This makes me think of people who belittle Christian missionary groups who are out feeding the poor and giving shelter to the homeless and all that (and not necessarily evangelizing). Who cares if many of them are doing it only so that they can ultimately spread their gospel, or because it is one of the tenets of their faith? I think what matters is that people are getting fed. I don't think poverty-stricken people really care about the motives . . . a humanitarian impulse is the most noble impulse, regardless of what drives it. The people who sit around and criticize these gestures are the people who do nothing to improve the lives of others.

I' SO with you on this.

My big bitch about charity is with people (and I know a ton of em) who work for nonprofits, and so think that's their "bit". They figure, "Well, I only make X dollars, and I work for a "good agency" so I don't need to give money away. I'm giving time instead."

I hate this.

Volunteering time for something is different than getting paid (however little) for the same work. Being undercompensated does not let you off the hook for helping people WAY undercompensated.

Especially if you then spend all your dough on overpriced organic T shirts that promote social justice as an aesthetic.

Hoooooooo boy.

xoLaurel

Why do you need to have a beef with people who work for nonprofits and feel good about it? Giving money is extremely important, but so is giving your time. As someone who works at a nonprofit, in the development department no less, I am offended by your remarks. I unfortunately do not have the means to make donations past 20 dollars here and 20 dollars there. If I had more money to donate, believe me, I would. I think its great that Joey was able to give $1,000. I also think its great for the person who could not give that money, but perhaps will spend his or her saturday reading to an underprivileged child. I think the point is to help out any way you can, regardless of motives.

I also work for a nonprofit--and give small amounts annually to my own organization and to those I supported before I made this my career. I always felt kinda lame giving my $30 or whatever until I realized that in addition to the money,  increasing the number of individual donors matters. 

And, I don't see going to work every day as "giving time"--it's a job. Like most jobs, some days are annoying/boring/whatever... but because I work for a casue I believe in, some days I get to feel like I do something that matters. 

I doubt Monica has ever had to listen to a sermon in order to eat. Fact of the matter is, "the poor" are not a homogenous group. Why, some of us have even BEEN "the poor" at one time or another. Some mind the sermons, some don't.

I'm not referring to those who force others to listen to their religious crap before they get fed or helped or whatever. I'm talking about groups that are affiliated with a religion who do plain old charity work -- the same kind anyone else would do. My problem is with people who criticize the efforts of these people simply because they assume it is a religious impulse driving their altruistic efforts. I have actually spent a lot of my own time over the years with various religious groups doing just that, and I have never been involved in anything that required a person to listen to a sermon before receiving the aid that they need.

I'm totally with Monica. In fact, that's probably what most accounts for my occasional Christophilia outbursts: In the two causes in which I've had long-term  involvement--homeless services, and food security for children under five in sub-Saharan Africa--I've encountered so many fantastic, inspiring, compassionate people whose work is informed by their Christianity. Yes, there are some Bible-bangers out there who try to leverage assistance in order to secure converts, but in my experience they're in the minority. The ones I've worked with--and I'm talking about some real believers, a Catholic nun, two different Jesuits, several Evangelicals, etc.--have generally waited to be approached about religion before discussing it with people who were receiving, and even then were low-key in their deliver. They wanted it to be very clear that there were no religious strings attached to the assistance they were providing.

And most importantly, they were doing it. If you care about the actual goals of this sort of work, then that matters infinitely more than the conceptual framework that got them there.

Isn't it equally bad when one assumes that they're NOT preaching just because you haven't heard a horror story yet? By the way, I'd be a lot more impressed with "faith based" stuff if I could find even one non-conservative xian group that got dime one.

Three words ... the widow's mite.

Well put, Joey.

not like that smendrek friend of yours!

My beef is NOT with non-profits. I've only ever worked for them, and I'm all about it. I'm just saying that working for a n/p and making say, 30K is no different than waiting tables and making 30K in terms of earning your "charity cred".

