The cult of self-flagellation

[shoulders]

Is anyone else a little unsettled by the connection between personal sacrifice and fundraising?

This is a world where, after all, around 15 exceptionally wealthy individuals could transform the causes people fundraise for, harm themselves over, earn poverty rations for very quickly.

It feels almost obscene that instead of pressing home that point there is an entertainment cult of fundraising through sacrifice that I haven't seen challenged.

It's a very difficult topic to challenge, because of the general response being "how can you object to good thing?"

I am just about old enough to remember Savile, who through all his ghastliness appeared to genuinely believe in the Catholic idea that sins can be forgiven through acts of goodness, creating a kind of balance sheet where in his head "fucked three kids, probs gonna have to run to Oswestry for the Ethiopians".

Since then I haven't ever shaken a kind of sickly, off-taste to fundraising, not just because of what he did, but its appeal to the most egotistical people in public life.

Am I against charitable giving? No, although I obviously bemoan the fact funding works like this, constantly hammering small change out of us plebs and grand gestures from peacocking slebs.

I also accept charities would earn less in donations if they didn't do this, which is very sad and depressing.

But I feel that a foothold has to be secured in this argument to make any progress at all. Despite the best, pure intentions of most, I find the acts of sacrifice people do variously (ie. not all of these all the time): pathetic, embarrassing, pointless, narcissistic, and obscene.

Baked beans, silence, tough mudders, ultra-marathons. Please just spare this and get the resources we have already from the people who have the most resources.

Cheers!

[baptist]

The worst of the lot.

[madhair60]

you will need to give some example sacrifices for me to get cracking on this one

and you'll need to be quick about it because you know he's coming, i know he's coming, and once he's here it's over so chop chop scrooge mcduck.

[Buelligan]

Always not thought about this stuff - ignore is active - it's not active.  It's just like knowing somewhere there are people polishing shoehorns.  Just let them get on with it if it gets them off.

Give all you can to those that you believe it'd help and say no more about it.  Sometimes you have to ask for help, that can be embarrassing, rattling the tin for someone or thing, what else can one do?  Politely ignore?  Of course not.  So you have to.

[madhair60]

Give all you can to those that you believe it'd help

i believe it would help me, to give me, my own money

[The Mollusk]

Fundraiser where people donate money but all I do in return is sit in bed doomscrolling, BUT!! the reality is that it's actually horrible for me to perpetually delay doing anything productive with my life and instead hide in my little blue light cocoon muffling the roar of the unfathomable wave of anxiety at it grows steadily larger outside. You just have to trust me that it's a supreme act of self loathing and torture as I whizz past lovely wholesome videos on r/mademesmile which do the exact opposite of making me smile.

[madhair60]

i don't need to worry about this stuff because i have brought joy and light to the world with my web comic "Merry Hell"

[Shaxberd]

I find the idea of the sponsored self-sacrifice a little odd - why give someone money to run a marathon when you could just give the money to the charity and the runner can save their breath - but at least it's vastly better than the charity humblebrag. You know the kind, that keen type at work who comes into the office in lycra cycling gear wants you to sponsor them to climb Kilimanjaro. Don't kid yourself mate, you just want to go on holiday and climb a mountain, but this way you get to make a big deal about it.

[Underturd]

i believe it would help me, to give me, my own money

This strikes me as a very sensible view.

[Buelligan]

i believe it would help me, to give me, my own money

I'll give you such a fucking whopping in a moment.  Sit quiet NOW!

Truth is I haven't got any money.  Gave it all to fucking UNWRA.  Expecting a bang on the door soon.  Where's my fucking cheer?

[madhair60]

you won't do shit. you're all the way over there, i'm all the way right here. never the twain. so sit down yourself.

[Buelligan]

Yep.  You know it.  Might get a friend to do it.  Sponsor them, maybe.

[buttgammon]

To some degree, this is probably because of the way the logic of capitalism has infected everything, in that it makes charity more transactional and provides something in return, much like poppies, daffodils and badges. Give money and it doesn't just disappear into the invisible machinery of whatever the organisation does, but you actually get to see photos of your smug colleague atop a mountain/a world record broken on the telly/David Walliams eating sewage (the last one is worth it to be fair).

[madhair60]

Yep.  You know it.  Might get a friend to do it.  Sponsor them, maybe.

i don't like to get violent on here - its against my kind nature - but i will kill any man, women or child you send for me. they will be going home in a body bag (multiple body bags if necesary)

[Buelligan]

Good.  I'll send someone I hate.

[madhair60]

hold that thought, i just received notice i am to take out a hit on... madhair60?

the most dangerous game.

[Buelligan]

*laughs*

[TrenterPercenter]

Trying to raise money for causes = bad, change the game not the players fule!

Moaning on the internet = good, the players are important, the game will not change without them!

Probably best to separate certain "characters" from the charitable acts they are donating too which aren't doing it to negate the need for state-funding, it usually involves raising awareness towards issues with donations a form of action rather than simply money.  That isn't to say donations aren't put to good use and have absolutely directly saved people lives and provided people with support, the other option of course could be starve them all until they are forced into muh revolution, which people won't admit to because is sadistic psychopathy and in a round about way quite a Tory mindset that market forces should dominate over compassion - its just they haven't convinced themselves that naturally a revolution, and a good one at that will take place, and the costs will therefore outweigh the benefits.

