Giving

Charity and Philanthropy in History

Robert H. Bremner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351517478
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: History

"According to Greek mythology mankind's first benefactor was the Titan, Prometheus, who gave fire, previously the exclusive possession of the gods, to mortal man." With these words the esteemed scholar Robert Bremner presents the first full-fledged history of attitudes toward charity and philanthropy. 'Giving' is a perfect complement to his earlier work The Discovery of Poverty in the United States. The word 'philanthropy' has been translated in a variety of ways: as a loving human disposition, loving kindness, love of mankind, charity, fostering mortal man, championing mankind, and helping people. Bremner's book covers all of these meanings in rich detail. Bremner describes the ancient world and classical attitudes toward giving and begging; Middle Ages and early modern times, emphasizing hospitals and patients and donors and attributes of charity; the eighteenth century and the age of benevolence; the nineteenth century and the growth of the concept of public relief and social policy; and a careful multiple chapter review of the twentieth century. Bremner reviews the act of giving in such comparative contexts as London, England and Kasrilevke, Russia with such figures as Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, and Sholem Aleichem, as well as the more familiar wealthy industrialist/philanthropists, forming part of the narrative. The final chapters bring the story up to date, discussing the relationships of modem philanthropy and organized charity, and the uses of philanthropy in education and the arts. Bremner has an astonishing knowledge of the cultural context and the economic contents of philanthropy. As a result, this volume is intriguing as well as important history, written with lively style and wit. Whether the reader is a professional in the so-called "third stream" or "independent sector," or simply a citizen wondering just what the act of giving and the spirit of receiving is all about, 'Giving' will be compelling reading.

PART ONE
The Ancient World

Prologue: The First Philanthropist

According to Greek mythology mankind's first benefactor was the Titan, Prometheus, who gave fire, previously the exclusive possession of the gods, to mortal man. For this act Zeus condemned Prometheus to be bound to a mountain peak, forever exposed to burning sun and bitter cold. In Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) Prometheus's captors tell him his punishment is the reward of his philanthropos. Scholars have offered various translations for the word: philanthropy, man-loving disposition, loving kindness, love of mankind, human charity, fostering mortal man, championing mankind, and helping men.

1
Classical Attitudes toward Giving and Begging

In The Odyssey, which, with The Iliad, is the oldest surviving work of Greek literature, Homer offers glimpses of attitudes toward begging and giving in the ninth century B.C. These attitudes, like ours today, were ambivalent. Both Homer and his characters express contempt for common vagabonds who lie and cheat, and advocate harsh punishment "to teach beggars not to cheat." On the other hand there is always the possibility that a beggar might be a god or goddess in disguise, and so it behooves one to show consideration for him or her.

Toward the end of The Odyssey the hero, after years of wandering, returns to his kingdom of Ithaca to find his estate overrun with suitors seeking his wife's consent to marriage, Odysseus's guardian goddess, Athena, disguises him as an old tramp to protect him from the suitors until he can devise a plan to get rid of them. In shabby clothes and unrecognizably altered in appearance, Odysseus enters the hall where the suitors are dining. Only his son Telemachus is aware of his identity. At Telemachus's invitation and Athena's command Odysseus begs food from each of the suitors. All give him something except Antinous, who berates the swineherd who has sheltered Odysseus for bringing an unwanted beggar to the city, and throws a stool at the old tramp. Neither Antinous nor the other suitors know they are being tested; Athena has had Odysseus beg from the suitors in order to distinguish the good from the bad by their response to his appeal. Homer informs us, however, that even as Athena orders the test she has resolved that all the suitors, good and bad, are to be destroyed.¹

Response to beggars may reveal character, but there is no agreemerit on what the response should be. Both Antinous and Odysseus (in different circumstances) resort to violence against a beggar; Antinous is criticized, Odysseus congratulated by the suitors for having beaten one in a fight, Antinous chides the other suitors for taking the easy way by being generous with other people's property. Homer leaves it unclear whether Antinous's refusal was based on principled opposition to begging or on personal stinginess.²

Some people maintain that it takes more character and is better for all concerned to say no to beggars than to give to them. Hesiod, a Greek poet who wrote around 700 B.C., was of that opinion. In Works and Days he tells his brother he has given him enough and will give no more. "Work foolish Perses," he advises, "for this is what the gods have decreed for men." Don't pester your neighbors or waste time in envy and idle dreaming. "Work prospers with care: he who postpones wrestles with ruin."³ In similar spirit, Plutarch quoted a Spartan who rebuffed a beggar by saying, "If I should give, you will be the more a beggar; and for this unseemly conduct of yours he who first gave to you is responsible, for he thus made you lazy."⁴ Andrew Carnegie, quoting the Spartan in an essay expanding on his Gospel of Wealth, added, "There are few millionaires, very few indeed, who are clear of the sin of having made beggars."⁵

On giving in general, as opposed to giving to beggars or the poor, Hesiod's advice —this time to the "princes" or large landowners of Boetia, the district of Greece where he lived —was succinct.

Love those who love you and help those who help you. Give to those who give to you, never to those who do not.

As Hesiod saw it, self-interest should be the guiding principle in both giving and withholding. On self-indulgence he counseled:

Drink all you want when your jar is full or almost empty. Sparing is good at midpoint and useless when the bottom shows.⁶

In these lines, and in the ones quoted earlier, Hesiod voices what Thorstein Veblen (1859-1929) called "pragmatic knowledge," which he defined as "didactic exhortations to thrift, prudence, equanimity, and shrewd management — of maxims of expedient conduct." Veblen believed that in this field of knowledge there had been "scarcely a degree of advance from Confucius to Samuel Smiles."⁷ Hesiod antedated Confucius by several centuries.

