Traditionally, alms are considered as a small
amount of money given to a beggar for charity. To donate
food, clothes, medicine, and so on, may also be
considered as alms. For several religions it is a
charitable act done to the needy. In Abrahamic
religions, alms are given to help the poor and to please
God.
Allan Kardec did not condemn alms. He considered it as a
material charity.1 Kardec believed
that if – being able to do so – one refuses to assist
those who need our help materially, is an act of extreme
and cruel selfishness, and many a times he asked the
members of the Parisian Society for Spiritist Studies,
to make donations for emergency relief of the victims of
climatic tragedies or other calamities. ii
Therefore, our attitude towards all help should, as a
general rule, be favorable and optimistic, considering
that every good action is good in itself. Emmanuel
reminds us that charity is sublime in all aspects in
which it is revealed to us and under no circumstances
should we forget the amazing selflessness of those who
distribute bread and clothing, medicine and help for the
body, learning solidarity and teaching it.iii
What is being discussed among Spiritist scholars are
some aspects related to almsgiving, particularly if the
material aid must be given unconditionally and
indistinctly - without looking at whom, or if it should
be accompanied by a critical and special examination of
each particular situation.
Two opinions can be identified. The first one is the
attitude of those who think that almsgiving - as a
manifestation of compassion - should be exempted of all
logical reasoning and should be donated to those who ask
for it spontaneously, freely and unconditionally - an
act of love for others, a manifestation of the
spontaneous kindness that must be in all of us. They
recognize the importance of providing the unfortunate
with elements to overcome the causes of poverty, but
they do not agree to rationalize the material aid. Some
say, justifying themselves: I do my part! If the
false-beggar acts wrongly it is his problem!
The second opinion is found in those who believe that
giving alms without distinction can induce laziness and
the exploitation of others, especially when given
freely, on the streets, and claim that real help should
be focused on providing education, decent work, moral
support – help the needy to get out of their condition
of poverty or misery by their own effort. According to
this way of thinking, alms should be given occasionally,
in emergency situations.
What was Allan Kardec’s opinion regarding this debate?
The issue does not seem to us to have been fully solved
among the Spirits who manifested themselves to our
Encoder, since we identified mediumistic messages that
sometimes go in different directions, although Kardec,
apparently, had a well-defined position in this regard.
We highlight the message Charity, signed by Vicente de
Paulo and published in the Spiritist Magazine of
July 1858. In the seventh paragraph, the author states: When
you let your heart be open to the plea ofthe
first unfortunate person who reaches out to you; when
you give him something, without
questioning whether his misery is not pretended or whether
his illness stems from an addiction he has given rise to; when
you abandon all justice in divine hands; when you leave
the punishment of false misery to the Creator; when,
at last, you practice charity solely for the happiness
it provides and without inquiring of its usefulness,
then you will be God's beloved children and he will draw
you to him.
The highlighted thoughts follow the first opinion:
unconditional material help. There are ideas in the text
referring to material help without questioning, without
investigating the cause and the legitimacy of the
request or its usefulness.
Kardec does not seem to have fully agreed with the ideas
presented. After the message, the Encoder dialogs with
the entity, as follows:
Kardec:
- Charity can be understood in two ways: alms itself
and loving others. When you said that it was necessary
for the heart to open itself to the plea of the
unfortunate person who reaches out to us, without
questioning whether his misery would not be pretended,
did you not want to speak of charity from the point of
view of alms?
Vicente de Paulo - Yes;
only in that paragraph.
Kardec:
- You said that it was necessary to leave to God’s
justice the appreciation of false misery. It seems to
us, however, that giving without judgment to people who
have no need, or who could earn a living from honest
work, will be to stimulate addiction and laziness. If
lazy people found other people's purse very easily, they
would multiply to infinity, to the detriment of the true
unfortunates.
Vicente de Paulo:
- You can distinguish those who can work and then
charity forces you to do everything to provide them with
work; however, there are also false poor people, capable
of skillfully simulating miseries they do not have; it
is for these ones that all justice must be left to God.
We can see that Kardec, apparently, has contrary
opinions regarding the entity’s way of thinking,
questioning its real validity of providing a material
aid to those who could pay for themselves: [...]
giving without discernment could stimulate addiction and
laziness. Kardec adds that the lazy ones would multiply
to the infinite, to the detriment of the true
unfortunates.
