The Chorus: Guilty Giving

'Have you got a few minutes for the homeless?", a man asked me on Georges Street, Dun Laoghaire last week. I shook my head and walked on, trying to explain to myself why. I already have, I reasoned, three or four direct debits which drip from my bank account on a monthly basis towards one "good cause" or another. Any more and I'll need to keep an eye on cashflow. Nearly every day now, there's a bunch of guys with clipboards lined up between the shopping centre and Penneys. "You're a hero, Sir", one such chugger (for "charity muggers", as I'm told they're called) hailed me recently. I kicked for touch but hung around to watch him operate. He said the same thing to everyone.

Did I have a few minutes for the homeless? Is there any answer to that except "Chug off"? And anyway, isn't he being paid for doing this, and won't his wages come out of anything I might decide to give? Why should I feel guilty? Ah. Guilty. That's really what it's about: having my guilt buttons tapped.

All this shot into my head the other day when I read about the BBC journalist and author Fergal Keane's remarks about Africa and what he called "compassion fatigue". Speaking at the Department of Foreign Affairs' annual human rights conference, he observed that, by failing to reflect the complex nature of Africa, the media has contributed to a lack of engagement by young people. An obsession with the doings of celebrities was also adding to this "compassion fatigue".

He has a point, but I don't think it's that straightforward. Africa is just one issue with a call on what we call our "compassion". Our bubble of prosperity is constantly being pricked by reminders of the imbalanced nature of the world. We are morally compelled to decide that this is a righteous and good thing, but on what basis do we so decide? Out of wishing to do something meaningful and tangible for what we call "those less fortunate", or to more easily to live with ourselves and the inequality of the world? Perhaps "guilt fatigue" puts it in a clearer perspective.

The argument is frequently made that the poverty of Africa is the direct consequence of Western prosperity, but surely we have glimpsed enough of the limits of crude redistribution to know that this is more a rhetorical appeal to our consciences than a coherent political idea. The ideological antithesis, that it is Africa's responsibility to drag itself up by its own bootstraps, is equally unhelpful – a callous cop-out born likewise of unattenuated guilt.

There is no escaping the inequity of the world: we see it nightly on TV and are reminded of it nowadays even in the context of the more self-indulgent elements of our culture. Modern media, being largely driven by a 1960s left-wing sensibility, offer a split consciousness in relation to these contradictions – on the one hand acting as cheerleader for consumerism, on the other, wagging an admonishing finger at the inevitable outcomes of these exhortations. Had we the choice, many of us might choose to know less than we do about the condition of Africa, leaving us with one less thing to feel guilty about. How much worse-off this would make Africa is an interesting and by no means clear-cut question. But, morally speaking, it is impossible to elide the possibility that, when I stop on the street and fill out yet another form to allow some organisation to draw down another monthly tenner from my bank account, the most significant thing I do is buy relief from my own guilty conscience concerning something that baffles as much as it troubles me. Perhaps that's how what we call altruism actually works.