No good deed goes unpunished

When kindness vilifies you

Have you ever helped someone only for that someone to turn against you? “The ingratitude!” you think to yourself. Yet, haughtily expecting acknowledgment for your mercy is why you are the villain of your story. Let me explain…

Beneath the pathological self-righteous altruism - of Christians and Western socialists alike - lies the true motivation behind many alleged “acts of kindness.” These pretentious good deeds come from a place of selfish pride. Such pompous self-serving benevolence comes with entitlement to be loved and respected, which renders the kindness meaningless. Faux kindness originates from a desperate need to worship oneself as pious, benevolent, graceful, and even superior enough to afford looking down on and helping others. What better way for the self-obsessed and insecure to nurture their afflictions than with self-patting and delusions of benevolence?

What’s worse is the underlying condescension and pity you infer towards the recipients of your help. You must truly disrespect someone to feel sorry for him, as you patronize him with your alms of humiliating charity. You look down on him from your high horse of excellence as you throw him a bone from your leftovers.

Victimhood economics

The recipients of your help feel condescended, patronized, and disrespected by you. They feel indebted to you, and guilty for accepting your help. You belittle them with the help, whether they asked for it or not. They also develop a tormenting impostor syndrome, since they can’t stand knowing that their survival relied on your help. If they don’t feel guilt for receiving your help, then they at least feel shame for needing it, even though they asked for it in their desperation.

Alternatively, if they played the victimhood card to deceive you for your help (like most beggars do), then your help is a reminder of their identity as a deceiver, a scammer, a sleazy liar, a vile abuser. After you - their victim of deception - validate and reinforce their villainous identity, don’t be surprised when they turn their villainy against you.

Historical pity

The British paid with their labour and lives to forcefully end the practice of slavery in Africa, only to be hated today by the ancestors of the same people they helped. It would have been more logical if only the ancestors of African slavers felt aggrieved. But those who proclaim to detest slavery seem to be very much for slavery when they outrageously demand “reparations:” the free labour of others, also known as slavery. The recipient of help turns against the bestower of help; the position of being helped is a reminder of his weakness.

Help a beggar, and see him hate you for it. Your help rewards him and tempts him to become comfortable in his supposed “impoverished state.” Your help encourages him to keep asking for more help, abusing you with his implied emotional blackmail: “If you want to keep your self-image as a generous person, you need to keep paying up.”

Reversal

The Turks never officially acknowledged the Armenian and Greek genocides (1913-1923) that the Turkish state committed systematically in a coordinated and official way. Oftentimes they do brag about them, and justify them, but they never apologize for them. And the world respects them for it. Mongols revere their Genghis Khan, the greatest butcher and rapist of human history. I don’t see mass protests demanding reparations from Mongolia. No one holds historical hate towards Mongolia, because Mongols are unapologetic about it. Israeli atrocities are never acknowledged by the state of Israel, yet the Jewish people are treated as if a superior master race. No one respects the nice-guy apologetic kind.

People respect you when you deny them kindness because you respect them enough to deny them pity. Your refusal to offer kindness implies that you give them enough credit that they’ll be OK without it. Even though they initially feel rejected on one level, they feel respected on another more subconscious one.

Respect

I never give money to a street beggar. Never.

First off, in the welfare-abuse government of today, no one should have the gall to beg on top of the free money their victimhood buys them; we already pay way too much in the state’s forced charity.

Second, if he can walk around all day, or sit on the cold concrete using his manipulative begging scripts, he can easily get a sales job at a brokerage company. There is absolutely no way he can’t physically work like the rest of us. So, I recognize his ability to work by refusing to give him free money. I show him that I know how capable he is, and that he doesn’t really need my help - he just wants it because it’s easier at the cost of his dignity. I empower him by not being kind to him, when those being kind to him only debilitate him, and keep him in his undignified state by rewarding his self-destructive behaviour. Begging is a drug, and I won’t pay for their next dose.

