Charity is the new narcissism
March 10, 2008
“Me generation puts the ‘I’ in charity“
charity may begin at home, but it only counts if there’s an audience. That’s the implied message of what some are calling “competitive compassion,” a trend quickly turning philanthropy into an exercise in self-congratulation.
Putting the “I” in charity, Facebook’s Causes application allows Canadians to flaunt their benevolence with all the subtlety of a Pride parade, displaying everything from the money they’ve personally raised to the number of friends they’ve recruited for their preferred charity or non-profit.
On TV, Celebrity Apprentice and Oprah’s Big Give have transformed philanthropy into a game show, with players competing as teams but being judged as individuals in the fight to be the ultimate altruist.
Of the latter show, the Hollywood Reporter writes: “Shallow as a bird bath, the program would appear to exist less as a true philanthropic exercise than yet another self-aggrandizing vehicle in Oprah’s divine quest to become synonymous with all that is virtuous and good on Earth.“
Our secular world really has sunk to depths uncharted — turning helping out the needy into a vehicle for self-aggrandizement and preening.
Myself, I tend to prefer this sort of thing.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Aren’t you so glad, O Reader, that our post-modern society has shed the last trappings of Christian mythology and mysticism in favour of hard empiricism and the pursuit of the almighty self?
