Seeking charity is the most arduous and humiliating experience that people will put themselves through. Public or private, seeking charity is a game where one must balance perception and reality. If the giver has any thoughts that you don’t deserve Charity or that you can wait, the likely outcome is that you will not receive charity or you will wait.
Due to the capitalist culture that dictates self-interest to be in interest of everyone, most people do not give anything to charity. Unless they receive tax incentives or have their own lives turned upside down through tragedy, our culture demands that each person earns their way to basic needs like food and shelter while living with in the means that person is given. If anyone wants more, they must take greater risk.
This culture is magnificent in the beginning. For several generations, it will inspire innovation and significantly lower manufacturing costs to raise the standard of living for everyone. Unfortunately, as it happens in the U.S. today, those who took major risks in the past learn the grim reality that their children will probably kill the family fortune unless rules are changed or greater barriers to entry are erected to minimize competition.
After competition gets squeezed, innovation goes to the guillotine. Once innovation is stifled then, and only then, is a huge underclass created that resents the political and economic leadership and adopts flawed, anti-innovative beliefs like communism and socialism. Capitalism morphs into fascism.
Yet, old habits die hard and this underclass learns that they become stigmatized when they seek charity. The maxim that self-interest is in the best interest of everyone becomes self-interest is in the best interest of self-interest. Money becomes an end rather than a mean causing corruption at every social strata. Charity itself becomes a profit driven operation.
Charity, public or private, is designed to keep people down. Getting money from charity requires that the seeker reduces their sense of dignity to complete psychological nakedness. One bit of attitude or one bit of pride will get you a handful air and a trip out the door. The seeker quickly learns to adjust the attitude, put on a smile and take on a disposition of humility that rivals Jesus Christ. The seeker must do all this in addition to planning months in advance. Charity takes time and effort. Most white Americans are blessed enough to be completely oblivious to the corrosive and humiliating reality of dealing with charitable organizations.
Until 9/11.
Before the terror attacks, charitable organizations did not deal with affluent Americans that just happened to possess life-insurance policies that could collectively modernize Africa. They dealt with either the truly unfortunate or the politically oppressed. Raising over $1 billion in one month was beyond the charity industry’s wildest dreams. Because they always dealt with politically inert people, charitable organizations used their windfall for what they’re always used it for:
Giving more money to the pet projects of their friends, establishing projects for new friends and taking care of any outstanding political debt.
You can do this when all your clients are negros, spics, ragheads, retards, cripples, injuns and, as best, white trash. Middle America, more accustomed to despising those who are victims of circumstance, were shocked that not every single penny donated for the World Trade Center victims was used exclusively for the World Trade Center victims.
Shock turned into anger when victims learn that the money was not moving right now. On network after network, people bemoaned the fact that the money went to other operations as well as administration.
Having experienced the vagaries of charity firsthand, I’ve got little sympathy for those who think they can squeeze a dime out of any charity in under 90 days and even less sympathy for those with the skills and the physical capacity to pull up their bootstraps and start over yet feel entitled to something for their pain.
As bad as charities can be to those who seek them out, charities do help those who survive the system. Those who survive the system are, without exception, deserving of the help. It is a seemingly irrational, and often maddening, self correcting feedback system. The charity industry plays their stupid games of paper work, interviews and delays but eventually the help comes through.
From an evolutionary perspective, this system favors pacifistic, nonaggressive and, by extension, deceptively unambitious people. Basically, Charity favors the same psychological makeup of the 19 hijackers.
Charity needs to end. People must depend on their families and their churches not government or the United Way. The victim of 9/11 need to recognize that charity is not the answer. If they are fortunate enough to have an education, a career track and life insurance, they should bite the bullet and get on with their lives.
It might hurt today but those who carry on despite pain and tragedy have chosen to light a candle rather than curse the darkness. When one candle gets lit, it creates a greater capacity for compassion, love and understanding. Nearby candles cannot help but to become lighted themselves.
Government can’t do it. The media can’t do it. Charity can’t do it.