I remember the last time I rejected a beggar… This early-20s kid from African decent, all dressed up with swagger, comes up to me claiming he has no money to eat. It was obvious he was used to using his skin color for victimhood points. I scanned him from top to bottom: expensive trainers, fashionable clothes, a watch, and a phone almost as big as a tablet. I knew that he wasn’t really in trouble. He was fine. Besides, with what audacity did he ask for help without offering something, anything, in return? So, I respected him by acknowledging his ability to stand on his own two feet. I said “Can’t help you, man.” He didn’t like my response. I didn’t give him kind niceness. But I gave him harsh respect. He wanted niceness, but he needed respect. Unfortunately, people don’t value what they need - only what they want.

By not being kind to him, I was being respectful to him. People need more respect than kindness these days. If they realized this, they’d be more empowered. Yes, begging makes more and easier money per hour, but at the cost of dignity and a self-respecting identity. Begging is short-sighted - easy profit in the now. But what is money worth without dignity?

Western self-righteous guilt

The world hates the Western virtue-signaling welfare nations of pathological charity, the European cultures of self-righteous guilt and condescending pity towards their pet noble savages. Westerners receive hate because they fail to respect others. Western “aid” and “intervention” and “foreign policy” - despite them being covers for money laundering and economic expansionism - are acts of passive-aggressive condescension, pity, and disrespect. Nobody appreciates being “aided.” People, even scammer beggars, deep-down prefer the recognition and respect that comes with you showing faith in their ability to stand on their own two feet. Your “aid,” on the other hand, is further validation that they can’t.

If you wonder why you are disrespected, perhaps look at the subtle ways in which you disrespect others. Your pretentious self-serving “charity” is one of them.

Objection

“What are you saying? That we should never help anyone?”

Yes and no. What I am saying is that you should never help anyone when your help comes from a place of self-righteous pride, or from disrespectful pity towards the person you are helping.

Also, what kind of help are we talking about? Do you give someone a free fish every day, or do you teach him how to fish? Your help should be something that empowers them to stand on their own two feet, not something that makes them more comfortable to stay down on the ground. Don’t incentivize and reward their debilitation.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach the man how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. - Unknown

Let’s say you truly want to help someone - not to stroke your ego, not to condescend him with your self-righteous pity - but because you feel he deserves help, and that he has true potential to offer greatness to the world. What kind of help do you offer? Is it free money without expecting him to put it to good use? No, this is condescending. A more respectful offer would be (if money is the object) to offer a loan, and to expect repayment when he succeeds. This is a more respectful way of assisting him. You show faith in his ability to make it, and therefore, pay you back.

What if the person needs help getting ahead, maybe with a job opportunity, or a foot in the door? You can help him with pointers on how to improve his skill-set, interview skills, and even appearance. If you are doing the hiring, don’t just hand him a position at the expense of others more deserving of it. This will make him hate you for triggering his impostor syndrome, since he’ll know that he owes it all to you and your nepotism. You will be responsible for making him feel like a fraud, after you’ve deprived him of a solid self-respecting identity of his own.

Carrying people on your back is not helping them.

Parenthetical

As I was writing this, I learned of an acquaintance of mine who got in serious trouble because of his charity. An alleged asylum seeker appeared at his motorbike shop, offering to sell “his bicycle” before supposedly “leaving the country.” My acquaintance wasn’t interested, because his specialty was motorbikes only. But the asylum seeker appealed to pity; he whined and begged for help because he was allegedly poor and helpless, and “had no money” to make the trip. So, my acquaintance felt sorry for him enough to offer him money for the bicycle.

A few hours later, the asylum seeker was arrested for stealing the €3000+ pro bicycle. He told the cops where he had sold it, and my acquaintance, a law-abiding family man, was forcibly arrested. He was taken from his business and his family, and made to stay in jail for the night - the cops didn’t even let him lock his shop. Now he’s facing embezzlement charges on top of everything. He is screwed because he allowed his pity, and his need for moralism, to get the better of him. No good deed goes unpunished.