It is evident from the text that Vicente de Paulo
reflects about what Kardec says and makes a note in
relation to the previous placement: you can
distinguish those who can work. For these ones, the
entity – answering Kardec - proposes, an action that
promotes decent work, sensitizing them to do so and
assisting them in this commitment.
Kardec’s thinking is aligned with the opinion of
specialists in social assistance and human improvement,
according to which almsgiving does not dignify or
improve human beings, often acting as a stimulus to
indolence. In Brazil, hundreds of municipal social
assistance secretariats work to enlighten citizens about
the best attitude towards the beggar, discouraging the
widespread practice of alms. In Sao Paulo it was found
that a child can earn, on average, R$ 500 per month at
city traffic lights. The experts ask: So, is it possible
to get them off the street? iv
When evolutionary psychologists study the evolution of
human social groups, particularly in the long period of
our prehistory, they are faced with the “problem of the
cheater or profiteer”, individuals who do not
contribute, but enjoy what is generated by collective
action. v
One of the most important traits in our psychology
concerns our social functioning, in particular our
ability to work as a team. Except for social insects
that, by genetic imposition, serve the colony, this
collectivist behavior is rarely seen among animals.
As soon as our ancestors left the trees, about 7 million
years ago, our very existence depended on the ability to
work together. It was this need for collective action
that produced the most important psychological change
that allowed us to prosper in the savannah, in addition
to just surviving. At some point in our evolutionary
history, our ancestors joined in collective defense, and
from then on, everyone had a greater chance of survival.
Individuals in groups who learned to work cooperatively
had an enormous advantage. Because anatomically, our
species is a fiasco: we run and jump badly, we don't
have sharp teeth and powerful claws for attack and
defense, our childhood is the longest and most fragile
in the animal kingdom, and yet we are today, the most
successful species on the planet. We owe this to the
union of efforts for the collective good.
However, there is a major threat to cooperation:
parasitism, or the tendency to escape heavy work and, at
the same time, share the benefits. As we evolved to
cooperate with each other, we also developed a system
for detecting cheaters and a strong emotional reaction
to profiteers, maintaining group harmony by developing a
particular sense of justice.
The most powerful weapon our ancestors used to fight the
cheater and the lazy was ostracism. To be expelled from
a group of primitive men was a death sentence in a
tremendously hostile world. For this reason, our
ancestors quickly developed a strong emotional reaction
to the threat of being placed outside the group or
losing their value to peers. This explains, in our
contemporary society, the insurmountable need to be well
regarded and valued before others. Social rejection is
incredibly painful.
Punishment of the profiteer and the cheater was
essential to the remarkable development of the species
Homo sapiens, and today it is the mainspring in
maintaining a reasonably stable social life.
This sense of justice does not exist among our closest
cousins, chimpanzees and are responsible for apparently
altruistic behaviors, which, in fact, denote a deep
evolutionary delay.
For example, consider what happens when chimpanzees hunt
monkeys. Monkey hunting is one of his few collective
activities, because monkeys find it very difficult to
escape when chimpanzees come from all sides. But even
when chimpanzees hunt in groups, not everyone gets
involved. Some remain seated, lazily watching the chaos
around them. When the hunt is over, they share their
prey, food rich in calories. What is surprising is that
those who were just watching also get their piece of
meat. Their chimpanzee colleagues make little or no
distinction between omissions and collaborators.
A clear contrast is observed with humans, even children
of four years pay close attention to those who help and
those who do not. When they earn sweets by working as a
team, they hide from those who did not help, but share
with those who helped. When forced to share with lazy
people, they say: - This is not fair!
This may not seem very friendly - it could even be a
behavior to be discouraged: after all, sharing is loving
- but from an evolutionary point of view it is crucial.
Animals that do not distinguish between collaborators
and viewers will never have the ability to create and
sustain effective teams.
Another example, even more impressive, is found in the
account of the primatologist Jane Goodall, when she
observed chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania. Melissa is a
chimpanzee who has just had a baby. Passion is another
chimpanzee in Melissa's group. Pom is Passion's teenage
daughter and both are violent psychopaths. One late
afternoon, Melissa, with her three-week-old baby, was on
a low tree branch when Passion and Pom attacked her
violently with punches and bites, leaving her stunned.
Then they took the baby and ate it without the mother,
who helplessly followed the scene, could do nothing.
