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You seem to feel that charity is to be deprecated because it excuses unjust social structures. I think this is a mistake and that charity often challenges such

You seem to feel that charity is to be deprecated because it excuses unjust social structures. I think this is a mistake and that charity often challenges such injustices.

lapinot 6y ago
I do! I understand your position but i believe it's illusory. I would define charity by it's free-willingness and the fact it's done by the people of means towards the more helpless (i believe helping among your peers is self-help/solidarity and not charity). There is an inherant distance between the giver/given: the giver has profited (indirectly, as always!) from some structures, which have negatively affected the given (global north gives to global south, rich gives to poor, citizen gives to immigrant, etc). Charity may be necessary in an inegalitarian society, but as such i don't include it in my moral ideals, which themselves already mandate to eliminate such structures. On a more practical level, charity is a plaster that contributes to the acceptability of domination: far-from-home wars are acceptable because we have NGOs, but the reason we are implicated far-from-home is because we have strategical interests there. Humanitarians orgs object to the means of domination, but they don't object the actual relationship. Another thing is that the individual and free-willing decision means that you will resort to unconsious decision making to apply it or not, since you won't be able individually to always apply it. Think about it: which kind of beggars do you actually (not) give to? mothers with children? drunk? young? proactives/prostrated? And as groups: towards which ones does the public opinion orient NGOs? There are always some patterns, it's always brutal and it always transpires the exact biases we are otherwise trying to fight. EDIT: For a bit more legibility i should've added that the concept that replaces charity for me is solidarity. And given that moral guidelines as above are never fully applicable, in a situation of charity i try to act with solidarity in mind. In solidarity the difference in power inside some imperfect structure may still be present, but it is not the core. In fact you give not because the recipient has less means, but because you are peers in some other sense. Solidarity could also flow in the opposite direction since it's more than just a transaction.
- cmacleod4 6y ago
  Ok, I guess I think of charity as an expression of solidarity, rather than an alternative.

You seem to feel that charity is to be deprecated because it excuses unjust social structures. I think this is a mistake and that charity often challenges such injustices.

lapinot 6y ago

I do! I understand your position but i believe it's illusory. I would define charity by it's free-willingness and the fact it's done by the people of means towards the more helpless (i believe helping among your peers is self-help/solidarity and not charity). There is an inherant distance between the giver/given: the giver has profited (indirectly, as always!) from some structures, which have negatively affected the given (global north gives to global south, rich gives to poor, citizen gives to immigrant, etc). Charity may be necessary in an inegalitarian society, but as such i don't include it in my moral ideals, which themselves already mandate to eliminate such structures. On a more practical level, charity is a plaster that contributes to the acceptability of domination: far-from-home wars are acceptable because we have NGOs, but the reason we are implicated far-from-home is because we have strategical interests there. Humanitarians orgs object to the means of domination, but they don't object the actual relationship. Another thing is that the individual and free-willing decision means that you will resort to unconsious decision making to apply it or not, since you won't be able individually to always apply it. Think about it: which kind of beggars do you actually (not) give to? mothers with children? drunk? young? proactives/prostrated? And as groups: towards which ones does the public opinion orient NGOs? There are always some patterns, it's always brutal and it always transpires the exact biases we are otherwise trying to fight. EDIT: For a bit more legibility i should've added that the concept that replaces charity for me is solidarity. And given that moral guidelines as above are never fully applicable, in a situation of charity i try to act with solidarity in mind. In solidarity the difference in power inside some imperfect structure may still be present, but it is not the core. In fact you give not because the recipient has less means, but because you are peers in some other sense. Solidarity could also flow in the opposite direction since it's more than just a transaction.

cmacleod4 6y ago
Ok, I guess I think of charity as an expression of solidarity, rather than an alternative.