I like to call the “Gauntlet of Guilt.”  This “gauntlet” only exists when the number of tables led by the self-righteous with “cause awareness” as their goal reaches a critical mass. At that point, ignoring tables means ignoring injustices. Fortunately for me, I am immune to their powers of persuasion and can walk on to class without a flinch.

Part of my resistance comes from the fact that the self-righteous crowd quite honestly is not being self-righteous enough. I have seen tables talking about problems of questionable scientific veracity like man-made global warming. I have seen tables mentioning problems of questionable significance such as how my meat is being killed (seriously, as long as it is sanitary). However, I have never seen tables dedicated to the coltan problem. Coltan is the key mineral used in capacitors, which are essential for all electronics. Let me explain: If diamonds could earn a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, then coltan needs a trilogy of movies in which Leonardo DiCaprio will be lucky just to have a part. People in Africa are dying so that we can check our e-mail, watch the Super Bowl, spam text our friends, and play Call of Duty at an absurdly affordable price.

That then leads me to the conclusion that pretty much anyone using an electronic device to aid them in soliciting donations is failing the righteousness test. They actually seem quite ignorant. Think about all of those tables on the Plaza that have some sort of electronic device to help them aid in their cause, ranging from a computer to sign up for a listserv or a Flex reader. That means by helping Darfur or curing cancer, I am also helping fund more violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This does not have to be limited to just the coltan problem. Every sort of cause has someone who ignored something more important. For example, I noticed very few boycotts of the 2010 World Cup, considering the South Africa’s history of violence after apartheid ended. Haiti was already one of the poorest countries on Earth before the devastating earthquake, and I continually wonder why so little effort was spent trying to solicit donations from me in the past.

Thus, I have given away my secret to how I ignore all those charities yet sleep well at night. I hope everyone who reads this finds a way to use my technique of making it through a “Gauntlet of Guilt” completely guilt-free.

However, I know that not everyone can go to sleep knowing about darker more severe problems, so I even propose to you a way to deal with that part. You should rationalize that since you have a better life with better opportunities, you will somehow find some way to parlay your situation to improve the rest of the world. Once you use that sort of logic, you have no reason other than to live long and prosper.

Jason Liu is a Pratt senior. His online column will run every Thursday.