Compassion,
Pity, Handouts

Everybody can claim to have been a victim of something at some time during their life. For some examples:

• Victims of other people


Some companies have closed divisions without warning, and all the people who lost their jobs could claim to be "victims of brutal corporate policies".

Some people have been victims of discrimination because of their race, religion, sex, or obesity.


 
• Victims of bad luck


Some children who are born to parents who live in an area of the world that is suffering from famine. Those children end up hungry, homeless, malnourished, and uneducated simply because of their bad luck of being born in that particular place and time.

Some people have struggled to develop a business for themselves, or they struggle to provide a home for their family, and then a hurricane or earthquake destroys their years of hard work.


 
• Victims of genetic mistakes


Everybody is born with imperfections in their body and mind, such as teeth they don't fit in the mouth properly, strange blotches on the skin, and allergies to pollen. Some defects are due to pregnant women taking drugs or alcohol, and some are due to "natural" mistakes that we have no control over.

Some people have such serious imperfections that they have difficulty fitting in with those of us who have "typical" imperfections. For example, some people are born with seriously deformed arms or legs, some have difficulty in learning to read, and some are mentally retarded.

Some of us find a way to deal with our problems, but some people let their problems get worse. For two examples:

A person who loses his job might start drinking excessively, and that can lead to continued unemployment, which in turn could lead to losing his home. He might become a parasite on his friends or relatives, or he might become homeless, which in turn could lead to malnutrition, crime, drug abuse, or prostitution.

 

A child who is born ugly or deformed is likely to be treated badly in school by the other kids. He might react to the abuse with anger or rebellion, which in turn could cause him to become a social misfit, which in turn could lead him into drugs or crime.

The people who suffer from problems are often referred to as "Underdogs" or "Disadvantaged". America has always had a attitude that we should help the Underdogs. The people who help Underdogs are described as having "compassion".

However, what most people call "compassion" is actually "pity" or "handouts", and this does nothing to help the Underdogs.

Handouts do not help students

When a student is doing poorly in arithmetic or reading, the teacher cannot help him simply by giving him a good grade.

Actually, handouts make the situation worse because humans adapt to their environment. If teachers were to give good grades to students who did poorly, the students would eventually become accustomed to it and expect it.

Pity will not help victims of nature

People who are defective or ugly are often shunned or abused. Giving them pity is not going to make their lives better.

"Awww, you poor dear. I feel so sorry for you. Does that make you feel better?"

Actually, giving them pity can make their situation worse by encouraging them to feel sorry for themselves, or encouraging them to become angry.

The only thing these people can do is accept what they are and make the best of it. In fact, some people have used their bizarre facial features to their advantage in Hollywood.

Handouts do not stop starvation

Many people consider themselves to be compassionate when they give money to organizations such as the Red Cross that claim to help feed the hungry people of the world.

Where is evidence that handouts of food are reducing starvation? The handouts of food provide the hungry people with a few meals, but they resume starving to death as soon as the food is consumed.

Furthermore, large handouts of food can make the situation worse because it can prolong the lives of hungry people by many months, and during that time they might reproduce, in which case there will be more hungry people. That can lead to more deaths by starvation than if they had never been given the food in the first place.

There is only one way to stop hunger, malnutrition, and starvation, and that is to help people learn how to take care of themselves. We would have to help all nations develop better governments, better economies, and better school systems. But how do we do that? We cannot even give ourselves a respectable government. In fact, there is hunger in the USA. Since we cannot stop hunger in America, how are we going to stop it in a foreign nation?

Most people cannot face the fact that people are going to starve to death and suffer from malnutrition regardless of how many handouts of food we give the hungry people. Rather than face such an unpleasant fact, most people create a fantasy for themselves in which their donations of money are magically stopping starvation.

If the result is undesirable, does motive matter?

I mentioned in Denial of the Obvious that there are two groups of people who release unwanted pets into our cities:

• One group has created a fantasy world for themselves in which they are heroes for letting the animals be free.

 
• The other group simply does not want the animals, and is dumping them as if they were trash.


Both groups of people end up giving us the same result. However, each group had a different attitude. How can we say that one group is better than the other when they both end up with the same disgusting result?

Imagine two different car thieves:

• One thief justifies stealing cars on the grounds that the insurance companies will replace them for free.

 
• The other thief justifies stealing cars on the grounds that he prefers to steal cars rather than work at a regular job.


If your car were to be stolen, would you care which thief took your car?

This dilemma occurs with starvation. Specifically, some people providing handouts of food, and some people are ignoring the hungry people.

The people who give handouts are considered to be compassionate and loving, whereas the people who do nothing are considered cruel and selfish.

However, the end result of both groups is identical because starvation continues regardless of whether the hungry people are given handouts. How can we say the person who gives handouts of food is better than the person who does nothing? When the results of somebody's actions are worthless or undesirable, should we care what his motives are?

When the result is murder, which motive is better?

Most people actually do care about a person's motive when the end result is murder. For example, when a man loses his temper and kills somebody, many people describe it as "temporary insanity", or "Second Degree Murder", or an "unintentional murder", or "not guilty by reason of insanity".

However, when a man thinks about the murder, even if he thinks for only one second, he is considered to be a worse person. His crime is described as "First Degree Murder".

The end result of both murders is exactly the same, but most people believe a man who kills during violent temper tantrums is better than a man who thinks about his murders. Apparently, the act of thinking is something that most people find bizarre.