I never understood people who felt so strongly about their agency they wanted to work there, but they didn't feel strongly enough to give some cash to the same worthy agency.

And if you're too broke to give, I understant that... but I know a LOT of non-profiteers too broke to make a donation, but NOT too broke to buy nice shoes, eat out a few nights a week, get drunk, take a summer vacation to Costa Rica, whatev.

more self-congratulatory, self-righteous writing by joey? really!? and the people who agree with his posts are people whose salaries he pays?! Wow, Jewcy, this is SOOOOO counterintuitive and edgy!

I can't believe that this post is serious! You say that we need to use our society's "status" obsession by BOASTING about how much we give to charitable causes?

You say, "When charitable giving becomes a form of conspicuous consumption, when saving the life of a child confers half the social status of, say, a cute pair of shoes, human history will be forever transformed. Another world is possible, and middle-class status anxiety can get us there."

While there's something Darwinian about using one of our weaker aspects to further ourselves as a species, I would hardly say that we should expand our so-called "middle-class anxiety" in the process. That's just dangerous; it's like saying that we should use our TV obsession and start having school lessons broadcast on TV. Sure, it might get a couple of more kids to focus on their schoolwork, but is that really where we as a society want to go?

"I'd be a lot more impressed with "faith based" stuff if I could find even one non-conservative xian group that got dime one."

These issues don't break down along conservative/liberal lines, Anon. I'll fight an Evangelical on, say, the issue of gay marriage, but that doesn't mean they're any less welcome when they're joining up to the fight against malaria. Coalitions should be built around specific goals; requiring agreement on the entire range of political issues is a recipe for getting nowhere.

Arj, my point is that we're already there. We spend more on cosmetics than would be required to save the lives of millions of children per year. Status anxiety (Alain de Botton wrote a great book of this title) is a reality and a constant...it's just a question of what will confer status. So yes, if we could make charitable contributions a source of status, alongside clothes/shoes/your children's nursery school and everything else, then absolutely I think that's very much somewhere we should choose to go as a society.

And to the other anon, believe it or not, I pay no one's salary. They publish this drivel anyway!

But isn't charitable giving already a status marker for, among others, entertainment stars?  Look at how they all fall over each other to give or attend benefit performances, to adopt children in developing countries, to urge their fans to give.

Yes, Michael, agreed. And charity-chic in the entertainment industry is a very good thing, e.g. all the celebrities who've donated big to the One campaign. Only disadvantage there is that it can feed a sense among salaried classes that these problems can be left to the super-affluent, like movie premiers and mansions in the Hollywood Hills. Fantastic to see charitable giving to issues of extreme poverty have as much cachet among middle-classes as it does among Jolie/Pitt crowd. 

Wow!

Honesty is the best policy!

How would you like another opportunity to satisfy your hunger for social status?

My son has a form of autism. He has been accepted to a 4 year degree program at a local university. However, money is an issue. If you provided a donation of funds, you would be helping a disabled person gain skills to become a self sufficient adult. Think how smug you could be!

Ur a fag. great u fucking donated 1000 bucks, but to brag about it is about the gayest thing you can do. ur so fucking fucking full of it, please go kill urself.

Joey, your mom's discovered how to post comments

Well in my lexicon gay is no pejorative, but rather precisely the sort of word one would use to describe the SIZEABLE and GENEROUS charitable donations by which a man of quality distinguishes himself from the hopeless unwashed lumpenmensch non-donating riff-raff from which you emerged, prole. 

Hey kids!  Read Jewcy and increase your German vocabulary.

Paul Gottfried, Jewcy's minister of paleoconservatism, described himself to us, if I recall corectly, as a Teutonophile. Teutono...phile. A Jewish...Teutonophile.  A Jew...who admires the Prussian aristocrat. And yet it caught on. Every day at noon we try to take a short break to allow each retiring Jewcy wallflower staffer to spend a few minutes cultivating the Junker thug within. Crazy but true. Jewish identity is indeed taking on marvelous and unforeseen new forms.

