Charity and of being like the Fox

 Charity creates a multitude of sins. Oscar Wilde

I am listening to Arundhati Roy author of "The God of Small Things ," on Desert Island discs. She has been making the point that the poor, the homeless live in the cracks of conventional society between it's institutions and it's assumptions. I reflect that today is "random acts of kindness day" . The media is full of stories about people interpreting these acts as giving a few quid to the homeless and providing food. The truth is that these random acts do nothing to change the structural causes of homelessness and poverty. These problems can only be solved by political action and structural change. The vulnerable should not be labeled as vulnerable they should be described as the oppressed. Charity is predicated on lack of equality it makes the government feel better and yet deep down there is a relief that the giver does not have these problems that the recipient has i share the views of Oscar Wilde that the need for charity shows how unpleasant a particular society is. Christian charity has at its root the implication that poverty is the result of an individual's fate or of his or her own decisions. It is a duty to give rather than to take action on the words of the Magnificay. A truer random act of kindness would be to promote understanding, to educate yourself on others and explain while simplistic solutions are false. A random act would be to campaign for the oppressed , to walk a mile in someone's shoes...To understand that the Holy Family fleeing from Herod were refugees , that the disciples came from the ranks of the oppressed . These would be true acts if Random kindness and not an approach to deal with our own insecurities and fears...The solutions are collective and cooperative not individual ....

I am listening now to the reading of "Be like the Fox" .It's a biography of Niccolo Machiaevelli . I have always admired him and many people unfortunately have a very poor view of him, Often this is based on no reading or appreciation of his work. The book the "Prince" was written for rulers in an imperfect occupied Italy . It is advice for those living in an imperfect world , where bullies and tyrants distort and control society it talks about how to resist and challenge such individuals. Nicolo would have loved social media he would have much to offer resistors in the modern state under late capitalism. He would have much to offer us in Brexit Britain and give us the key to fight back. I have read Nicolo for over thirty years . I first discovered him because of the introduction to his work by Professor Syd Anglo nearly 40 years ago. Thanks Syd . I have been like the Fox ever since....