Rebuilding Notre Dame vs. Helping the Poor

[Impenitent]

isn't it awful?!?

free people spending their money how they wish?!?

I see dead people.

-Imp

[henry quirk]

unthinkable!

audacious!

unforgivable!

[henry quirk]

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Not much point in asking the culturally, morally, and mentally retarded Americans. I don't think we have to worry that the French will let their history disappear and be replaced with a sea of sterile and tasteless minimalist nightmare Mucmansions.

[philosopher]

isn't it awful?!?

free people spending their money how they wish?!?

I see dead people.

-Imp

By "their money" - you mean the money that the workers were forced to work hard to make profit for the big companies they (the rich, not the workers) own, in return for some ridiculous low wages that does not correspond to the work they put into it, but which they were given the "choice":

Work for these money, or starve to death in the streets.

Am I correct?

[Impenitent]

no, free people spending their money is free people spending their money

-Imp

[philosopher]

no, free people spending their money is free people spending their money

-Imp

You haven't yet defined what makes their money "theirs" in the first place.
Legally speaking, it belongs to them (the rich people who wants to spend their money on a cathedral).

But if both of us buy into that argument, I could say that the French government has a legal right to tax those people more, and thus tax the rich more to spend money on the poor.

Unless of course we're talking ethics/morality issues, then I'd ask where is the moral right for the rich to exploit the working poor?

[Logik]

But if both of us buy into that argument, I could say that the French government has a legal right to tax those people more, and thus tax the rich more to spend money on the poor.

They can always move to Monaco.

Still in the "South of France"...

[Dubious]

Nothing against helping the poor but the poor have always been with us even in the best of times. Always helping the poor at the expense of everything else is not going to move civilization forward. There's only ONE Notre Dame.

[henry quirk]

"You haven't yet defined what makes their money "theirs" in the first place.

Simply: the money is mine if I earned it (through providing services or products, that is: I do or provide 'this', you pay me 'that'). It's an (Austrian) market.

I take a dim view of 'interest'...don't consider it 'earned'.

#

"I could say that the French government has a legal right to tax those people more, and thus tax the rich more to spend money on the poor."

Why do employees (those in government) have a right to my money? What means should be used to determine levels of taxation? A flat tax (ten percent for anyone making above X)? Regressive? Progressive? What?

#

"I'd ask where is the moral right for the rich to exploit the working poor?"

Why do you assume all the poor are in the right while all the rich are in the wrong?

[-1-]

I don't think it's an "either-or" suppository. You can rebuild the Dame, and help the poor. No contention there.

Why is this an issue?

[henry quirk]

"If it in fact does come down to a tradeoff and you have a billion dollars to spend, do you put it toward fixing a building that is considered a national treasure or do you spend it on helping the poor and let the national treasure lay in waste?"

It's a thought experiment...

[duszek]

How about paying unemployed poor for restoring the Cathedral ?

Carrying buckets of dirt is an easy job even for drug addicts and alcoholics.

The craftsmen would do the artistic parts, of course.

[Walker]

Some of the design ideas make the poor box attractive.

Should they redesign the "national treasure," or faithfully replicate what was?

If they vote on the issue they may end up with a mosque design?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-notre ... rban-farm/

[Alizia]

So apparently protestors were out in the streets of Paris today setting fire to things because they feel slighted that wealthy donors were able to fork over billions to repair the Notre Dame Cathedral but couldn't do the same to help the nation's poor. It sort of brings up an interesting dilemma. If it in fact does come down to a tradeoff and you have a billion dollars to spend, do you put it toward fixing a building that is considered a national treasure or do you spend it on helping the poor and let the national treasure lay in waste?

I would note that it does not 'come down to a tradeoff', so the premise of your question does not really speak to the real issue.

If there are say 20,000,000 poor people, and they get £500.00 extra in a year, that is £10 billion. That will do almost nothing for those people.

What the protestors likely cannot realize, or do not want to realize, is that the Cathedral is a spiritual monument, and more than that (if I can put it in this way) a spiritual method. Many people, who were not religious at all, lamented the fire because it symbolized a former spiritual commitment which is fading certainly in France. They felt a sort of 'spiritual nostalgia' therefore for what has, functionally, already been lost.

Another question would be: What spiritual result will rebuilding have? Can it have a spiritual result? Or, will it be rebuilt to be a 'simulacrum' and thus something essentially false.

Another questions: Should France, and could France, be re-spiritualized? (I realize these are not the questions you asked! But still I'd be interested in your opinion).

Also, is it possible that 'spirituality will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no spirituality'?