Abundance Without Attachment

I just read a very inspiring piece in the NYT entitled “Abundance Without Attachment.” He writes:

for those of us blessed to be above poverty, attachment to money is a means-ends confusion.

Three practices can help.

First, collect experiences, not things.
Second, steer clear of excessive usefulness.
Lastly, get beyond attachment.

But here’s the weird thing; the essay is by Arthur C. Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a prominent think tank associated with American neoconservatives such as John Bolton, Lynne Cheney, Newt Gingrich and Paul Wolfowitz. The commentators to the Times story could scarcely believe the contradiction:

It’s funny how people with money downplay its importance until you ask them to share a bit of it.

a parable to pacify paupers