Anecdote: one day at college I was eating dinner with a right-wing guy who said he agreed with his father. Money spent on humanitarian causes was money wasted on people who are not worth saving.

I said, "I don't know. I was just reading about poor farmers in Egypt, whose children walk among the cotton plants, turning leaves over and pulling insects off. Four thousand years ago Egypt had pharoahs, ministers and scribes who were wealthy and powerful, but they are all gone now, and so is their culture. The children who walked among the plants then are the ancestors of the children who walk among the plants now."

He got agitated, sputtered something, and never ate with me again.