I found this post through StumbleUpon.  I really appreciate your style on this issue.  I take your post to be classic Contrarian (correct me if I'm wrong).

Idol Gives Back has contributed more hand-wringing within the philanthropy blogosphere on the increasingly relevant question of the trend towards a consumer ethos of charity, which based on your historical definition of charity might very well be an oxy-moron.

What I like about your post is whether the beneficiaries care about the intention or source of the assistance they receive.  You have scratched the surface of one of the most philosophically interesting questions about charity and philanthropy.

Your "We need more Pharisees, and fewer saints" plan is based on the assumption that you can throw money at a problem and make it go away. Unfortunately, this ill-conceived notion is held by many Americans.

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6210

The title of the linked article sums it up: "Africa Needs Fair Trade, Not Charity"

But I doubt this will be enough for you, Joey. Being that you're so "charitable, so deeply decent," you'll want to do more than just change a few laws. If you really want to help the people of "in sub-Saharan Africa, where the mortality rate for children under five exceeds 33% in some countries," you need to change your lifestyle. People are impoverished because people elsewhere hog resources. You might want to consider turning off American Idol and instead try putting a little thought into how problems can actually be solved.

You don't need to put your money where your mouth is, you need to put your brain where your money is.

There's only one problem with your argument about turning Maimonides' levels upside down; he put them that way for a reason. The person receiving the charity is more likely to accept it if it comes without a big public spectacle. The spectacle might be good for your status, but making it public only empahsizes the divide between you and the poor soul who has to endure your preening.

throwing money at problems and never experiencing them first hand doesn't solve anything. I'm glad your so lucky to throw around a thousand dollars. Your money probably wont even make it to the mouths of the hungry. Get over yourself. American Idol sucks.

..and to think my wife and I only contributed $4,500. Perhaps we should have stood on the rooftops and shouted it to the world as you're doing.

My grandmother always warned me to be cautious of those who only do their good deeds for others to see.

When one does something for another that is a good thing if they brag and gloat like some about it then they forgo what would have been the greater reward..for such..

People in this country are known for their generosity..but from what I've read here and with the liberal use of needless obscenity and insults it seems to me you have more to learn than those impoverished you claim to be seeking to give aid..

Also quite often it is much better to give to those who need it that you encounter who God places before you to assist..

How many of them do you pass bye and choose not to see in their need, did it takes some loser garish junk moron broadcast like American idol for you to give to "the poor"..

"Ah yes the poor wonderful people have you met them..?"

"Bring out the poor, bring out the poor..!"

American Idol Clive Davis's money pit scam to pump up publishing rights he controls abusing the imbecilic..and deluded..

Thanks for your kind words, Tom. I see there's a rush of other responses, too, but I'll get you first and the others later.

I suppose "contrarian" is a reasonable enough way to describe the tone of the post, but it's not just jaunty posturing. I do think there are a couple important points in there.

Activist circles are too run-through with this sense of their own Christly purity. It's intensely gratifying to believe in your own nobility and sensitivity, and to be also revolted and disappointed by the vulgar self-absorption of those around you. It's a great gig if you can manage it, and it's why activism sometimes seems to me more a performance of class snobbery than anything else.

So it's no surpise that Idol Gives Back--which I think is one of the most exciting and groundbreaking developments in the history of American philanthropy--has a lot of people feeling ambivalent. American Idol is the epitome of vulgar, trashy mass culture. And now these insensate consumerist cattlevolk TV addicts are part of the solution to the world's most pressing humanitarian problems? If activism makes you feel part of an elect, then Idol Gives Back is the time to jump ship and look for some other esoteric body of knowledge, one that hasn't yet been whored out to flabby People Magazine-reading Republican-voting midwesterners.

So I was kind of riffing on the fears that activists have of the new consumerist trashiness that IdolGivesBack represents.

