Random Thoughts About Charity and Virtue-Wank

I think one reason some kinds of people prefer individual acts of charity to large systematic changes with charitable aims and impacts (such as tax-funded social programs) is that if everybody is giving to a comparable degree, they don't get to feel special anymore.

To someone like me, though, giving to the poor is not something I'm doing above and beyond the call of human duty. It's a baseline of dignity and respect, and I'm not special for doing it. With that mindset, I guess it's natural that I wouldn't understand why some people need to feel like they are making a grand and unexpected benevolent gesture.

Sure, that's probably better for the ego, but my ego wasn't actually involved in the first place. It's just a decent thing to do. Not an extraordinary thing: decent.