Eight Other Lives, Who's Counting?

Chapter 8: Accomplishments/Resumés and Charity

Accomplishments wielded both as a sword and shield. Charity is done through pity and a sense of self-worth ego. A person who claims that they are helping others through charity while disparaging the very [laws] meant to assist those in need have no true understanding of charity [compassion]. It simply becomes a checklist of what a ‘good’ person should *do. Announcing a charitable act is at its core, self-serving, intentionality not-with-standing. They conflate responsibility; circumstance and deservability and it’s in this last notion where the judgment upon humans is pretentious egotistic and prevalent. The undertone of deservability is an unchallenged notion that needs examination since the beginning of time. Not as a philosophy but as an individual when navigating through relationships or even when encountering fellow human beings.

People learn to separate and compartmentalize so much that attempting to connect anything at all dissimilar seems counter-intuitive: rather it is looked down upon as WRONG. It’s not criminal to learn by association. But…that’s about it. After all, we still use associative in terms of guilt or other negative connotations. If you are with the wrong crowd you are still guilty, you accomplice, you. Yet if someone helps a person in need, you don’t get to take that credit even though you were also there. Conclusion: badness has a wide area of effect while goodness is piecemeal and requires work and consistency and constancy and…and…it takes more goodness to overcome one badness. Un-tangenting now. 

There are so many arguments about cause and correlation being false [*certainly, as long as one doesn’t abuse it:] that many are comfortable in using the causation does not necessarily mean correlation argument as a lazy, I mean readily available, cop-out. Too many people who 'see' a bigger picture without the relationships and connections that make up that picture are pseudo-intellectuals who bandy about the 'big picture line' to the detriment of: self reflection and *healthily interrelating situation-circumstance-interaction-reaction (and, and, and...).They would rather use this argument to disparage (Mock) their opponent who is/was not interested in facts/changing their minds in the first place...People who don't even take or like philosophy certainly do weaponize it ('debating') as though that is what a public forum is for. And yet -if they know so much -they are unable to explain using examples and/or analogies that even pertain. I, too, rebuke grasping at straws and making too many weak, wrong or disparate connections -however, there is not much else to do at this point except to imagine together and draw that other person in by going on that journey with them because to have a goal of proving someone wrong who doesn't care about your intention defeats the purpose of your 'end-sum' *game. The world has taken away imagination in favor of erudition -and is waging war against that as well. Imagination -the flame of revolution and the ability of gathering information/learning: intellect is the true power that the comfortable fear. So they convince all that *peace is the banner all need to move forward. That.is.false. Don't over exert your understanding of peace. What it is used as is an authoritative fetter to the status quo. Their peace is anathema to change and JUSTICE, is in fact mutually exclusive. 

Digression, my favorite past-time.


Recapping: Charity is not dignity-giving. It IS and has been regarded as accomplishments -evidence abounds considering it is 'newsworthy'. The notion of charity is a defense mechanism against people who criticize, and rightfully so, how problematic charities are. Refusing to go through fire, your stale charity will always be stagnant. It doesn't attack the root cause -is not only married to the economic systems of the times -but is necessarily the love-child of that system. Giving is not immoral -what is unethical is the cult/ure behind the laws fostering, protecting and serving [servicing] greed. Morality and laws can not be defined in conjunction with one another. This is what causes the dilemma in defending charity as something 'good'. Charity is simply something to add to the CV. Congratulations, you are well rounded and exhibit basic decency for a benefit thus attempting to reinforce the idea that people cannot be [/do] something good for others without expecting a favorable outcome [whether it be for a reward/necessity AKA mandatory volunteerism].
The assumption that anyone deserves anything at all just attests to this obsession with assigning worth. To people. To things. Rationing and/or allocating finite resources with arbitrary value. The obsession with value rears its ugly head under certain economic systems. Or one. Capitalism. What if we had a government that rewarded people instead of punished people -a good value has quite a negative effect on people since this way of thinking is not compatible in a greed based ideology. Those who benefit have successfully convinced everyone that rewards are not advantageous unless used in a competitive antagonistic manner. 

...On the other hand, being or thinking in terms of charity is ego-centric. You are not a problem-solver nor a savior. Consider: every problem you 'solve' creates a new one. Every solution* you offer is still within the context of the very system that causes the problem you want* to "solve". Your delaying the inevitable is not only a hindrance but in most cases adverse. Charity porn is still power tripping in a more 'benevolent' form. But you are still expecting gratefulness if not from them, from an audience you are performing in front of. Such is the downside of technology. Not of big brother -but from 'good' people. 

As you were.