The article by Alexander Chancellor about begging, published in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/apr/01/weekend.alexanderchancellor), was a reaction to Westminster Council's campaign which discouraged British citizens from giving money directly to beggars. Chancellor's main argument consists of an opposition to the institutionalization and public legitimization of western selfishness. He said the campaign was a way of supplying rationality to our lack of pity. I would like to contribute to the discussion, introducing an important aspect of our contemporary culture which reveals another side of the problem, which was not addressed by the columnist of the British newspaper. While he speaks of a lack of pity, we can observe a wide range of cultural products which empathise with the pain of others for the sake of the spectator, almost an entire economy of pity. It's sufficient to look at the covers of newspaper, to go to a documentary film festival, to attend a photography exhibition or simply to turn on the TV. We are overwhelmed by images of misery. These images are an important part of the contemporary culture of spectacle and of the prevalence in our society of that feeling which Chancellor claims is missing: pity. But this feeling comes with a growing process of depoliticization. Pity is privatized and giving money to beggars becomes a way to appease the guilty consciences of those who do not see another horizon beyond the actions of the individual. I propose, against the emotional discourse of Chancellor (who himself is part of an economy of pity!), a recovery of the public sphere as a possible horizon for collective action.