Ennius (239-169 B.C.) was the first major epic poet in Latin. Only fragments of his work survive in quotations by later writers. Cicero used the following in his On Moral Obligations:

The man who kindly guides a stranger on his way, Lights as it were another's lantern from his own nor is his light the less for kindling the other.

The moral Cicero drew from the lines was "whatever kindness can be done without personal loss should be done, even for a stranger."⁸

Cicero (106-43 B.C.), a statesman, orator, and philosopher, wrote On Moral Obligations in 44 B.C., ostensibly for the instruction of his son. In discussing generosity he cited three caveats on giving: first, the gift should not be prejudicial to the recipient or others; second, the gift should not exceed the donor's means or impoverish his family; and third, it should be in keeping with the merits of the recipient, taking into consideration character, relationship, and attitude to and services to the donor. Of the three caveats the most important was the first; in discussing it Cicero emphasized the "others" affected by the gift in addition to the recipient. Among those he had in mind were the rightful owners of estates seized by Sulla and Caesar and transferred to favorites or political allies. "No action," he declared, "can be at the same time generous and unjust."⁹

Because helping others by one's own effort and influence involved work and courage, Cicero deemed it morally superior to gifts of money. Kindness dependent on the size of one's purse limits the number of people who can be helped and may dry up the source of generosity. Conversely, those who help others in nonmonetary ways gain a double advantage. "The more they help the more allies they will have in their good works," and the better prepared and fit they will become for broader service.¹⁰

Cicero divided money givers into "the prodigal" and "the generous." He deplored the former's lavish expenditures to flaunt their wealth and win popularity by sponsoring feasts, distribution of food, gladiatorial contests, and fights with animals. These attempts to curry favor with the public had no lasting results and were soon forgotten. "The generous" gave money to ransom captives or those held by kidnappers, to provide dowries, or to pay off a friend's debts. Generosity for these purposes was appropriate, providing the beneficiaries were deserving and the gifts were made with care and moderation, avoiding "indiscriminate benevolence" and observing "a happy mean, which means taking our circumstances into account."¹¹ Nothing struck him as more foolish "than being so generous that further generosity becomes impossible."¹²

Cicero was a contemporary of Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) and wrote On Moral Obligation in the year of Caesar's death. While Cicero was concerned about giving to individuals, Caesar (who Cicero would have counted among "the prodigals") left large legacies for public purposes.¹³ According to Plutarch's account of the assassination of Caesar and the events following the reading of his will —written about a century and a half after the events took place —the announcement of Caesar's "liberal legacie of money, bequeathed unto every citizen of ROME" together with the display of his mangled body inflamed the previously indifferent populace against Brutus and his confederates.¹⁴ Shakespeare, who based The Tragedy of Julius Caesar on Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives (1579), improved on Caesar's generosity. In the funeral oration, Marc Antony tells the crowd that in addition to money

he hath left you all his walks, his private arbors and new-planted orchards on this side Tiber; he hath left them to you and to your heirs for ever; common pleasure, to walk abroad in and recreate yourselves.¹⁵

In this instance a prodigal gift had important consequences and, thanks to literature, has not been forgotten.

On Benefits by Seneca the Younger (4 b.c-a.d 65), like Cicero's On Moral Obligations, was written late in the author's life, probably in the years a.d. 62-64. Born in Spain and educated in Rome, Seneca was a philosopher and dramatist as well as tutor to and minister to Nero in the early years of the latter's reign (a.d. 54-67). He was out of favor with the emperor when he wrote On Benefits and, accused of complicity in a plot against Nero, committed suicide shortly after completing the work. Seneca was about one hundred years younger than Cicero; his views on giving were similar to Cicero's but were expressed in a more urbane and worldly way and with less moral earnestness. He stressed the appropriateness of the gift to the giver as well as the receiver— we should not give a larger or a smaller amount than is proper for someone in our station: "Some gifts are too small to come fitingly from the hands of a great man, and some are too large for the other to take." As an example of an inappropriate and inconsiderate gift he cited the proffer by Alexander —"madman that he was and incapable of conceiving any plan that was not grandiose" —of an entire city to a friend unprepared and unwilling to assume the burden that accepting the gift would entail. Seneca scoffed at Alexander's response: "I am concerned, not in what is becoming for you to receive, but in what is becoming for me to give." There is no such thing as a becoming gift in itself; "it all depends upon who gives it and who receives it —the when, wherefore, and where of the gift."¹⁶

To a friend who complained of having met with ingratitude Seneca replied that the experience was not uncommon and should not make the donor ungenerous or unduly cautious. "In order to discover one grateful person, it is worthwhile to make trial of many ungrateful ones." The very uncertainty of gratitude, Seneca wrote, "may prompt you to become more charitable. For when the outcome of any undertaking is unsure, you must try again and again in order to succeed ultimately."¹⁷

In "How To Tell A Flatterer from a Friend" Plutarch tells the story of a man who learns that a friend who has fallen ill has also fallen on hard times. Pretending to rearrange his friend's pillow, he slips money under it. In the morning, when a servant finds the mone...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One The Ancient World
• Part Two Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
• Part Three The Eighteenth Century
• Part Four The Nineteenth Century
• Part Five 1890s to the Present
• Bibliography
• Index