So can anyone tell me when the the notion of charity -- to give help -- became "giving back?"
Do you see the difference; the moral difference?
To put it most bluntly: in the former, you're giving someone your property. In the later, you're giving back someone their property, carrying with it the implication that you didn't earn it -- commonly known as stealing -- and they are the ones entitled to and deserving of it.
I watched a big big show last night that raised a lot of money under the moral principle of "giving back," wherein I suppose that millions were encouraged to feel guilty -- perhaps because it has been found more motivational and effective than causing people to feel pity, compassion, good will.
I'm not even going get started on the whole insanity of dependence-perpetuating aid to Africa and elsewhere, much of which ends up as cash or product in the hands of the kleptocracy and of their nomenklatura*. What those people really need is freedom to prosper, and they'll take care of their own problems. Here is, I think, a perfect charity: Kiva.org. And it sports the correct moral principle too: loan them your money, but only for an entrepreneurial purpose; they execute, and pay you back your money. It's social, so you've only got a few bucks at risk on any one entrepreneur. The charity is the risk you take on, plus the opportunity cost, since you're just getting repaid principal (the borrowers pay interest (as they should), but it goes to support the local branches who help to arrange these loans).
So, to my mind, you can go glitz, pat yourself on the back for "giving back," perpetuating the dependence that is the morass of institutional international aid, or, you can help out because you've determined you can, and what you're doing is helping someone with drive and a dream to not only escape dependence, but to create jobs and opportunities for others to do likewise. Civilization can take root in no other way.
* Beck
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Geez, that was my thought exactly, last night while I endured "Idol Gives Back." What the hell do they mean give back, I haven't gotten a nickel from them, so how can I give back.
I first noticed this trope in the late-80's. I could be wrong, but I recall a report on the CBS Evening News that spent about forty seconds explaining to the viewing cretins that everything they ever had was just a matter of luck that they were born into a culture that would take such good care of them, and so they owed a goodly part of that benefit. I have no illusion that Dan Rather & Co. were originally responsible for it — that's only where I first heard it put that way — but the thing was solidly ensconced in popular conscience in no time at all. Like: I was hearing it commonly within a few weeks.
The main stream media has been snowing us for decades. Poverty & ecology have been very common themes that they have used to beat us about the head.
What saddens me most about shows like Idol Gives Back, is that we saw some examples of very needy people who would benefit from receiving some actual money on the spot.
Geez, Bono. Reach into your pocket and help that entire town, right now!
Don't send the money into some bureaucratic black hole where the money will go to overhead expenses, lavish offices, and lobster for everyone. If the poor get one penny for every dollar sent, I'll eat my hat (a nice hat, not one of those ugly hats you see celebrities wearing all the time)
I see nothing essentially deleterious in charity. That said, I agree with everything you say. Someone who donates something is not giving something that was not already theirs; they really ought to enjoy the natural satisfaction of doing a good thing, and not mitigate its goodness by dressing it up in language that implies that they're utterly criminal until they surrender some loot. The implications of such an idea are utterly horrendous in every fashion.