I believe much more strongly in mutual aid.
That it should only be a last resort, held for the most desperate times, and if you were in those terrible straights, your life focus should be to get out of it as quickly as possible, and to pay back everything you received and more.
Dear. Beloved. Costly. Expensive. Valued.
If you don't pay them, you end up with your stuff taken away and yourself in prison.
Since it's not voluntary, it should be reserved for things that are necessary for survival, not propping up luxury beliefs.
But I believe that healthcare that is accessible, that support for people struggling with poverty, and decent education, is best provided coherently, at scale, by an organisation that works at a societal scale, like, say, a government.
When I was young, my society, funded by people paying taxes, gave me access to a decent education (although I squandered that), access to healthcare, and kept me from starving or becoming homeless when I was poor.
So I am very happy to pay higher taxes, as it funds effective solutions. Am I less compassionate because I don't give money to a church, or coach a sports team?
This publication feels like an opportunity for people who routinely tithe then vote against helping out others in their society to pat themselves on their back in complete denial of how poorly the USA does when it comes to supporting (or perhaps I should say, choosing to support) the people on the lower rungs of the American Dream.
Could government be more effective? Yes. Definitely. Is it more effective than a hodge podge of random charities? Yes, and obviously so.
Your private beliefs aside, this isn't currently borne out in the US. The idea is attractive and sounds plausible, but now rarely works at scale without enormous inefficiency. Provide objective examples of your success stories, please.
Private charity's weakness is that it is non-uniform. Government charity's weakness is inefficiency. The former likely gives more but to fewer people. The latter should reach more people, but likely gives less to each. Which works best to get the most resources to those in need is debateable.
The USA isn't trying very hard.
Even in very religious societies (Hindu, Jews, Muslims) all such abstract constructions are nothing but virtue signalling.
Reality is what is going on in Mariupol right now.
I seem to often hear such kinds of claims repeated: Only hardship and poverty is real, and the mundane life of people living "sheltered" lives in western countries is somehow just a bubble, artificial.
Why would that be the case?
It's not so much that our sheltered lives are fake, it's that they're opaque, and built directly on top of what the OP considers to be real. They're built on top of hardship and poverty, of slavery and unimaginable suffering, and yet we look the other way because wow that's a great deal on Nikes and oh look a $200 4k TV, you know you deserve one of those you've lived with 1080p for long enough. How many of the few who acknowledge and condemn the world of suffering that modern Western society is built upon actually live the austere lives that would be needed to abolish it?
Our sheltered lives are built on hardship and poverty too, the fundamental difference is that it is someone else's hardship and poverty a world away.
I'd guess that about 1/10th of the church donation ends up being spent on what most people would call charity and the other 9/10ths gets spent on ministry.
So I'm therefore giving about 1% of my income to "charity" but probably getting credit for 5.5% because Brooks (and others) lump that ministry giving into the figure.
Obviously I believe that that ministry giving is super important because I'm very religious, but I think that using ministry giving to claim that religious people are more compassionate is silly.
Christianity isn't a contest about who's nicer, and as a Christian I do not want to be compared to some "other" who isn't as "compassionate" according to Brooks or anybody.
This book is very likely just conservative propaganda that drives motivated reasoning.
So all my respect goes towards religious (and non-religious) organizations that do the actual charitable work in the background, getting barely any recognition (or donation). And shame on those who hijack the good will of people, especially in the name of God.
― Dorothy Day
