Generous People Inspire Giving

Empires are by definition selfish, because they give themselves permission to take over everything while offering nothing to those in their wake. To cover up the history, the dominant narrative insists that this is the way that everyone behaves, and that if given the resources, everyone would behave this way. After a while, people forget that there was ever a way to be without being selfish, and they begin imposing imperial standards on everyone instead of thinking for themselves. It is crucial at times like these to understand that just because a lie is often repeated does not make it truth, or the way thing have to be forever. For the record, generous people inspire giving and sharing because they normalize that kind of behavior, and only terrible people require that we all see violent behavior as “human nature.”

What is the main reason why billionaires and controlling individuals bought the airwaves? There are a number of reasons, propaganda being the main one, but the most crucial message that we have all been indoctrinated with is that if everyone had the resources, they would want to keep them, too. Selfish people inspire hoarding, which is one of the reasons that grassroots and radical movements rarely make the mainstream news within the empire. Instead of people who go around feeding people, teaching, and encouraging one another, we see things like the Oscars, the Met Gala, and the Superbowl–all of which are “luxuries” we could amass if we all “work hard enough.” Every now and then, one of these societal parasites will give a small fortune, but the key word is “small,” because when competing to be the richest in the world, you are required to keep everything to yourself.

Has anyone ever wondered why we are big about online consumption of goods and services? From the perspective of someone who has worked in fast food, there is nothing worse than people being able to disrupt an entire kitchen while doomscrolling on their phones in their pajamas. While there are some easier methods of sharing resources such as crowdfunding, mostly selfish people inspire more methods of taking from others, including peace. Why wait until something gets somewhere when one can have it “now”? I remember working in New York City in 2003, and I had a colleague from Manhattan who was wild about Barnes & Nobles delivery. We knew we could get our books the same day if we ordered by noon, and I had a ridiculous collection by the time I was 24 years old. These days, online orders can destroy a kitchen rush by ordering a banquet that needs to be done in fifteen minutes. Only selfish people can take something as “pure” as same day and potentially get businesses closed and people fired by not being able to deliver.

In my neighborhood, there are a number of community fridges, and not just people but businesses participate, which has been a real boon to a communal household full of poorer people. Community groups do what they can, but when people make it easier to share, life becomes a little bit easier as we navigate the hellscape that we have been forced to endure. There are people who cannot work, but those people are able to seek out opportunities to share with the rest of the household and repair things to be used again for others. Giving people inspire communities that evolve because different people can do different things at different times, ensuring that fewer people feel deprivation. Even as needs and populations shift, communities acquire new skills and assets, which can then be redistributed to other people, which is how long-term neighborhoods used to be able to function in capitalism until selfish people gained more control than they ever should have had.

In theory, there is supposed to be a succession of leadership ensuring that different people will gain control on a regular basis. Within the empire, there is a terrible habit of waiting until one is about to die before giving others a chance to demonstrate their skills. Simultaneously, the people in leadership tend to block any effort to redistribute power to the point of social stagnation. Among smaller community groups–excluding churches, which have multiple kinds of problems–there tends to be a consistent succession of leaders because during their tenure, those leaders have been busy. Giving people exert all their energy into doing the best jobs they can so that when the time comes to relinquish power, they do it willingly because they are thrilled at the chance to sit still and enjoy seeing the efforts of others.

The United States empire was founded by taking people, resources, and services away from many and hoarding it for the few, which is why we are all “enjoying” this reckoning of reality. All of the suburbanites who thought that they were “good” by foisting all the pain into “unseen” communities are finally learning that their lies did not make them caring individuals. Everyone who thought that becoming rich was a noble aspiration is finding out what it takes to manipulate others out of their hard-won resources, and they find themselves standing alone in the world. At the end of cycles, selfish people always find out that being selfish and affirming such behavior leads to eventual abandonment, and they will ultimately be left in the state they pretend is their favorite: alone, by themselves.