Charitable giving

First of all, if you read my blog, please leave a comment or e-mail
me to let me know. Pretty please. With sugar on top.

Just to get you started, here is a rather extreme posting.

Secondly, a response to this feedback column from the Guardian:

http://money.guardian.co.uk/personal/story/0,13970,1655451,00.html

Is giving charitable gifts at Christmas selfish?

Well, oddly enough, I say no.

It seems to me that the desire to call charity selfish and the
suggestion that someone may be offending by receiving a charitable
gift is nothing more than an indication of how deep into the
self-obsessed consumerist mire we have sunk.

If someone is ungrateful and selfish enough (i.e. feeling put out
that they haven't received something for themselves) to be resentful
at not being given a tub of cookies then you have to ask yourself,
why am I buying something for them at all? Are they really going to
be happy at getting bath soaps? Isn't rather hypocritical of me to
buy them a thoughtless, predictable gift? Isn't it just a waste when
they don't care and I don't really care either?

Gifts should be an indication of how much we care about somebody and
should reflect our desire to see those people happy. Grabbing three
tins of chocolates in Sainsbury's doesn't seem a particularly good
way of showing this.

Here would be my ordered preferences for gift buying:

A personal, seriously considered gift (which may include a charitable
gift).
A charitable gift for someone that would appreciate the significance
(if you really can't think of something else).
Nothing at all.
A charitable gift for someone who couldn't care less.
The usual, ill though out, reaction present because you feel you
should do.

Amongst the comments in the article was the suggestion that giving
charitable gifts was merely a way to assuage guilt at not doing
enough for charity. This begs the question of whether normal
charitable giving is also guilt reduction. I would probably say yes
to that (which we can come to another day), but my point is really
that it all seems a handy excuse for people to refuse to give to
Charity, or in other words further exhibit their own selfish Mammon
worshipping tendencies.

A large proportion of gift buying charitable or otherwise, be it
Christmas or birthday seems to be nothing more than a way to reduce
guilt at not being a good enough friend anyway combined with the
marketed pressure that it is Christmas, I have to buy everybody lots
of things otherwise I will look poor.

So, to sum up. Think about what you are doing and be honest about it.