I've written a few posts on charity over the years. Here in 2013. Once more in 2013. Here in 2009. Since I began burning money I've always felt - and I think 'felt' is the best word to use here - that burning money is the ultimate 'moral' action that can be undertaken with money.
My view on charity could be summarized by saying that I think we're guilty of seeing charity as an end, rather than a means. For individuals, it can too easily become a neurotic ritual of giving which acts as a sticking plaster on an unjust world. And, in the act of giving, with the £3 direct debits leaving our bank accounts each month, our own role in the creation of those injustices is repressed in our minds. Charity provides its giver with temporary 'bought' absolution that makes the world a little blurry, softer and fuzzy round the edges.
I'm not well versed in the ethics and philosophy of charity. Theories of money are my thing intellectually, so while charity certainly sits on the border of that subject, I've not studied it in any real depth. I have noticed a few new books broaching the subjects of charity and philanthropy, though.
Against Charity by Julie Wark and Daniel Raventos, 2018
Linsey McGoey No Such Thing as a Free Gift, 2016
Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better by Rob Reich, 2018
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas, 2018
and also this Jacobin piece by Mathew Snow
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People often use 'charity' in a weaponized form to criticize money burning; WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE IT TO CHARITY? is a very common response. So when I hear the word 'charity' or friends tell me they're doing this or that 'for charity', I get a bit knotted inside. The abundance of charity ads on the television this xmas has, more than once, resulted in me shouting abuse at the screen. One that's had more than its fair share is the Salvation Army advert. To be fair though, I've had 'problems' with charity for a much longer time than I've been burning money.
The first time I discussed my feelings about charity with a stranger was in the heart of the neo-liberal beast - The Institute of Economic Affairs. This was way back in 1999? Somewhere around there. The IEA is very cult-like and they lure students in from the LSE with offers of free biscuits and ideology. The libertarian view on charity is really that it is a 'less moral' way of exchanging than the Holy Free Market - this goes beyond ideas of efficient outcomes and into the idea that free markets allow a kind of equality in exchange that charity doesn't. There's something to that argument that'll I'll come back to in a minute. [At the same conference, though, an argument was put forward that Racial Discrimination should be allowed under law - gated communities should be able to specify residents by race - because the market would sort it. To be fair, I wasn't the only one that found this idea horrific.]
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There is an obvious complaint against charities themselves - especially the larger ones - that they are basically corrupt and tend primarily to serve the interests of those who work for them. Such a complaint though, can of course be leveled against any institution. But with charities the degree of hypocrisy - the distance between aim and action - is greater. When a corporation or bank claims that it exists to serve the needs of it customers - when in fact we all know that it actually exists to create profits for its shareholders - that's one thing. But when a Charity claims it exists to help the poor or do some social good - and its behavior proves otherwise - it causes us to lose some of the hope we have for humanity, itself.
There is also the problem of 'method'. Some charities practice marketing, public relations, and sales techniques which would put the most aggressive MLM/Ponzi scheme to shame. This is justified of course by reference to 'goals'. It's not an easy thing to pin-point, but there does seem to be a tipping point between drawing attention to someone's plight, and using their misery as a marketing tool. The crossing of that line is often the cause of my TV-directed outbursts.
But there are deeper problems with Charity - and, when I've thought about charity in relation to my studies on money, this is generally where I focus my attention.
The most important thing to point out is that there is a symbiotic relationship between charity and capitalism, itself. This is not really as simple as saying that capitalism creates the need for charity. The relationship between the two inheres deeply within our individual and collective psyches and goes way back to the ancient debt jubilees which institutionalized charity grew from and replaced.
The relation to the debt-jubilees of ancient kings gives us some clues as to our own thoughts and feelings around charity. If the ancient-you saw debt forgiveness as a divine gift from a God-like ruler then ancient-you would be likely to see that debt-forgiveness as an unequivocal moral good.
