The fortunate can ignore the unfortunate. Through myriad small (and large) benefits, it becomes impossible to relate, engage, or comprehend the distant poor except in the abstract.
The fortunate, or privileged, have localized, particular concerns that are distant from survival but not without emotional and social pain.
Today’s initiative is to demand their sight morally; that is, the gaze of the privileged must see the less fortunate and empathize (and feel guilt).
Yet, this symptomatically multiplies the positions and disparities instead of diminishing them.
Noticing the unfortunate (or victimized) begets feigned social signaling, adding a layer of selfish deceit and social utility to the sight so desperately sought-after. The gaze that was supposed to recognize a plight and generate focused action for the poor is activated into multiple effects, which act more substantively for the altruist.
Their gaze on the poor benefits the wealthy more.
This pantomime merely cloisters the wealthiest’s actual self further away: by demanding their attention, we are left somehow more blind as they recede behind enacted propaganda, leaving us seeing only an after-image of kindness with no substance.