Fifteen minutes after the loss of the baby, Melissa
approached Passion. The two faced each other; then
Melissa reached out and Passion touched her bloody hand.
While Passion continued to feed on the baby, Melissa
started to take care of her own injuries. Her face was
very swollen, her hands lacerated, her bottom bleeding
badly. Soon afterwards Melissa again reached out to
Passion, the two females held hands briefly.
What most disturbs the biologists who examined this fact
was not cannibalism itself, as it occasionally occurs
among chimpanzees, but the fact that Melissa reconciled
so quickly with the two killers. Worse, this was not an
isolated incident. Passion and Pom continued to kill and
eat newborns in their group for years. The other mothers
probably reacted to a large extent like Melissa,
fighting with all their might during the attack, but
then accepting their fate and doing nothing about it.
Doing nothing about those who use antisocial behavior
for their own benefit is not a good strategy in
maintaining a healthy community.
A recent example of the “problem of the profiter” is
found in ranchers and fishermen in the Pantanal of
Pocone, Mato Grosso vi. In 2013, the
fishermen colony numbered around 400 professional
fishermen. Being registered as a fisherman gave them
some advantages, among them receiving a monthly salary
during the months of November to February, when fishing
was prohibited because of the piracema (period of
reproduction of the fish). But during the period of
piracema, even receiving their wages, many fishermen
fish at night, hidden, and offer fish at high prices,
due to the lack of the product at this time of year. On
the other hand, many individuals who have professions or
even the wives of fishermen are registered as
professional fishermen to gain access to the
improvement.
Well, in January 2015, the government decided to review
all the benefits offered, because it found that in some
cities in the north of the country there were more
fishermen than residents.
In The Gospel According to Spiritism, vii Kardec
makes use of the expression professionals of begging when
referring to those individuals who make other people's
goodwill a way of life, keeping themselves out of decent
work, as real social parasites. Kardec does not proclaim
insensitivity or indifference to these people, but wants
to show that the help strategy must be different, since
serving them simply in their plea would not be the best
way to help them.
Kardec admits that, in certain situations, one should
consider the personal responsibility of those who come
to beg, by little effort, exploratory attitude or
accommodation to their own luck, without denying,
however, that society is also responsible for this
condition, for not having promoted, through
clarification and a good example, an identification with
the ethical values of human dignity, responsibility
and fraternity. Kardec reminds that if a good moral
education had taught them to practice the law of God,
they would not have fallen into the excesses that caused
their perdition. When referring to the truly
unfortunate, Kardec recognizes the need for society to
take care of those who find themselves without the
minimum conditions to bear the costs of their own
material survival. In the absence of a family, it is up
to society: the strong must work for the weak. Not
having this family, society must take the place of this
family. It is the law of charity. viii
It is important to point out that, at the time of the
Encoder, social security, as an aid and assistance to
the sick and elderly, did not exist. The first social
security institutes appeared well after Kardec's death,
at the end of the 19th century, initially in Germany and
soon after in other countries in Europe. Thus, the sick
and elderly who were unable to provide their own support
were dependent on the charity of others. There was no
retirement due to age or illness, health insurance, paid
leave for health care and other social services that
exist today in virtually every country on the globe.
We conclude by remembering that, curiously, Kardec
subsequently publishes the message of Vicente de Paulo,
in The Gospel According to Spiritism, Ch. 13,
item 12, deleting from the text the paragraph
alluded to by us.
_________________
i Spiritist
journey in 1862 -
Speeches made at general meetings of the Spiritists of
Lyon and Bordeaux III and Spiritist Magazine, 1862 /
September - A reconciliation by Spiritism.
ii Spiritist
Magazine -
Journal of Psychological Studies - 1862 / February
-Subscription in favor of the Lionese workers; Spiritist
Magazine - 1863 / January - Subscription in favor of the
Rouen workers; Spiritist Magazine - 1866 / November -
Subscription in favor of the flooded.
iii Fonte
Viva, ch. 60.
iv Gilberto
Dimenstein in Folha de Sao Paulo, 04/10/2005.
v
The unlikely evolution, William Von Hippel.
vi Evolutionary
Psychology Handbook, Yamamoto.
vii The
Gospel According to Spiritism, ch. 13, item 4.
viii The
Book of Spirits,
item 889.
ix The
Book of Spirits,
item 685-a. |