Never Walked In High Heels

When I was in Prague a few years ago I saw a blind violinist on the street. He played his instrument so lovingly well that, without thinking I pulled out a bill (as to not make noise with cumbersome coins) and placed it into the tin cup in front of him. When I returned to my traveling companions  one of them was enraged.

“I thought you didn’t believe in charity,” she snapped. This was news to me. We had sat up many a night debating politics and the role of government. She, of course, had different views from my own (most people do). I wracked my brian trying to figure out when I had said that I didn’t believe in charity. I couldn’t find anything.

I’m a little bit older now and can recognize something which I couldn’t see before.  One of which is, of course my companion’s insecurity about her own views. Another is, I see what often passes for “charity” and I do not like it.

Charity does not equate paying your tax dollars. Period. End of Story. The next time someone tries to tell you that paying taxes is ‘charitable,’ remember that charity is by definition a voluntary action. Paying taxes is not voluntary. Here is where my companion’s assumption went wrong. I want to help people. A lot of folks want to help people who also want to keep taxes and the government in check. I just don’t want to fool myself into thinking that paying taxes is my moral deed done for the day.

I also don’t want to give charity because “it’s the right thing to do,” like earning some Girlscout badge or ticking something off my list. The word charity comes from the Latin ‘carus’ which means ‘dear.’ Charity is as much of a trade as anything commercial. One cannot be charitable until he values what he is giving to. I received something from you/ your cause, you gave me an idea, you made me think or, I am just glad to know you are in the world. Charity or aid should be about recognizing inherent value of the recipient, not the action.

I do believe in charity and gifts. What I don’t believe in is that you should give because you ought  or, worse still, because you are ‘privileged.’ We have come into a time (no thanks to the redefinition of taxes) where charity has become defined as giving a check rather than service. The more “the government takes care of it” the less we have to see the hunger, the less with have to heal the illnesses, and the less we have to fight the injustices ourselves. Thus, the less we have to feel the painful pull that makes us grit our teeth and do everything we can to make it better.

When people say its ‘society’s duty to be charitable,’ I can’t help but squirm. What is this “society” you speak of? And how can duty ever be on the same plane as charity? Society never cured anything. People, individuals, took action to overcome. And they did. And they will again. Society has never changed en masse. It took individuals prodding them for things to get better. Call it Newton’s Social law if you’d like.

I still remember that violinist and can hear him play. I just wish I knew what he was to have given me over the years. I would have paid him more.