But the other obvious point is that none of this navel-gazing matters a whit. What matters is the outcome, the impact. And in that respect, IdolGivesBack doesn't represent the selling out of humanitarian causes, but rather our getting serious about those causes by demonstrating a willingness to harness whatever forces will help to get us where we're trying to go--the wiping out of the most destructive forms of inequality on the planet. If reality TV can help, we'll use it. If it's a desire to emulate philanthropic celebrities like Bono or Angelina Jolie, then we'll exploit that, too.

I've always been mystified by the fact that college-educated middle-class urbanites (I'm one of them) pine so consistently for the government to redistribute wealth more evenly. Why pine? If your goal is a more egalitarian redistribution of wealth, you're in luck! You no longer need depend on the whims of your government or your fellow voters. You've got more than enough wealth to change many lives, to make the world a more just place...Let the voluntary and vigorous redistribution of your wealth begin!

But of course it doesn't. For that reason and others, over time I've come to suspect that the utopian idealism of the progressive middle-class is something other than what it first appears. But whatever. That's fine.

I'd rather have ten self-important jackasses donating five thousand dollars a piece than ten saints donating 4,999. And I do really believe that status anxiety will be a necessary and obvious tool if we're to prise enough money from our own hands to eliminate the worst forms of extreme poverty. What kind of madness is this traditional idea of quiet, anonymous charity? It's an insane and unnecessary unilateral disarmament. Every other expense we make has its place in the constellation of class and status about which we're so relentlessly concerned. Everything from hybrid cars to organic foods to crown mouldings to baby clothes have a place as signifiers of class...but alone among all these things, donations to UNICEF ought be made only out of the goodness of our hearts? That's a load of pious self-involved bullshit, it's a recipe for failure, and it's not us that suffers for that failure.

"When one does something for another that is a good thing. But if they brag and gloat then they forgo what would have been the greater reward."

Oh, stuff the "greater reward." If you're giving because you have it on good authority that it'll come back to you tenfold, then let's at least be clear that this is not Christian charity, it's insider trading. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And I do encourage believers to give massive sums in the expectation that they will be reimbursed and then some promptly upon cashing out. But if we're talking about piety, then...well, actually, forget it. Yeah. It'll come back to you tenfold. Safe as houses.

"There's only one problem with your argument about turning Maimonides' levels upside down; he put them that way for a reason. The person receiving the charity is more likely to accept it if it comes without a big public spectacle. The spectacle might be good for your status, but making it public only empahsizes the divide between you and the poor soul who has to endure your preening."

Yes, I of course agree. I've spent a lot of time in homeless services and primping and preening as one delivers assistance is neither a helpful strategy nor a particularly safe one. In a situation in which the recipient and donor are in the same place, Rambam makes some sense. But that's not the case when the middle-class motherload of discretionary wealth is in the West, and it's being delivered to hot-spots of extreme poverty thousands of miles away. The aid is totally depersonalized, and Pharisaic posturing is invisible and irrelevant to aid recipients.

aw common some one who had the money donated it and some one who had the time helped... the motive is help in any way 1 buck or a million bucks or a million hours who cares... just help.

~ Raj

Sorry, Raj, I'm not feeling it. One buck or a million bucks or a thousand hours may be the same if you're looking at this as a spiritual experience for the giver, a kind of "yoga of charity" by which we pursue Enlightenment. But that's not what's going on here. We're talking about the technical challenge of ending extreme poverty, and this requires a goal-oriented, utilitarian approach rather than all this mystical flatulence about being a good soul. One buck is not as good as a million bucks...it is one millionth as good.

Anon says "And to think my wife and I only contributed $4,500. Perhaps we should have stood on the rooftops and shouted it to the world as you're doing. My grandmother always warned me to be cautious of those who only do their good deeds for others to see."

