Moral choice - give money away or buy stuff/services instead?

[MrGongGong]

Well, thank you for your response which is kind. If you can guarantee that your local building that does all sorts of seemingly random things, free food cafe, all night drone music festivals and space for artists to play and work has all the money that is left to it going to it and enhancing peoples' lives in a truly demonstrable way, then I would consider it.

That's what I mean about trying to be less judgemental.
When I give cash to someone busking I don't ask for a set of accounts or a statement of how the money is to be spent. If I can afford to give it away then once it leaves my hand it's not for me to say what it should be used for.
When I used to give my children money (when they were older) I didn't write a list of approved or forbidden items. Though, if I did discover my daughter spending it on CD's of Elgar Oratorios rather than noisy bands and beer I might have felt a bit conflicted

[Lat-Literal]

That's what I mean about trying to be less judgemental.
When I give cash to someone busking I don't ask for a set of accounts or a statement of how the money is to be spent. If I can afford to give it away then once it leaves my hand it's not for me to say what it should be used for.
When I used to give my children money (when they were older) I didn't write a list of approved or forbidden items. Though, if I did discover my daughter spending it on CD's of Elgar Oratorios rather than noisy bands and beer I might have felt a bit conflicted

We are agreeing and not agreeing.

It's not about forbidden items.

If a vibe café serving vegan food to autistic people is the cause, that's fine by me.

I just don't want the governor living in a four bedroom house.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's what I mean about trying to be less judgemental.
When I give cash to someone busking I don't ask for a set of accounts or a statement of how the money is to be spent. If I can afford to give it away then once it leaves my hand it's not for me to say what it should be used for.
When I used to give my children money (when they were older) I didn't write a list of approved or forbidden items. Though, if I did discover my daughter spending it on CD's of Elgar Oratorios rather than noisy bands and beer I might have felt a bit conflicted

Fortunately Elgar didn't compose that many oratorios, so in the case of your daughter, it would only have concerned a "stage" she was going through!

[Serial_Apologist]

We are agreeing and not agreeing.

It's not about forbidden items.

If a vibe café serving vegan food to autistic people is the cause, that's fine by me.

I just don't want the governor living in a four bedroom house.

But our skinflint society has very strict definitions regarding who qualifies as autistic, or is autistic enough to qualify.

[MrGongGong]

We are agreeing and not agreeing.

It's not about forbidden items.

If a vibe café serving vegan food to autistic people is the cause, that's fine by me.

I just don't want the governor living in a four bedroom house.

There doesn't need to be a "governor"

[Richard Barrett]

That's what I mean about trying to be less judgemental.
When I give cash to someone busking I don't ask for a set of accounts or a statement of how the money is to be spent.

Absolutely right.

I'm reminded of the story of CS Lewis and Tolkien going on a walking tour of England and coming across someone begging for money. Lewis put his hand in his pocket and gave the man what change he had. Tolkien disapprovingly said, “He’s just going to spend it on drink, you know,” to which Lewis's reply was, “I was just going to spend it on drink.”

[Lat-Literal]

But our skinflint society has very strict definitions regarding who qualifies as autistic, or is autistic enough to qualify.

I haven't officially qualified for anything since the age of 22 - whether it is bog standard regularity or something other than that - I have always been too much of a challenge.

[Serial_Apologist]

There doesn't need to be a "governor"

Aldous Huxley had a few good ideas about what to do with the over-ambitious or over muscularly, under brainpowered, in his final novel "Island": put them to work on heavy duty activities - I think it was road and rail building; but in the new ecosensitive socialism we'll be creating there will be other more environmentally sustainable activities... and free non-judgemental contraception.

[Dave2002]

Absolutely right.

I'm reminded of the story of CS Lewis and Tolkien going on a walking tour of England and coming across someone begging for money. Lewis put his hand in his pocket and have the man what change he had. Tolkien disapprovingly said, “He’s just going to spend it on drink, you know,” to which Lewis's reply was, “I was just going to spend it on drink.”

Like it!

[Serial_Apologist]

I haven't officially qualified for anything since the age of 22 - whether it is bog standard regularity or something other than that - I have always been too much of a challenge.

