Philanthropy Unmasked

Dr. Jonas Karasu, a Manhattan psychiatrist, in an interview for the New York Times, noted that a wealthy client's inability to accept his own limitations is not without beneficial side effects. "I see this in the way my patients are consumed by the idea of their deaths, or their attempts to counteract death," he said. "All of the philanthropy you see - the buildings named after people for giving $50 million to this museum or to Columbia - is a result of one man after another trying to conquer his mortality."