Anon, congratulations on your impressive contribution. You have emasculated me with the size of your largesse. It is appropriate that you get pleasure out of announcing it. I see that your grandmother read the Gospels. Much honor to her for that. I've read them, too. They are boring at some parts, but interesting at others. I hope you are still able to take pleasure in testifying to your good works. If you make any future contributions, I encourage you to announce them in this thread (preferably posting the e-mail confirmation).

Bravo douchie.

IT Took an overcommercialized marketing scam called American Idol to make you give money and show off how great you are and post it here.

It's sad people are not altruistic and always expect something (public recognition) in return.

What may be even sadder is the almost preternatural ability granted some people to miss the humor in situations such as this one! Encore, encore!

Oh, but JewcyCraig, the anon actually did a fine job of getting to the heart of the piece. It just needs some minor edits, restructuring, and better transitions. Like this:

"It's sad people are not altruistic and always expect something (public recognition) in return. But since that's the case, and since the goals of charity are more important than the motivation of donors, we must rely on commercialization and marketing to make people give money and show off how great they are. Then the fucktards can go post about it at Jewcy while we're using their cash to deliver high-protein non-perishable foodstuffs in rural Botswana." Pretty good!

Also, he called me douchie, which, though not as inspired as Blobby FIscher, I still kind of like.  

Who honestly cares about what American Idol gives back. Did they actually GIVE something back? Hell no the people watching did. They continued to run commercials the entire program didn't they?

They act like they gave something back and took credit for it. And your just as arrogant as them. I give to multiple charities through the year. And I give much more then your broke $1,000 ass. I don't need to mention it because a lot of American's donate monthly do charities. So pat yourself on the back and write yourself another blog attempting to make yourself feel better. You must commit a whole hell of a lot of sins to brag so hard about a measly 1k.

Hope you get a brain tumor and die while spasming and foaming at the mouth uncontrollably.

I'll end this nicely - Have a nice day!

Dear god! Well truly, now, there is no question about who is more charitable ...

Your arrogance and selfishness is pathetic. I can't help but belittle someone who puts down others who do anything they can to help. Wow....you can charge $1,000 on a Master card and pay interest on it for who knows how long, judging by how special you feel you've donated a meager $1,000. People donate their LIVES every day to help others LIVES. And what are you doing? You tell me? From the sounds of it you aren't benefited enough by just HELPING people. You need to brag profusely about a single contribution which shows your intentions were certainly not genuine but, selfish reasons. Do you need publicity? That's what it sounds like to me! Big author aren't we? I think you need to grow up, a lot. I'm 18 years old and have better morals than you. This blog you've posted is a joke. I've been through a lot in my life and money is not all that can save a person's life. When you are poverty stricken you need moral support to survive the day. Maybe if you met a poor, sick, hungry child you would realize, yes he/she needs to eat but she needs love just as much. They ARE still human.

Well, she got part of it right. And if you're a moral reprobate, what is Candy, who seems to have donated nothing? She's right, though. You're a terrible person for being proud of your donation.

Oh for God's sake, I'm bored of being told I'm a scumbag asshole! I know it! But I'm a scumbag asshole who was making the most important moral point to be found anywhere on the vast internetz. Is Tom Williams the only one who got it? Next hater, I insist that you read through the second half of the post before drinking on that haterade.

Who the fuck are you and why the hell would you put this shit on the internet, nobody cares, im only spending time to tell you this so you dont ruin anybody elses life by posting more crap.

More lives are ripe for the ruining. Joey is unstoppable.