We've both managed to coast the system remarkably successfully if I've judged right, optimising the comparative advantages of wiser, more insightful times. I am now 72; we're re-entering previous authoritarian ages we've only read about in books, thinking thank god I didn't have to live through those times. My main aim is to minimise leaving behind any mess; if you can last out on rationality you'll be OK, but it's unwise to generalise from the particular: others have thought all this out in various skeletal ways, after which still others have filled out the picture more fruitfully than was possible based on theoreticised outcomes.

[pastoralguy]

About 7 years ago, Mrs. PG and myself had our first visit as a married couple to New York. We went in January so were able to get a good deal on staying at the Waldorf Astoria which was quite an experience. Being a hotel, they hosted conferences and one was 'Alleviating Hunger in Third World Countries'. One evening, after an exhausting but enjoyable day exploring the city, we sat in the foyer and watched the delegates disperse and, almost without exception, they were obese with one or two being close to bariatric!

We overheard one delegate complain that his room was not to his liking and, when offered an upgrade, simply used his government sponsored credit card to pay the difference... A most odd set of circumstances...

[Serial_Apologist]

About 7 years ago, Mrs. PG and myself had our first visit as a married couple to New York. We went in January so were able to get a good deal on staying at the Waldorf Astoria which was quite an experience. Being a hotel, they hosted conferences and one was 'Alleviating Hunger in Third World Countries'. One evening, after an exhausting but enjoyable day exploring the city, we sat in the foyer and watched the delegates disperse and, almost without exception, they were obese with one or two being close to bariatric!

We overheard one delegate complain that his room was not to his liking and, when offered an upgrade, simply used his government sponsored credit card to pay the difference... A most odd set of circumstances...

I wouldn't be so sure about that!!!

[Lat-Literal]

We've both managed to coast the system remarkably successfully if I've judged right, optimising the comparative advantages of wiser, more insightful times. I am now 72; we're re-entering previous authoritarian ages we've only read about in books, thinking thank god I didn't have to live through those times. My main aim is to minimise leaving behind any mess; if you can last out on rationality you'll be OK, but it's unwise to generalise from the particular: others have thought all this out in various skeletal ways, after which still others have filled out the picture more fruitfully than was possible based on theoreticised outcomes.

I don't think I have coasted it. I do not associate any positives in my current situation with A'levels, a university education, many years in employment or anything post Thatcher (27 onwards) or personally post-Callaghan (16). My father was the equivalent of an HEO in local government at a time when such people did the equivalent of AO work. He and my mother alone kept me from ending up in 2010 on the streets. They were not unusual. They were just a part of the 1945-1979 consensus. I have absolutely nothing to thank anyone else for. I know the relationships between ourselves and the national economy. They were children in a war which encouraged a drive towards very modest upward mobility, incorporation and sustainment. At 11 plus and in university grant, I was at the tail end of that and benefited. Then it turned to competitive oppression and desires of the too cosy better off to murder.

Devereux was far too aloof to engage with me when he was carving up a system to get rid while seeking out promotion himself in a new Department heading the unnerving of many of the disabled via ATOS. He couldn't, I think, face up to what I was saying which is that he and others like him were dividing my generation in two, making themselves the beneficiaries of the post war consensus and the rest of us plebs at the mercy of an economy that would be the blight of working class youth. It's alright for their offspring. They will inherit megabucks.

If I had offspring, I would support revolution but as I don't, I don't. Anyhow, I'm not for payments to families who I don't know and if they are needy I'd want to know why when there are benefits for sexual overdrive. The two generally go very much hand in hand, whatever the class background or wealth. Money to the countryside, animals, the arts, etc benefits all and leads to truly higher themes plus a quality of enjoyment. I am waiting to hear RT's feedback on my comments on Benacre. Prove we can cut out the middle men. It could go there.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't think I have coasted it. I do not associate any positives in my current situation with A'levels, a university education, many years in employment or anything post Thatcher (27 onwards) or personally post-Callaghan (16). My father was the equivalent of an HEO in local government at a time when such people did the equivalent of AO work. He and my mother alone kept me from ending up in 2010 on the streets. They were not unusual. They were just a part of the 1945-1979 consensus. I have absolutely nothing to thank anyone else for. I know the relationships between ourselves and the national economy. They were children in a war which encouraged a drive towards very modest upward mobility, incorporation and sustainment. At 11 plus and in university grant, I was at the tail end of that and benefited. Then it turned to competitive oppression and desires of the too cosy better off to murder.

