HQR34079894

savva767@me.com
Hi CocoPazzo, I really enjoyed reading your post -- you touch on exactly kinds of
reflective questions, which for me Dante the Pilgrim's plunge into the Malebolge evokes.
The interpellation to "spare some change" engages our conscience on a very deep
level. We are moved to give when we recognize our common humanity with the other,
when we see her poverty and want to do something about it. However, this situation
confronts us with difficult questions that relate to the meaning of money and the
meaning of how we collectively relate to each other (to the other).
One feels guilty at giving money because one knows the possibility of that act of giving
money making them complicit in anothers self-harm, by enabling it.
So in some sense, this highlights how the exchange of money *can be* (though not in
every case) described as fraudulent for both the giver and receiver. For the receiver,
receiving money can be fraudulent in that s/he may say that s/he will use it for food,
while spending it on drugs. For the giver, fraudulence can take the form of selfdeception in believing giving money will do some good for the other, without taking any
responsibility for how that good will come about. In other words, the giver vacates his
responsibility for his action by leaving it up to the Other to decide the meaning of their
intentions, the meaning of how the money should be used.

ir responsibility for the Other simply by giving them money, when in fact they have not
taken responsibility of their
Taking full responsibility for ones freedom,

The fact money is interchangeable which is to say its use as a universal measure of

value is exactly why it is an act for which it is difficult to judge the consequences. And
as you pointed out, it is difficult to judge because of the uncertainty of how the money
you give is going to be spent. Is the money you give going to continue to a cycle of
collective and individual decay? If so, who is responsible for continuing that cycle? You
who enable it? or the person who completes the cycle again by making the choice to
spend the money he receives for drugs?
Now it is precisely this how/use which relates to the question of freedom between one
and the other. I am able to determine the thing/service I buy just as the person who
receives the money for the thing sold can determine how to use this money.
And this freedom of use so to speak, that X one buys or sells, is never congruent from
buyer to seller, from person to person. To draw the brief example of going to the gas
station to fill up your car: this freedom of use is how Exxon going to use the money you
give them? for what are you going to use the gas?
So, the unique thing about *giving* money, i.e. exchanging money for nothing is that it
reduces the relationship between you and the impoverished person to whom you are
giving money to precisely that X: how the money received is going to be used and
how/for what you are you going to use *the fact that you received nothing in return* for
your money.
So the question then becomes the meaning of money

Thus one, experiences the uncertainty of giving money to the poor person one passes
by on the street.

Thus, we can generalize the exchange of money between two people as: there is one
who gives X in return for money, and one who gives money in return for X. Now this X
stands for both how the money received is going to be used and how/for what you are
you going to use the thing you received for your money.

For one, the interchangeability of money which is to say its dominance as a measure
of value in *how we relate to others,* makes it hard to judge the consequences of the
act of giving money. It is difficult to judge precisely because, as you drew attention to,
the uncertainty of how the money you give is going to be spent. Is the money you give
going to continue to a cycle of collective and individual decay? if so, who is responsible
for continuing that cycle? You, or the person you give it to?
This exchange, and the difficulties, contradictions and emotional reactions it provokes,
certainly demonstrate the interdepedence we all have with the Other. But it also
demonstrates the mediation of this interdependence, precisely through the fact that
money can be spent on (virtually) anything.
You write: Is there a way to contribute to an individual that doesn't give rise
for concern? which for me, is a necessary question to answer