Generosity That Costs Nothing
Some people become extraordinarily generous when they get to decide how to spend other people’s money. They always know who should give something up, who should be understanding, who should make a little more effort. They hand out duties with a confidence I admire rather less when I notice one detail: they are never among those expected to pay.
“Generous with other people’s money” strikes me as a good way to describe this attitude. I also know a vulgar Italian version: “Frocio col culo degli altri”. I take its point, not its homophobic insult: sexual orientation has nothing to do with cowardice or irresponsibility. What I want to challenge is the behaviour of people who treat someone else’s body, effort and life as resources of their own.
The distinction is no small matter. I can offer what I own, give up my time, take a risk myself. But if I offer your money, give up your hours and put you in danger, I should at least stop calling all this my generosity. I cannot claim the virtue and send someone else the bill.
Ten Ways to Recognise the Same Failing
The same thought can be expressed in many ways. These ten phrases were written for this essay; they are neither quotations attributed to famous people nor proverbs with a claimed origin. They help us recognise, beneath different words, the same comfortable arrangement:
- “Brave with other people’s skin.”
- “A hero through other people’s sacrifice.”
- “Hospitable with other people’s homes.”
- “Always willing to help with other people’s time.”
- “Stern about other people’s mistakes, understanding about one’s own.”
- “Ready to forgive a wrong done to someone else.”
- “Ready to tighten a belt, as long as it is someone else’s.”
- “First in line for the applause, last in line for the consequences.”
- “Able to promise everything when others have to deliver.”
- “Ready for anything, as long as someone else has to do it.”
Some of these make us smile. The smile fades when we move from a lunch offered at a friend’s expense to suffering imposed on a family, and from one family’s suffering to the fate of an entire people. The pattern remains recognisable; the price changes enormously.
When the Price Is a Life
To me, the gravest form of this distance is found in those who presume to decide the fate of entire peoples and send others to die for their own delusions of power. Accepting responsibility for protecting people is one thing; using those people to make a name for yourself, establish dominance or avoid admitting a mistake is quite another.
From the safety of a room, a decision can look orderly: a map, an objective, a deadline. For the person who bears its consequences, it may mean interrupting their studies, leaving a home, saying goodbye to someone without knowing whether they will see them again. The person making the decision sees a direction to follow. The person leaving may see their last evening in their own kitchen.
I do not want this to be merely an evocative contrast. The point is concrete: one person is not material to be used to demonstrate another’s resolve. The young man asked to risk his life does not have a life less important than that of the person making the request. Nor does the pain of those waiting for him become any smaller because it is included in a solemn speech.
What I find unbearable is the casualness. The tone of someone who seems to find a decision simple precisely because they will not suffer its worst effects. I do not expect those in government to know how to do a soldier’s job. I do expect them not to speak of that soldier’s death as lightly as they would move a piece on a board.
The Armchair Moralists
I am irritated by armchair moralists who explain to young people what a duty it is to die. Provided, preferably, that someone else does the dying. They speak of sacrifice with an enthusiasm I do not hear matched by equal concern for the people expected to make it. I wonder whether they would still have all the answers if they were sitting across from the parents of one of those young people.
I do not think you need to have fought in a war to discuss it. It would be absurd to deny people a voice unless they had experienced everything they reflect on. But the freedom to have an opinion does not make the way we express it harmless. There is a difference between arguing, with difficulty and reason, that a painful choice is necessary and branding as cowards those who are afraid of that choice.
I find it especially unpleasant when someone treats another person’s hesitation as a moral defect. Wanting to return home does not mean having no values. A person may understand duty perfectly well and also feel the weight of what they stand to lose. Fear does not erase dignity. Sometimes it simply brings a more precise understanding of danger.
Before explaining to someone why they should die, I would want everything possible to have been done to let them live. This is not an automatic answer to every conflict. It is an order of priorities I consider essential, especially in the words of those who will not have to leave.
Courage Freely Chosen and Sacrifice Imposed
Yet this argument would lose its honesty if it became a condemnation of those who choose to resist or defend someone. Some people accept a risk to protect their family, their freedom or the lives of others. I do not want to diminish that choice or portray it as the inevitable result of deception. Their decision deserves to be heard, not met with another form of paternalism.
By the same token, I do not want to become the person who, from his own sitting room, presumes to decide what losses a people under attack must accept. That would be the same failing in different words: calling myself reasonable while disposing of someone else’s freedom. Those who call for peace must also ask who will pay for the terms they propose, and whether that peace will truly protect people.
A painless choice is not always available. Failing to intervene, delaying or yielding can also expose others to terrible consequences. Acknowledging this does not absolve the person making the decision: it makes their task more serious. It requires them to compare the real risks of the alternatives, rather than merely celebrate the advantages of their preferred course.