Devereux was far too aloof to engage with me when he was carving up a system to get rid while seeking out promotion himself in a new Department heading the unnerving of many of the disabled via ATOS. He couldn't, I think, face up to what I was saying which is that he and others like him were dividing my generation in two, making themselves the beneficiaries of the post war consensus and the rest of us plebs at the mercy of an economy that would be the blight of working class youth. It's alright for their offspring. They will inherit megabucks.

If I had offspring, I would support revolution but as I don't, I don't. Anyhow, I'm not for payments to families who I don't know and if they are needy I'd want to know why when there are benefits for sexual overdrive. The two generally go very much hand in hand, whatever the class background or wealth. Money to the countryside, animals, the arts, etc benefits all and leads to truly higher themes plus a quality of enjoyment. I am waiting to hear RT's feedback on my comments on Benacre. Prove we can cut out the middle men. It could go there.

I've outlined my views on this on the "What was it all about? thread; just to add, though, that the reason that values changed between our generation and that of our parents was because the ruling orders suddenly came to recognise the advantages of perpetuating working class loyalty to the system by getting them to buy into it, in the same way the middle classes had always been more enabled to do. The character of postwar re-development fed into this - the initial advantages to having central heating and consumer goods over the worn out street communities of yore were soon seen through by those who had been re-housed, and the idea of home ownership introduced by Thatcher re-inforced the perceieved protection of the nuclear family unit and its bit of real estate. Naturally, nobody was warned or ideologically pre-armed against the unsustainability of the model, which put working class "fortunes" in the hands of the speculators; indeed, many of its apologists probably didn't forsee the long-term consequences, or blinkered themselves from considering the more radical alternatives being posed by the left, partly for fear of being ridiculed off the planet in the tabloids.

[Lat-Literal]

I've outlined my views on this on the "What was it all about? thread; just to add, though, that the reason that values changed between our generation and that of our parents was because the ruling orders suddenly came to recognise the advantages of perpetuating working class loyalty to the system by getting them to buy into it, in the same way the middle classes had always been more enabled to do. The character of postwar re-development fed into this - the initial advantages to having central heating and consumer goods over the worn out street communities of yore were soon seen through by those who had been re-housed, and the idea of home ownership introduced by Thatcher re-inforced the perceieved protection of the nuclear family unit and its bit of real estate. Naturally, nobody was warned or ideologically pre-armed against the unsustainability of the model, which put working class "fortunes" in the hands of the speculators; indeed, many of its apologists probably didn't forsee the long-term consequences, or blinkered themselves from considering the more radical alternatives being posed by the left, partly for fear of being ridiculed off the planet in the tabloids.

This is your consistent theme. Certainly I don't wholly disagree with it and I respect it. But central heating, a few basic gadgets to help in the home, the occasional holiday, a modest home where one wasn't at the mercy of the unsavoury, even the monstrous car. One. One car. None of this was awful. In sync, I would argue that the broadening of access to culture, sophisticated and, yes, popular within reason, was overdue. But there are many other strands here. America decided on a change of course. What America wants and then does, Europe always follows as its lapdog. Britain was no exception - and at the heart of the bogus divisions in debate today is the fact that both the EU and Britain will be under American dominance.

The trade unions did not represent many underpaid workers and had no interest in a lot of those but they pushed beyond the acceptable in order to divide poorer people. The oil crisis. If anything drove that impetus, it was that. Much is made of old establishment fearing it would lose its privileged position but actually that was not the case. That had seen deprivation. It was the cosy "Ferris Bueller" kids of old establishment who cut up rough. The depletion of industry was the excuse for any old tat to be sold at ludicrous prices in the name of fitting in from sports wear and trainers onwards. Black and other non white people, gay people, women, latterly and half-heartedly disabled people.....all have been bought off with overdue equal rights so that they don't take to the streets on economic grounds. Most in these categories are like my old boss Roy's old Mum who thinks British Gas is lovely because it sounds right.

Not that I "do" opinion pieces these days.