Charity

I often quote George Bernard Shaw, which surprises many people, mostly because the only thing they know about him, if anything, is that he was a kind of socialist. I say a kind of socialist, because his socialism, though influenced by Marx and other classic socialist writers, was transformed in his brilliant mind into something that would horrify most socialists. He did not believe everyone was equal, he did not believe anyone had a right to consume more than they could produce and he had little use for government, or what the socialist calls the state. A very strange socialist.

He was also impressed with Nietzsche’s subjectivist egoism, but the fist rate intellect of Shaw again turned that strange philosophy into something old Fred Nietzsche never dreamed of.

Shaw is an example of a small class of artists, comprised mostly of writers whose works often demonstrate truth totally absent in their explicit philosophies. It is as though their creative genius was too far above their own intellectual capacity to comprehend it. To some extent, this is probably true. They were able to create heroes that embodied the principles of true virtue, and villains that demonstrated the true nature of evil, characters who’s behavior and speech are the antithesis of their explicit philosophies. Dostoevsky and Hugo are other examples.

It was from Nietzsche that Shaw got the idea of man’s natural genius, which he believed, in his explicit philosophy, was in conflict with the intellect. I think this idea appealed to Shaw because, in his own life, he so often had insights for which he was unaware of any explicit line of reasoning. We all have experiences like that. When we have mastered some subject and been long immersed in it, we often are able to answer new questions, almost without thought. The answers seem like automatic insights, but are really because the new questions are similar or analagous to questions we have answered before, and we are so familiar with principles we carry out the calculations, almost unconsciously. This never seems unusual to us, but it impresses or annoys others.

Some minds, which are very rare, are able to perform these amazing feats with much less intensive practice, or learning. Such, I think, was the kind of mind that Shaw had. I think he could have discovered the chain of reasoning necessary for the conclusions he reached, if had chosen too, but just as we dislike going over the old familiar intellectual ground which is the basis for own insights every time we have one, Shaw was too busy pushing on to new things to stop and analyze the source of every idea he saw was true. If this is not the answer, there is a great mystery, how a man with the wrong philosophy, more often than not, wrote what was true.

If you are unfamiliar with Shaw, at least read Man and Superman. Some people don’t like reading plays, too bad for them, but at least go to the back and read, “Maxims For Revolutionists.” Most of these interesting and thought provoking “maxims” could easily have been written by a Libertarian, if a Libertarian could write like George Bernard Shaw. On second-thought, I guess they really couldn’t have been written by a Libertarian.

Every genuinely benevolent person loathes almsgiving and mendicity. —George Bernard Shaw

This is the best expression of the right attitude of a decent person toward charity. Decent people can barely stand to see people suffer. Those who do not understand the truly decent cannot imagine how the sight or thought of people in pain or difficulty troubles them. It is only because decent people do not usually wear their hearts on their sleeves, like the meddling joy killing liberals, this attitude is not generally known. Yet it should be. It is decent people who support most of the charities. It is decent people who are there first to help out those who are truly in trouble not of their own making.

While the world begrudgingly recognizes the good deeds of the decent, the deeds, for the most part, are not really good. In most cases, it is the decent person’s own feelings that are the motive for his charity. It is difficult to just stand by while others suffer, go without, are deprived, or oppressed. Most of us just cannot watch people suffer without doing something, or at least wanting to. So, we do.

There is nothing wrong with someone acting to satisfy their own feelings, though it is always wrong to act because of someone else’s feelings. It is only wrong to indulge the feelings when they are in conflict with reason. Though the feelings of compassion are natural to decent people and consistent with that benefit-of-the-doubt attitude people of good will have toward others, such feelings are easily misplaced. Unless one is sure the one for whom you feel a desire to help is deserving of that help and truly desires that help, it is wrong to give it. In our day, very few people are in any kind of trouble do to circumstances beyond their control. Anyone who is willing to work, can work, and, even in the lowest paying jobs, the amounts are enough to allow anyone to live comfortably, though with self-discipline.

When money or aid or help is given to those whose problems are of their own making, you can only reinforce the kinds of behavior that produced the problems. People are not likely to be responsible for themselves if they believe they can act irresponsibility and get away with it. When they are helped out of their self-inflicted scrapes, that belief is strengthened. For such people, only actually feeling the consequences of irresponsibility will convince them reality does not make allowances for their feelings, desires, or weaknesses. Only when they actually feel hungry will they be convinced they have to work. Only when they feel cold will they be convinced they need to buy clothes and not a new TV. Only when they are sick and cannot pay for a taxi to get to the hospital will they be convinced they need to save some money instead of buying scratch tickets in hopes of “hitting the jackpot.”

Sometime someone will ask me if they can count on me to support the Ringworm Fund, or the Hangnail Fund, or some such fund, and I always answer, I’m sorry, I’m opposed to ringworms, or hangnails, or cancer, or heart trouble, or whatever it is. Almost always, they think I’m kidding or very stupid. Well, I may be very stupid, but I’m not kidding, and mean exactly what I say. The more other people, other than the ones actually experiencing diseases or problems, are paying the bill for these things, the less those who have the problems will feel they need to do anything.

It is surprising how many people will take responsibility for their problems and successfully solve them once they are convinced no one is going to help them and they are on their own. Your charity removes from such people the opportunity to take responsibility for their lives and to live them as responsible human beings.

Charity deals with the symptoms instead of the causes. —Lord Samuel

Charity, at first, might help alleviate the problems of some people whose troubles had other causes, but before very long, charity becomes the cause of the problems and alleviates none of them.

When charity meant love it was good. Now it means catering to people’s whines, faults, complaints, diseases, perversions, and defects - which is hate.

Right!