This is the boundary I am trying to defend: respecting someone’s courage does not mean making it your own to use. I cannot turn the sacrifice one person accepts into a debt I can demand from anyone else. Nor can I use the honour owed to those who have died to prevent anyone asking whether those deaths could have been avoided.
You Can Delegate a Task, Not Your Conscience
A society works partly because people perform different tasks. A manager organises, a technician carries out the work, a doctor entrusts part of a patient’s care to a team. No one can do everything personally. Saying that not every action can be delegated does not mean pretending that this division of work serves no purpose: it means recognising that some responsibilities remain ours even when someone else carries out the task.
I can delegate a delivery, but not the honesty of what I have promised. I can assign a job, but I cannot stop checking whether I have allowed reasonable time and conditions. I can ask someone to represent me, but I cannot claim to have nothing to do with it when they carry out exactly what I ordered. Delegation distributes tasks; it should not make responsibility disappear along the way.
Nor am I persuaded by the easy solution that all we need to do is send the decision-maker first. Sharing the risk can make a person more credible, but it does not automatically make their decision right. Even someone willing to die can drag others into madness. Your own courage does not give you ownership of another person’s life.
That is why I ask for something more demanding than a theatrical gesture: understand the consequences, listen to those who will bear them, justify why the choice is necessary, seek less harmful alternatives, accept scrutiny and answer for mistakes. If a task has been entrusted to others, the duty to correct a wrong decision has been entrusted to no one: it remains with the person who can and must change it.
Everyday Versions of the Same Behaviour
This reflection is not only about rulers and wars. Without confusing things of vastly different gravity, I recognise the same habit in everyday life. It happens when someone promises a favour knowing their partner will have to carry it out. When they invite people over and leave all the preparation to someone else. When they decide that a family member must always be available because, after all, “it is no trouble for them”.
We can be generous with other people’s patience, too. Expecting someone who has been hurt to forgive immediately because their conflict makes us uncomfortable. Asking a colleague to stay another hour because we promised a deadline without consulting them. Praising someone’s willingness to make sacrifices while getting used to never offering to take over.
Not every request is exploitation. In a family or a team, it is natural to ask one another for help. The difference lies in recognising that the other person has time, tiredness and limits that do not belong to us. Truly asking means being willing to hear the answer, not dressing up an order as a compliment.
I would like to apply this standard to myself as well. Before thinking of myself as helpful, to ask who will have to rearrange their life to make my helpfulness possible. Before boasting about an achievement, to remember who gave something up so that I could reach it. Failing to notice the bill does not stop it arriving at someone’s door.
The Question That Should Come Before Every Request
When I hear a grand speech about duty, I feel like asking a small question: who pays? Not to reduce every value to a financial calculation, but to give a face back to those mentioned only as “other people”. Who loses time, money, health, safety? Who had a chance to speak before the decision was made? Who can stop it if it proves wrong?
Then I would add: what are you contributing? Not necessarily the same contribution, because abilities and tasks differ. But a real share of effort, sacrifice or responsibility, proportionate to the role. If words are all you contribute and credit is all you keep for yourself, something does not add up.
There is no formula that can resolve every difficult decision. But there is a watchfulness we can practise: being wary of how easily someone assigns suffering to others and how readily they avoid questions. Those who take the consequences seriously do not always have a reassuring answer. They should at least have the decency not to pretend that the price does not matter.
What I Would Like to Leave My Children
My children, I would like all three of you to learn to recognise the difference between someone who asks for your help and someone who wants to take advantage of your willingness to give it. Not every hardship is an injustice; not every request is manipulation. There will be difficult commitments worth keeping. But no noble words should prevent you from asking what is being asked of you, why, and by whom.
Do not let yourselves be made to feel small by those who call your need to understand selfishness. Courage does not mean obeying every confident voice. Sometimes it means asking a question in front of someone who would prefer silence; at other times, accepting a duty without looking for someone to pass it on to. Look for the reason behind a choice, not only the approval of the person demanding it.
And when it is your turn to decide, remember that same standard. Do not be hospitable at the expense of your partner’s effort, helpful with your children’s days or ambitious with the health of those who work alongside you. Before promising someone’s contribution, speak to that person. Before asking someone to give something up, consider whether you have truly exhausted your own options.
I would like to see you capable of offering a great deal, not incapable of saying no. And I would like you, when you choose to give, to know the difference between what is yours and what belongs to someone else. You can give a gift with your own resources. If someone else pays for it, at least do not sign it with your name alone.
Generosity begins with what we are willing to give. Responsibility begins with respect for what we have no right to ask for lightly. A person’s time, trust, body and life are not details in a project of our own. They are the boundary at which even our strongest convictions must pause and think.
Papy