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Commitment

We are first moved to help others in need from a sense of generosity. But generosity is not yet commitment. Commitment begins when we realize that the gift goes both ways, and that we often get back even more than we give. It is this reciprocity that enables us to sustain our commitment over time. Without it, the generous impulse would sink under the weight of a one-sided relationship that could only be maintained by an effort of will, draining us of our energy and humiliating the recipient.



A L'Arche community leader in Haïti. Photo by Eric Bellefeuille.

Ivan Illich
Ivan Ilich – whose name is associate with the notion of conviviality – predicted the crisis of 2007-2008, more worrying than those which preceded it, the last perhaps before the great implosion which he saw as inevitable. “Against the threat of a technocratic apocalypse, I offer the vision of a convivial society,” he wrote at the beginning of the 1970s. The word “convivial” is not a...

Generosity

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Jacques Dufresne's
Blog

The editor of L'Encyclopédie de L'Agora and well known newspaper chronicler and philosopher, analyses actuality through the looking glass of Belonging.
Latest posts
Justice for innocent priests and religious men and women!
To Live or To Function?
An Alternative to Performance Sports: Sustainable Sport

 

News

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