Joey,
I don't even know why I am bothering to respond to this immature, typically masculine post. The real kicker for me, aside from your willingless to brush aside the importance of direct action in combatting the world's many problems (I of course agree with you that money is important in fighting poverty), was this line: "The real hero is the person who gives, and then struts and preens in public like they just fucked the prom queen." Why, if you are such a sensitive guy to whom "gay is not a pejorative," turn to a sexist image like this one? to claim that "fuck[ing] the prom queen" confers status on anyone is giving in to the completely skewed (and horrifying) values system we have in this country. I suppose your utter lack of hope in humanity is part and parcel of your willingness to endorse such a position, that sexual conquest and shallow, surface beauty--two things commonly associated with the image of "fuck[ing] the prom queen." You think we're all basically assholes and, well, you're an asshole who gave a "shitload" of money. Well, I for one want to try _not_ to be an asshole, and to encourage others (especially presumptuous men like you) to change their "value" system and start valuing the things that do matter. Fucking the prom queen is not on my list.

A couple points in response to "Stop Him."

I don't think we're all assholes. I think people are basically well-intentioned, most of us want to understand ourselves as morally good, and we're willing to take positive, real-world steps to make that evaluation seem reasonable and coherent. But we're not selfless by nature, and we've got other impulses to accommodate as well. We enjoy material comforts. We're attuned to our place in status hierarchies. These things don't make us "assholes." If we're going to make moral judgments, I'd make them about actions, not about the raw cognitive material conferred on us by the evolutionary history of our species.

Ending extreme poverty and the mass death-by-malnutrition of children under the age of five would be an extraordinary moral good, and it's an achievable one. But we won't achieve it if we're waiting for those of us who are privileged and empowered to wake up one day as Great Souls, who know not of selfish desire. The soft taboo on public discussion of charitable contributions prevents us from building any social pressure to redistribute our own wealth on behalf of people who desperately need us to do so.

In Los Angeles we recently went through an unnerving phase in which it was totally chic to eat cupcakes in public. I'll say it again: if material sacrifices on behalf of impoverished children had as much social cachet as those cupcakes, or were half as de rigueur as attractive shoes, human history would be transformed. Even if you think Jeffrey Sachs and others have been overly optimistic in their assessments of how much it would cost to achieve the Millenium Development Goals, surely you recognize that a fraction of the discretionary income of the American (or Western) middle class could have enormous impact in, say, combatting malaria (an ongoing, real-life epidemic, utterly treatable but costs over a million lives per year, while we understandably freak out over SARS or avian flue or any other "what it if it became an epidemic!" event closer to home), or other basic social justice imperatives in the developing world. And that social pressure and the drive for social status are powerful tools in persuading middle-class people like us to part with our money. If I'm wrong, tell me where.

As for "fucking the prom queen," yes, it's not a noble metaphor, it's a vulgar one. I was trying (perhaps not very effectively) to contrast the drooling vulgarity with which we pursue status with the rarified preciousness we expect from everyone on the topic of charity.

Isn't this nice. You gave $1000 to charity, and someone else donated their time, and someone else made some poor bastard somewhere listen to a sermon in order to earn a bowl of food. Yeah you guys are REALLY making a BIG difference.
I mean you could be holding your local, state, and federal representatives responsible for where all the tax money goes, which if that issue were fixed there would be more than enough money to feed and clothe every under privileged man woman and child in the U.S.

You could be working on the cause of the problems here, instead of treating the symptoms.
Am I a no good do nothing, guess so if your view of action is measured by pocket books.
In my opinion, I do more every time I write or call my elected officials than your 1 time donations of time or money could ever accomplish. In my estimation these meager donations of money, time, and "faith" are nothing more than egotistical smoke screens designed to make you feel better about your apathetic existence in our democracy.

So pat yourself on the backs, talk about how your form of "charity" is more real than someone else's. I will continue to refuse charity at the cost of humanity. I will continue to work towards solving, not hiding the real problems. Am I coming off holier than thou? Most likely, am I better than you, most likely not, I just happen to see this b.s. for what it is and chose to change the way I personally deal with it. And it is in my estimation if all of us stood together on these common ground-bipartisan-everyone-agrees-issues, and in once voice told our politicians we want change right now, then change would happen, and life for the less fortunate could be improved. Instead though I guess its easier to just throw a grand at it and go about the apathetic existence that caused it all to begin with.