Who Is Wise Enough?

Michael Ignatieff once wrote, “There are few presumptions in human relations more dangerous than the idea that one knows what another human being needs better than they do themselves.”

Who is wise enough to establish standards by which all of us should give? Let’s bring it even closer home. Who is to make those judgments about my capacity to give? Is this estimate mine alone to make? Should we take offense at the implied calculations of others who are asking us for our fair share to some cause?

"Miss Manners," the etiquette columnist of the Washington Post, tartly commented some years ago about this practice. "Making assumptions about how much money other people have and how much they can spare is rude." This kind of boorish behavior, she believed, encroaches upon our right to privacy.

Is it really possible in a democratic society for anyone to claim that they know how to measure my generosity – or yours, for that matter? But if we say “no,” then aren’t we denying the possibilities of common standards and responsibilities? Or is that the right question?

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Is “Spontaneity” in Giving a Sure Sign of Generosity?

You can’t “measure” true “generosity.” So say a fair number of critics of American thinking about giving.

Hear, for instance, one voice crying out against tithing in the 1950s. “When giving is from the heart, it is characterized by spontaneity, and in its perpetual newness it is always creative.” A “response” of “immediacy” is far different – the opposite, in fact – from “measuring” out money according to percentages or some guess about our “fair share.”  The common charge against such habitual gestures is “legalism.”

Here once again is a modern reminder of the age-old theological argument between “law” and “grace.” Fulfillment of the “law” can lead to arrogance and prickly self-righteousness. "Grace," some say, allows us to respond in the right way at the right moment.

Yet is “spontaneity” in giving a sure sign of generosity? Sometimes that can lead to impulsive gestures that “feel good” but amount to little more than sentimental and even foolish gifts. Is “giving from the heart” invariably “creative?” Can we get along without “laws?” Is our dependence upon “laws” a sign of our own immaturity?