Begging and the mechanism of pity
“Have you ever wondered what is the little secret engine that triggers compassion in human beings? I’ll tell you: It’s always a story.”
(Turn the subtitles on and watch from min 35:35 till 40:50 or if you have the patience start with minute 31:05)
(if this raised your curiosity and want to see the full movie, just to let you know that the second part’s subtitles are lagging and they actually start with minute 51:18 of the first part.)
Hotel Rwanda says the same thing about the outstretched hand, but here the people are not looking to make a living/a job out of it, but simply to stay alive, to survive.
(from 0:50 onwards: )
There is a huge difference when someone is using this strategy to save himself and then get a job and re-build his life, but it is another story when this is THE job and the way someone earns their daily “salary”.
It is automatically implied that beggars have no other choice. It will be surprising for many to find out that actually a good number of them are practicing this as their “profession”.
For some, begging is a way of life: part of their culture.
There were and still are cultures, people who pride themselves with what others may consider “horrendous” trades/activities.
For instance the Vikings were raiding coastal villages, pillaging, raping, kidnapping and killing. That was normal for them and as casual as anything to ask each other “Where should we raid this summer?”
The same for the Scythes of whom it was said that they “fought to live and lived to fight”. (Dr Aaron Ralby (2013). “Scythians, c. 700 BCE-600 CE: Punching a Cloud”. Atlas of Military History. Parragon. Pp 224-225).
The Japanese consider the suicide as proof of great courage and even a duty (in the past, as seppuku) when failing to deliver as expected. This is at odds with the Christian teaching which considers it to be uttermost cowardly and condemns such acts. However the self-sacrifice for a higher scope is so ingrained in the Japanese culture that the recent Japanese tsunami of 2011 which destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power plant made the local people angry that the workers did not go down with the plant, but ran and saved their lives. (mentioned at min 3:35 and in other parts of this 2016 documentary)
It is the same for some of the Roma people: a tradition to earn their living from begging. It is a form of acting, “theatrical performance” with a few unwillingly passersby spectators, if you like, and the purpose is to convince the "gadjo" (meaning, the non gypsy, who are perceived as stupid and gullible) to leave behind some of their hard earned money.
This “Roma and begging” article explains it quite well (I advise using Google chrome to bring up the page so you can have the option to have it translated by Google; unless you can read in Swedish, of course).
https://morklaggning.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/romer-och-tiggeri/
Last, the issue of organised begging: where the beggars come together as part of an organisation with many of them being exploited one way or another. The very well made documentary of "Britain's Child Beggars" presented by BBC in 2011, shows a glimpse into this. Staggering money can be made through begging (as much as £100,000 a year).
Obviously now, at the time of this post, in mid 2018, the sums of money made would be lower due to over-saturation of the "market" by beggars. (Like, for instance, in California there is the potential to earn very good money as a babysitter, but as the news spread and with an influx of babysitters in the area, the earning potential decreases significantly. Same with begging: people start to be more indifferent with time and learn to shut their hearts or they would end up with a cone on their head and a big SUCKER or FOOL written on it.)
In the end I live you with these words from the end of the Philanthropy movie: "Do you feel pity for this punk, for this ragged thing? Do you feel pity? Yes? Then we took your money! Hahaha!"