When "Charity" Is Actually a Power Play

This is not difficult to understand. When we help someone, we are making the implicit statement that we are in a position of superiority over them. We have something they do not, and we are in a comfortable enough position to surrender it without great personal harm. In a sense, then, when we give to someone, we put them in our power, signaling to the world that they are a dependent who could not get by without our magnanimity.