Puts me in mind of a professor I was working with from Boston.  He showed me the levels of snow that had been falling there recently, to the roof of his house with him having to tunnel his family out.  I asked him what happens to the homeless people though? He said bluntly, they die, and they get pulled out the snow in the following weeks.  It transpired that is why he and others fund community spaces to get folk inside to protect them from this.  Now you could say "let the bodies pile high" and the state will have to listen but you'd be condemning many to death when you could have done something.

Of course people doing nice things is going to get up your wick if you are someone pretending to be nice but actually doing fuck all about anything in reality, that's not something hard to comprehend is it, it's called envy.

Disclaimer: I did tough mudder once and raised a fuck load of money for motor neurone disease, I absolutely did this because I wanted to do tough mudder for the craic and whilst doing it thought why not earn a few bob for a good cause. I feel bad now for not considering how it might have impacted on those with the constant need to demonstrate their small dick energy in public spaces.

[Zero Gravitas]

I assume it's because the visible suffering of the fundraiser stands in for the suffering those the funds are being raised for, the suffering of homeless dogs, or GVH suffers is repressed and disavowed, or at least can't be performed for the giver - an attempt to confront people with it directly would invoke disgust and shame them for not having deal with it directly.

Giving a stand-in performance of suffering allows the givers to have that as the immediate grounding for why they're giving, and allows them to make the wider claim "I've given X to Y" mediated by this special event, without short circuiting to the shameful "I could always have given X to Y but I didn't".

Isn't helped by there being a host of people who think the fact they rolled around in mud and baked beans is something deeply positive abut themselves in some way.

Not one of those behaviours you're supposed to introspect on.

[Steve Faeces]

As a rule I only give to a select number of causes that I actually believe in and have researched rather than what the fundraising activity is. If someone is furiously masterbating all day with a hat on for CND I'll probably still give a quid or two. If they're doing an ultra marathon for Help for Heroes or those charities that exist because the state has failed in its duties to its citizens then nah.

[TrenterPercenter]

Isn't helped by there being a host of people who think the fact they rolled around in mud and baked beans is something deeply positive abut themselves in some way.

Tough mudder is loads of fun I have to say, it's silly but there is a really nice vibe going on where people help each other that are in trouble (the proper competitors are given a headstart so they can "compete").  And it's not all fit twinks there to make you feel fuzzy-tummy shame but lots of people with disabilities and 70+ers doing it because life is too short to sit about moaning about everything and not participate in things you think you might not or even should not attempt.

[Butchers Blind]

I don't give to charity as I'm not sure which is the best one. I mean it's probably something like kids with cancer but I don't want to chance it and find out there's probably a more worthy cause and then I've wasted that 50p.

[TrenterPercenter]

Here is 50p, kid with cancer, go get yerself some chemos

[Zero Gravitas]

Tough mudder is loads of fun I have to say, it's silly but there is a really nice vibe going on where people help each other that are in trouble (the proper competitors are given a headstart so they can "compete").  And it's not all fit twinks there to make you feel fuzzy-tummy shame but lots of people with disabilities and 70+ers doing it because life is too short to sit about moaning about everything and not participate in things you think you might not or even should not attempt.

Just Beans bad then.

[Mr_Simnock]

this thread now makes sense of when Shoulders insisted we go round decking all the chuggers in the arndale at the last CaB meet in manc

[TrenterPercenter]

Just Beans bad then.

Get right up yer man chuff and you'll be popping them out for days.

[gilbertharding]

why give someone money to run a marathon when you could just give the money to the charity and the runner can save their breath

You know that some people enjoy running, and would really like to run The London Marathon... but because they can't qualify for a place due to their actual athletic ability, know that the only way to get a place is to do it for a charity? Did you know that?

[Shaxberd]

You know that some people enjoy running, and would really like to run The London Marathon... but because they can't qualify for a place due to their actual athletic ability, know that the only way to get a place is to do it for a charity? Did you know that?

I did not know that! I didn't realise you had to be sponsored to be one of the non athletes doing it for fun, but I suppose it helps restrict participants or any old chancer might turn up and get in the way of the people taking it seriously.

[gilbertharding]

I did not know that! I didn't realise you had to be sponsored to be one of the non athletes doing it for fun, but I suppose it helps restrict participants or any old chancer might turn up and get in the way of the people taking it seriously.

My brother in law has run the London Marathon quite a few times, and I remember the first time he was quite adamant that he did NOT want or need sponsoring, thank you. He was a member of a running club who got a few places - he had to enter a ballot I think. Having done it in a respectable time, I gather he 'earned' a place subsequently.

Seemingly there are the Elite Athletes, the Amateur Athletes, the people who are Serious Runners who nevertheless have to be sponsored to get a place, and then there are the Whacky Fuckers who have to run dress as dinosaurs or giant babies.

[bgmnts]

If cunts want to run through mud to pass some more time away til they die, fair enough.

Unsure if mixing that with charity is a good thing, though. Maybe it assuaged the guilt of privilege I dunno.