Charity operates with a similar set of dynamics. We regard the charitable act as the action by which we cure an ill. A charitable donation is imbued with a specificity of purpose to do good - but good can be defined in many ways and so cover a multitude of sins!
But this is where our modern experience and understanding of 'debt forgiveness' can help reveal something important. The 'debt-forgiveness' gifted after the last financial crash (another one will come sooner or later and the response will be the same) was of course offered to the banks themselves and it was 'us' - through our governments - who assumed the role of God-like ruler. So as the God-like ruler we all know why this 'debt-forgiveness' was really offered. Not because we felt the banks deserved it but rather to ensure that the whole system - and the value of currency itself - didn't collapse. The ancient kings were perhaps not offering divine gifts but rather pragmatic solutions in line with their best interests - debt jubilees were a very good way of fending off revolutions from the populous (debtors), and the threat of them were a good way of keeping local chieftains (creditors) in check.
Modern day 'debt-forgiveness' is a rebirth of capitalism through collective sacrifice. As such, depending on your perspective (whether you have libertarian or socialist leanings) that maybe perceived as a moral good, or it maybe perceived as a moral bad. It is important then that we take a lesson from debt-jubilees as the mother of charity. We must question the morally-laden idea that charity is a cure for ills or an action for the good. If we don't, then we risk just blindly reproducing the same cycles of ill-cure, bad-good, poor-rich.
I fear that such arguments might fail to persuade anyone who feels that their charitable giving represents a moral form of spending. The notion that 'charity' exists in a separate 'sphere' to 'the market' inheres deeply within us. It's unlikely that rationality will change that.
However, when one is on the receiving end of charitable giving a whole new world of experience is available. Who can't empathize or understand the emotions involved in and evoked by the simple phrase 'I DON'T WANT YOUR CHARITY'. As givers we may regard this statement as an expression of ingratitude. But equally, as takers we might declare it as a heartfelt statement of sovereignty. It is a way of rejecting not only the gift of charity but the entire system which placed the taker in need in the first place, and it also rejects and highlights pity as affective response that has no place in relations between human beings who are of fundamentally equal value. It is here where those arguments of the free-marketeers about free-agency in exchange that I mentioned earlier, carry most weight [well, if you ignore the power imbalances inherent to systems of currency and government.]
Charity then is not a simple moral good. It's a method of redistribution and a way of organizing material relations which is morally-complex and can have contradictory outcomes. When we say 'It's all for charity' we deny the deep ambivalence that inheres within charitable acts.
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So, then. Let's cut to the Ritual Mass Burn on the 3rd November 2018. In my pre-ritual talk I burned an artwork by one of the world's leading currency-collage artists Mark Wagner. It was a limited edition 'Lucky' dollar bill which Mark sells for $100. These weren't the only pieces Mark contributed. The others I offered up for a 'charity' auction (of sorts) - I said that if someone wanted to buy them, then I would find an appropriate 'cause' and donate any funds raised to it.
Given my thoughts on Charity, why did I do this?
The honest answer is, I'm not sure. The only thing I can say with certainty is that within the Ritual environment my actions and the events that take place are not governed by rationality. Like the Burning Ritual itself, I've found the best thing to do, is to try and get out of the way and let it evolve according to its own needs.
To be precise, here (because this really matters to me) the burning of the 'Lucky' dollar and the offering up of the other pieces for 'charity' was done in my pre-ritual talk - so on the cusp of Ritual itself. My talk is spontaneous - at least, this is what I try to achieve. I find myself involved in mental games in the weeks preceding the Ritual Mass Burn trying to stop myself thinking about what I'm going to say and do. I fail, of course. But I do try. What really helps, when thoughts arise, is not to allow them to form into words. So, I'm strict on not allowing myself to imagine speaking to the Ritual participants. Don't expect this to make any sense rationally. It does however make perfect sense magically. And I think Georges Bataille would approve. The moment of the Ritual is sovereign therefore subordinating it to 'planning' diminishes it.