Conclusions

Crucial information, direction, encouragement, and a listening (not hearing) ear are the true currency of genuine help sourced from true intentions. Most times, people need direction, perspective, and emotional support more than free charity.

Don’t just give handouts to people. They will hate you for the condescension, even if they asked for if. Instead, hand out your respect by recognizing their ability to survive without your handouts. Your respectful rejection might be the most valuable help for them. Respect is what they need the most, even if they don’t realize it. If you want to help further - assuming you’re not being self-righteous and condescending with your help - give them the useful information, encouragement, and empowerment they need. If they refuse your well-intended offer, and instead insist on demanding free handouts that take them nowhere (handouts rewards and perpetuate their debilitation), then you know they were never deserving of any help (neither handout nor empowerment). They aren’t even deserving of your respect.

Just because someone needs help doesn’t mean he deserves help. Sure, he can ask for help, and maybe use his debilitation to pressure you to help, but what else did he do to help you help him? Did he offer anything in return (other than stroking your ego as a goody-two-shows good Samaritan?) Did he offer to do anything in his power - anything - in return for your help? Whatever his debilitation that renders him needy of help, if he can beg, then he can wash your car, tend your lawn, or at least promise to repay you somehow after he stands on his own two feet.

If the person asking for you help doesn’t bother offering you incentive to help, then the only “incentive” inferred is the satisfaction of your prideful need to patronize, condescend, and pity others with your moral exhibitionism. It is also an implied threat: “If you don’t help me, you’ll feel guilty and shameful in the eyes of everyone watching.”

Be extremely suspicious of people capitalizing on your need to condescend them with pity; they use your pity to manipulate you. If they ask for help, but don’t offer you any incentive in return (other than the opportunity for you to virtue-signal), then they are deceiving you. And you let them deceive you, because you are morally insecure, and thus in need of “proof” of morality through blind altruism.

Never help anyone who wants you to feel pity for them. They are undignified, and therefore, don’t want to be empowered by your help. Rather, they want your help to maintain their victimhood, and their debilitation. If they have no dignity or self-respect, then you know they aren’t interested in standing on their own two feet - they are comfortable with easy undignified handouts forever. Besides, if their apparent vulnerability gets them free resources, then their weakness is their power.

Help only the people who are dignified enough to offer you something - anything - in return for your help (anything except an excuse to pride yourself over your pretentious moralism).

Only help people who want to learn how to fish, instead of demanding free fish.

The bottom line

Put your ego aside. Don’t help others just to pat yourself on the back; that’s disrespectful and condescending to them… and to yourself. That’s the worst reason to be kind. They will know that your kindness is self-serving, and they will hate you for it, while you haughtily presume they owe you gratitude. It is this implied debt to you they can’t stand. You remind them that they never deserved help, and that your disrespectful pity was the only reason they got help. This is why they despise you for helping them.

If you want your help to be meaningful and valuable, then your help must be scarce, and it must be filtered. You must only help people who have a will to rise, making your help a catalyst to realizing their potential. But if your help simply perpetuates their victimhood rather than lift them out of it, then you are just the guy giving a drug addict his next dose: you aren’t really helping - you are making things worse. Of course they’ll hate you, and you deserve their hate.

Remember: help to one denies help to another. You don’t have infinite resources, so the help you are able to grant is limited. Be sure to give it to those most deserving.

If you help out of pity, they you truly don’t deserve gratitude. You weren’t helping them. You were helping yourself. Your motivation for helping should not be a cheap way of getting circumstantial gratitude and appreciation. If you want your help to be meaningful, your reason for helping should be your satisfaction in knowing that you have empowered someone who deserved it, and thus, made this cruel world a tiny bit better.

Be extremely selective with your acts of kindness. Blind blanket altruism cheapens your kindness. Fewer targeted good deeds make them all the more meaningful, valuable, and impactful… and appreciated.

Don’t help people stay down. Lift them up.

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