An outlet for altruism
Mary Kenny
Anyone who imagines that the British charity? I think the first, the most imporpublic's attitude to charity is fatigued or tant, is trust. That is the key to the Blue disillusioned need only look at the recent Peter story: people trust the programme, case of Blue Peter, the children's television they trust the presenters, they feel the point programme: in the space of a few weeks, the it is making is absolutely genuine and that it programme raised over £3 million for the will use the resources given it with the victims of war in Kampuchea. That is an utmost integrity. This is why the business of example of spectacular success, but other charity must be practised with the highest appeals for help continue to show the deep possble sense of honour. In the matter of reservoirs of generosity and altruism that fund-raising for charity, better to have three exist in the public, or, one should say, in little old ladies who would rather die than individuals; The Week's Good Cause, which tell a lie than any Flash Harrys from the is broadcast on Radio 4 at 8.50 am on campaign media who know how to manipuSunday mornings, has a wide and responlate the market.
sive audience unlike party political broadIn the long term, it is not the cleverness of casts, people do not switch off when they media innpact that really counts, in my view, hear of a charity appeal coming up. And one but trust and sincerity. The only thing you of the sisters at St Joseph's Hospice for the really want, when you give money to charity Dying in Hackney told me recently that in is to feel reasonably assured that it will be her opinion the milk of human kindness was used for the purposes for which it was increasing in the modern world, not diminintended, and not on posh offices, foreign ishing; given the right eireurnstances, peocorruption or guns for terrorists. Watch a ple are very willing to give. Salvation Army fund-collector go round What are the 'right circumstances' for any pub on a Saturday night selling the War Cry: it is really quite touching to see even the most miserly slip a few silver coins into the box. It is not just that they feel guilty about drinking (there is inevitably a bit of that) while this angel of mercy carries a shining light of sober virtue; it is that everyone trusts the Salvation Army. You just know that they really are good people, they really are dedicated, they really are doing what they say they are doing; and, like Mother Teresa, they really will help the people in our society who literally have no one else the homeless down-and-outs. (I think that one of the most enraging stories that I heard in 1979 was that the National Union of Public Employees was trying to get the Salvation Army into its net. There is a scent of sulphur about that; it must never be allowed to happen.) The giving of alms is a fundamental element of every major world religion. 'Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away,' says Jesus in Matthew v, 42, but the Koran and the Tao-te-King are just as emphatic about the need to give: the three universal treasures of Lao-Tzu are: 'compassion, frugality, the desire not to be foremost in everything'.
When something appears in every major religion, we may consider it, I think, a human archetype: that is to say, it is abso lutely basic to man. Perhaps the humanists would say that charity is basic to society since there will always be some individuals El-who are more unfortunate than others. But Mother Teresa's axiom, that charity is as necessary to the giver as to the receiver, is also a psychological truth. In Patricia Mor• gan's book about young offenders in Britain today, Delinquent Fantasies, she points out that one of the most frustrating social deprivations for young people brought up on a total welfare state mentality is that they have no outlet for their altruism. They have never had the opportunity to think in terms of the necessity for giving alms, and this Ls perhaps one of the reasons why their sell' sitivities to the old and the helpless are more blunted. (Two of the biggest increases in the crime rates during the Seventies were, juvenile offences against elderly victims any baby-battering.) Perhaps it is necessary for people to lea.° ' to give to the helpless in order to inhibilt their primitive feelings of brutality an' domination. Perhaps the act of giving alms 'the milk of human kindness' has to be triggered off by some deliberate action °f compassion, just as the biological functiori of lactation has to be triggered off bY encouraging the baby to suckle; but once unleashed, it increases by demand and sul; ply and flows freely as soon as the need If expressed. Perhaps that is another secret • the success of Blue Peter: all over Britaol, oo there were these young people whose rtct, for altruism' was waiting to be drawn °lin Perhaps Blue Peter was helping more ti'te Kampuchea; in the matter of charity, t% recipient is aided, but the giver is traro formed.
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