My idea to introduce a charitable element quite near to the heart of the Ritual was not something I considered very deeply beforehand, then. Thoughts about it had tried to push through to my consciousness and I had mentioned it to Bob Osborne as something that might happen. Bob (a.k.a Rebel Not Taken) was interested in the pieces Mark Wagner had kindly donated for his Cash is King project. But nothing certain was arranged or worked out.
However, when I stood in the middle of the Ritual Space I had a vision of concentric circles. I alluded to the 'spheres' of 'charity' and 'market' earlier in this piece. This is actually an idea from economic anthropology where they talk about 'spheres of exchange'. But from my vantage point on the night I saw it differently. And despite all that I've said about the moral complexity of charitable giving above, I had the sense that in my experience, as well as everyone else's, there is something morally distinct and - well to put it bluntly - better in a moral sense about the giving of a charitable gift, above and beyond the selling of a product or service. The key thing though, is to understand that charity IS NOT the ultimate moral action in our economic lives and material relations.
Standing in the ritual space with my Altar central to proceedings the moral order was clear. Out in the foyer capitalism was king. The bar was taking the money that helped pay the theatre staff, and the profits from the merchandise (a very fine selection I must say!) were contributing to the event itself. But the purpose of those external activities - the exchanges made - were governed by immediate self-interest and needs were being met through market exchange. Within the theatre space itself, but outside the actual Ritual, was charity - something had been gifted to us which I would sell to the highest bidder not for my immediate self-interest but in order to gift to someone else in need. And then AT THE VERY CENTRE was the apotheosis of the moral order, the ubersphere of exchange, the molten middle where destruction and creation coalesce. Burning money in ritual manifests an experience of the moral extremes of exchange simultaneously. The money burned is our loss and our gain, and the loss of others and their gain - and so pain and pleasure coexist in the moment of immolation.
"At the centre of creation is not purity, but purification."
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This then, is how a charitable element arose within the Ritual Mass Burn - or at least at some point between the Service and the Ritual, itself.
I feel good about it. I think it'd be easy for me to become defensive - that whole 'YOU SHOULDA GIVEN IT TO CHARITY' thing is a just constant refrain whenever I step outside into the general populous of 'utility-slaves'. It's part of the reason for the radical approach I take with Burning Issue. There has to come a point where you disregard that sort of criticism and make your own case in a positive way. I think if the magazine had tried to address those issues of charity - rather than just venerate the act of burning - it would have been weaker both as an invocation and as an artwork in its own right.
But the Ritual Mass Burn is an inclusive event and so it seems right that not only is capitalism represented in the merchandise and other activity that surrounds it (and without which it could not function) but also charity is represented, too. But - and this is key - is it clearly subordinated to act of burning money in ritual.
I wrote the following tagline for the Church of the Cosmic Burn's new online store:
Online Store Rule #1: Never spend that which you would otherwise Burn; to sacrifice is the supreme action.
I guess the addition here should be:
Never give to charity that which you would otherwise burn.
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The end result is then that I sold the remaining art pieces for £100 (thank you Bob!). On the night of the burn we also gave away as a promotion some Mark Wagner's 'Fund Education' posters that I'd had printed up. Mark has these available on his site as a free download. I still have a few left - if you want one let me know.
Also the Cockpit Theatre is part of Westminster College. I had no real idea of what charitable cause I should donate the money too. I really didn't want to give it to big one. So I hunted around and I found this - https://www.gofundme.com/ihelpedstopthegreatschoolsrobbery. It seems very appropriate. By the time you read this post they'll have the £100 that was raised at the Ritual Mass Burn for charity.
If you want to know other important figure: £675 was recorded as being burned by 46 burners. It was probably more than that as some people don't record their sacrifice.
Now go buy something from https://churchofthecosmicburn.org/