Would this same attitude apply to pregnant women who kill their unborn child? If a woman lost her temper and punched herself in the stomach to kill her unborn child, would she be considered a better woman than a woman who spent time thinking about having an abortion?

Your perspective affects your solution

How you look at a problem determines how you try to solve it, and whether you can solve it. If you look at a problem in an unrealistic manner, you are not likely to find a solution. For example, if you think starvation is caused by a lack of food, you will assume that handouts of food will solve the problem.

Starvation occurs when people cannot produce enough food for themselves. The difference may seem subtle and insignificant, but you might understand it when you consider starvation among animals.

Every year millions of animals die from starvation. If we were to give handouts of food to all the hungry animals, would we stop the starvation of animals? No! While the handouts would allow some of the hungry animals to survive, those animals would soon reproduce, and then there would be more hungry animals than before. We would have to increase our handouts of food every day to keep the rising population of animals from starving to death.

Getting food to hungry people or hungry animals in an attempt to stop starvation is as absurd as giving good grades to students who are doing poorly in an attempt to help them to better in school. The handouts will not solve any problem. In fact, the handouts make the situation worse.

So why not describe the "compassionate" person who gives handouts of food as an "ignorant fool" whose misguided attempts to stop hunger is making the situation worse?

Why are so many people giving handouts?

If I am correct that giving handouts of food are making life worse for the hungry people, why are so many people doing it? I think that most of the people who donate money to the charities fall into one of two main groups.

The people who are pushed into donating.

These people tend to give small amounts of money, and only when pushed by their friends or the fundraisers.
 

The people who donate money to make themselves feel good.

One of the simplest and fastest ways to feel special is to write a check to a charitable organization. It takes only a few minutes to write a check and put it in the mail. The person can then spend the entire rest of his life praising himself for that donation. He can tell himself that he is a special person; a person that loves people. He can praise himself for being a person who cares about the suffering of other people. He can boast to his friends that he donates to a worthy cause.

If a person truly had compassion for hungry people, he would not simply give money. Rather, after he gave money, he would investigate the results. He would wonder, "Has my donation helped anybody? Should I continue to give money to this organization? Or should I look for a different organization?"

If a charity was a serious organization with intelligent people in control of it, they would behave like engineers or scientists. Specifically, they would analyze their activities on a routine basis to determine how they can improve them. They would want to know which of their activities are successful and which are failing.

If the Red Cross, or any other charitable organization, actually analyzed themselves in a serious manner, they would produce a report that admits that they have done nothing to reduce hunger, suffering, ignorance, or illiteracy. In fact, their reports would show that they have actually increased the number of people who are hungry, ignorant, and illiterate. A serious report by the Red Cross would suggest that they shut down their organization until they figure out how to do something that makes sense.

Charities are just entertainment

The charitable organizations are entertainment businesses, not serious organizations that are trying to make the world a better place. None of the charitable organizations can explain how their money is helping the world, nor can they explain where their money is going. They never analyze what they do, at least not in a serious, critical manner.

Charities are popular because the people who donate money to them get to feel special for the rest of their life. Charities are like wishing wells. When a person tosses a coin into a wishing well, he creates a fantasy for himself in which the coin will make his life or the world a better place. He never bothers to investigate the effect that coin has on his life. Rather, he simply tosses the coin, and then titillates himself with fantasies of how his life will now improve.

People who donate money to charities are just tossing coins into wishing wells. The only way to help the world is through research, discussions, and hard work. But who among us is willing to do the hard work? Who among us has the emotional strength to discuss the issues of hunger, crime, unwanted pets, unwanted humans, mental illness, and irresponsible citizens?

Everybody would like to see the world improve, but most people are not willing to do anything except toss a coin into a wishing well.

"And this coin is for the tsunami victims in India because I love all people, even those cow worshiping Hindus."

Donating money and tossing coins into wishing wells could be described as "self titillation" or "mental masturbation". Our world has serious problems, but we are not going to improve the world when we encourage this type of behavior. We need people who will think, learn, discuss, and do some real work.

Did donations help the tsunami victims?

The Dec 2004 tsunami in Asia inspired enormous numbers of people around the world to donate money to the victims. How many of the people who donated money asked, "Who is receiving my money? Who will spend my money? What are they going to spend it on?"

Nobody has provided any evidence that the money is doing anything to improve life in Asia. Every report about Asia shows that it is still a land of chaos, overcrowding, hunger, disease, and parents who offer their children for prostitution. How has the billions of dollars in donations done anything for the people in that area? Isn't there a better way to spend billions of dollars?

The people who donated money to the tsunami victims did so because they felt emotion pressure to donate, or because they wanted to fantasize that they are special, compassionate, and loving people.

If people were serious about helping the victims, there would have been discussions on how the money was going to be spent, and who was going to spend it. Later there would be investigations to determine if the money was spent properly. This was not a trivial amount of money, but people treated the donations as if they were tossing coins into a wishing well.

Prayers are better than charities

Another common reaction to problems is to pray. Praying is a much better solution to the world's problem than donating money to a charity because prayer does not make the problem worse.

If the people who donate money would pray instead, the charitable organizations would disappear, and the people who currently work for the charities might find a more useful job.

“Dear God,  Are you responsible for arthritis, mental illness, droughts, and disease? If so, I pray to some other god that your victims overcome your abuse.  If not, will you please make our lives nicer? How much suffering has to occur before you do something? What if... oh, forget it. Amen.”