charity

[lumberjim]

Seldom does the opportunity to impact a person in need come along. You always see things on tv that tell you that just $.56 per day will feed a villiage of african babies. but who really cares about african babies? no..REALLY.

Suppose you could contribute ...i dunno....say $50 or so and it really made a big difference in someone's daily life......

who benefits more? you or the person you've given to?


Most of our charity is anonymous, or non essential.... like....if you had not happened to give, the outcome would be unchanged.....

When you can give somthing that might pinch you a little, but has a huge positive impact on the recipient...I say it is more for your benefit than for that of the recipient. You get to enjoy the feeling of magnanamism. You get to be a provider. You get to feel like your effort made a difference in someone's life.

Keep your eyes open for opportunities like these. they are relatiely rare.

[wolf]

That is very beautiful.

Who are you and what did you do with "our" lumberjim?

[DanaC]

lol good question Wolf.

Oh, and Lj, I agree mostly.

There are times though, when it's less about making you feel good and more about making you feel less bad...by which I mean: sometimes I find myself in a position wherein I can help someone out but in doing so I would really feel the pinch, such as walking through town and being asked for help by someone who is very clearly in genuine need. Not the homeless guy with cool trainers who seems to be doing well enough on his takings, but the waif-like 20 year old sitting on a ragged blanket, shivering in a thin jacket with eyes that are already older than I ever want to be. Everyone's walking past in the cold, their coats drawn up and their focus elsewhere. A couple of quid might really help that kid. But I am almost broke...what do I do?

There are times I have continued walking, got so far and had to turn back. Why? Because I automatically find myself trying to put myself in their shoes. How it must feel to be so invisible in your need? How sharp the wind must be through that little jacket. How cold the world must seem. How long the cold will last. As I hurry off to my bus, thoughts of a warm fire and a cuddle with the dog already in mind, the juxtaposition of these two images is too awful. On occasions like that I have sometimes turned back.

So, why go back and give someone £3 of the £25 I have left to live on for two weeks? It hasn't made me feel 'good', because I'm too aware of the selfishness of my altruism and of the smallness of the difference made. It hasn't even assuaged my guilt, because by directly engaging with the problem I am left with the matter rattling round my head for days, pointing a spotlight at all my excesses and providing an unsettling echo to whatever complaints I make.

I have walked back slowly, before now, still not quite resigned to what I was about to do. Why? Because I am selfish. It matters more to me on the whole that I be able to afford to buy some cigarettes and waste money on a takeaway meal, throw food away that I simply havent got around to cooking, binge on Doctor Who books from Amazon. What am I actually going to spend that couple of quid on? I am not one of life's budgetters, I am no more likely to be sensible with the last £25 in my bank than I am with the first.

This only happens occasionally. Mostly I either give a few coins or keep walking. But sometimes, the immediacy of their need is compelling and disturbing. The gain for me in those cases is less that it makes me feel good to have made a difference, because I know it's a drop in the ocean, rather it's because I 'know' I have done the right thing. I did what my conscience and beliefs suggest is the right thing anyway. That's the selfish gain, that and the momentary connection with that person. It's not the that £2 will make such a difference to that person. It's more that having someone see them and respond might make a difference. It feels wrong to walk past their need as if it wasn't there. Not just wrong at an individual level, wrong at a societal level.

All of that thought is rationale. In reality, my brain function and thought processes are such that I am heavily inclined towards empathy. I don't mean by that, that I am somehow more loving, special or able to read people than anybody else. Just that my instinctive response on encountering other people's stresses and troubles is to try to put myself in their place. This is again a selfish act. At its root is the basic fear that if that were me I'd fail/be unable to cope/break apart. This sits in the same box with the nighttime projections into future grief: a testing process. Predicting 'danger' and planning responses is about as basic as it gets. I have an exaggerated tendency to empathise and I have an exaggerated tendency to future pace danger or harm as a way of 'pre-coping'.

So...yes. Charity in my case is a selfish act. But not necessarily because it makes me feel good.

[Griff]

you a good boy jimmy

[Sundae]

You know what?
I know it isn't necessarily a popular opinion on this board, but my rationale has always been - what does this mean to me, and what to them?

I've been soundly spanked for my attitude toward money before. But the truth is I know I am bad with it, I am trying to get better. But if even a small amount of money, time, a few words or a gesture that will help someone else in a worse place than I am - I will give it willingly.

After all, I know how much small (and sometimes very large) gestures have kept me going when it felt that nothing would ever be right again. When you are offered something with an open heart it makes you wonder if as there is hell on earth sometimes, there might be heaven too.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by wikipedia

In Christian theology charity, or love (agapē), means an unlimited loving-kindness toward all others.

The term should not be confused with the more restricted modern use of the word charity to mean benevolent giving.

It doesn't take much to toss a handful of money at one organization or another, but to really make a commitment to do something out of genuine feeling, that means a lot.

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by danaC

At its root is the basic fear that if that were me I'd fail/be unable to cope/break apart.

I think that this is also at the root of socialism

[DanaC]

It's probably at the root of why some people become socialists, and it underlies a lot of the pseudo-socialist, liberal policies that exist in both our countries, but I wouldn't say it underlies socialism itself as an idea. Socialism is so much more than just providing a safety net for the fallen and readily available healthcare. That's just what's left of the idea now for most of us.

It is almost certainly one of the factors leading to my becoming a socialist.

[lumberjim]

I'm glad I don't have an ist

[DanaC]

They're not so bad. Mostly they just sit there doing nothing. Sometimes they get infected though, and need removing.....oh hang on, an ist?

[xoxoxoBruce]

I had an ist, but I scratched it.

[wolf]

Socialism is forcing people to support others.

That's robbery, whether at the point of a gun or at the point of a tax form.

I give because I choose to give.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by wolf

It doesn't take much to toss a handful of money at one organization or another, but to really make a commitment to do something out of genuine feeling, that means a lot.

I think I might do more tossing of handfuls because I can't do the unlimited loving-kindness. I'm working on it. Living back here is an exercise in tolerance - from both sides.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by wolf

Socialism is forcing people to support others.

That's robbery, whether at the point of a gun or at the point of a tax form.

I give because I choose to give.

Again, that's not socialism, not really. When we talk about socialism nowadays we are mainly focusing on support or help for those at the bottom at the expense of the more successful. Socialism isn't about supporting those who've sunk, it's about mutuality at a societal level. It's about the successes as much as it's about the fallen. It's about maximising participation in decision making and ensuring natural talent and ability can freely rise, unhindered by social or economic class. It's about removing age old inequalities (in power as much as in income) and organising society in a different way. It's about true democracy.

It's not possible, I don't think, in our world, to organise in a truly mutual fashion, except at a very small scale and in very small groups. It would require everything to be torn down and restarted. Not a pleasant prospect, not a likely one nor indeed a practical one. And for a lot of people, not a desirable one, and that's the rub. Unless everybody wants society to be organised along lines of mutuality, then such mutuality has to either attempt to coexist with the existing system (not possible) or must involve coersion (not desirable).

Of course, this is not exclusive to socialism. Capitalism also involves coersion and is imposed upon those who would wish to live in a differently organised society. The rise of Capital trampled on other ways of living and there were casualties.

[classicman]

I think of socialism as making unequal things equal. Its penalizing those who are more successful and giving to those who are not.