It is important to define ‘help’ before delving further into the topic. I would like to avoid using dictionary definitions when trying to be concrete about the essence of a word. Albeit sometimes useful, dictionaries strive to provide a short and concise explanation of a word, which often strips it off its essence, nuance, and connotation. Furthermore, they often suffer from circular definitions(i.e. a word is defined through another, which in turn is defined through the first). When one expresses themselves fluently in some language, they exercise a great degree of intuition, characterised by more low-level processes that cannot be explained through language.

‘Help’ is an action (hence - the act of helping) that is performed from one individual or group to another. This is where ‘Help’ can be distinguished from the utility measure of ‘Helpful’. A tool, such as a hammer, can be characterised as helpful (which is largely synonymous to useful), but it does not do the act of ‘helping’ me, as it is an inanimate object. Furthermore, ‘Help’ is performed voluntarily and without the expectation of compensation. These two points may overlap, since voluntarily can also mean the latter, hence the notion of a ‘volunteer’. However, the first characteristic of ‘Help’ highlights that it is performed out of one’s free will. One cannot be ordered or coerced into helping another, as that is not help, but work. The reasoning for the second characteristic is largely similar. If one helps another with the expectation for compensation, it is not help, but again - work. The butcher does not help me when giving me meat for compensation in the form of me giving him money in return. This is purely a mutually beneficial and instrumental transaction. It is not ‘Help’. Lastly, ‘Help’ is performed for the explicit and wanted benefit of the latter group. This point may be obvious, however, it is the true essence of ‘Help’. The benefit needs to be measured and requested by the party which is on the receiving end. This is also the point where I feel most ‘omnibenevolent good doers’ fail. Often unwanted and unbeneficial actions are performed under the guise of ‘Help’ in an attempt to guilt the receiving party into accepting their tyrant. Here I use ‘tyrant’ in a very loose and poetic manner, but tyrants indeed are those that usurp other’s free will and potential and dare to claim it is for the other’s benefit.

Thus ‘Help’ can be read, for the sake of this essay, as:

An act performed from one group or individual voluntarily and without the expectation of compensation for the explicit and wanted benefit of another group or individual

Outline of the Framework

With ‘Help’ defined in a concrete manner, the Framework for Helping can be presented. It consists of 4 questions that need to be answered sequentially and objectively. Failure to truthfully answer positively to one of the questions should indicate that the act performed is not ‘Help’, but some other deviation of it (a more detailed description of these deviations is presented in the chapter on perversions of help).

Here I feel obliged to explain that the Framework is designed for an omniscient being. As will become evident, some of the questions are hard to be answered because an objective and impartial party cannot answer them fully (e.g. question 1). Other questions require foresight, of which a normal person cannot be capable (such as question 4). Nonetheless, each question is accompanied by a few heuristics that one can use to approximate the objective answer. However, just because the Framework (or the algorithm if you want to call it) presents difficulty to be implemented outside of an ideal setting, does not mean that it should be discredited as a whole. Answers can still be achieved with a degree of certainty, as well as it can serve to reveal the essence of ‘Helping’.

1. Do they want your help?

Help unwanted is what I think is the most common ‘perversion of help’, a symptom of the ‘Messiah complex’. The receiving party is forced to accept a gift, which doesn’t necessarily benefit them, and they are forced to feel grateful for this ‘benevolent’ act. I can think of two great offenders, who love to practice this. Overly religious people and engineers. One is much worse than the other.

The zealot must honestly believe that what they do is for the benefit of the other. After all, ‘the meek shall be exalted’. But perhaps the meek do not wish to be saved. They are perfectly content with their current situation. The members of the Westboro church must truly believe they are saving those to whom they are preaching. Whether that is the case, I do not know. However, the truth is that the other party has not asked for what the members would call ‘help’, thus both parties only continue to agitate each other. I am reminded here of the story of the Grand Inquisitor from the “Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky. That character truly believed what he was doing was for the ‘greater good’ (i.e. helping humanity). But as a reader we cannot help but interpret his actions as selfish - done only so he can keep his position of absolute power over his subjects. Historically, the Inquisition was performed to ‘save’ humanity for heretics (saving is a type of help). But I think this group is a minority, especially in modern times.

Much worse are engineers, who automate processes and ‘better’ our lives with a complete disregard for whether these improvements are wanted. Have people wanted our lives to be bettered by the atomic bomb? Has the worker wanted his life to be bettered by a robot, which inevitably replaces him? They continue to build, invent, progress, outpacing the humans, whom they claim to serve. But my luddite views are not the focus here. The fact remains that an engineer seldom asks those, whose life he is ‘bettering’, if they want the betterment. 

People do tend to be terrible in requesting help, however. They tend to shy away from asking for any assistance. As such, it can be useful to simply inquire  - “Can I help you with that?”, “Do you need assistance?”. Two simple questions that can discern the needs of the other party. If they answer ‘yes,’ then one can continue onto the next point. If their answer is ‘no’, then all we can do is leave them alone. Even if they need help, when we try to take their right to freely choose how to approach a problem (even if inefficiently), we would only trample on their pride as a living being. 

Someone might smile here devilishly and try to point out a flaw - “What if they can’t request help, such as a person choking?”. This point would only be valid if humans could only communicate with each other through verbal communication. There are plenty of non-verbal ways where a party can request help (such as the gestures and the nodding of a person choking). Consent is key in every situation. Most first aid instructors would advise you to first ask the choking person, if they need help, before performing the Heimlich technique.

2. Do you want to help them? 

This should be perhaps the easiest question to answer. After all, it is the only one that is only within our control. Alas, man’s inner workings are the greatest mystery to himself. How often can one deceive themself, deny themself the truth! A calm and rational approach is needed here (if such a thing has ever existed). As a general rule of thumb, one can ask the following two sub-questions: “Do I expect future compensation for my actions, as in to gain their favour?” & “Do I want to bring explicit benefit to the other party for the current issue, or am I using this as a pretext to ‘help’ with a more general issue?” One should be very cautious of those that don’t want to help them but claim they do. Many atrocities have been committed by tyrants, whose claim to power was their benevolence and desire to help the people. In truth, they may have very well believed that this was for the benefit of their subjects. But an objective analysis on their side would reveal that the benefit for those that they were seeking to help has been minimal and in turn it has been for their own selfish gain. Charlatans and scammers prey on those who want help, hence the expression - takes advantage of the vulnerable.

Here the sequential manner of answering the questions becomes important. This question MUST be answered only after the first one has been answered positively. Otherwise one risks succumbing to confirmation bias, in the sense that they want to help someone and purposefully misinterpret their behaviour to fit their selfish desire. There are plenty of such examples and if one looks around them in their daily life they will spot these “perversions” of help. One party eagerly wanting to help another, be it individuals or a political movement seeking to help an ‘oppressed’ group. If the help has not been requested, they have no need to want to help. They may offer, thus stating an ability to be of assistance, but they shouldn’t WANT to help (in the general sense, rather than for a particular and current issue). Otherwise I would call into question their desire to help another. Could they be doing it to avoid facing their issues and thus live out their fantasy of being the ‘messiah’ (or in Karpman’s drama triangle  - the rescuer)? Or could they be doing it out of some unrealised or denied desire for compensation, such as the other party liking them more or feeling indebted to them? Maybe even a sense of superiority, as one party finds their way to be the only right one. Whatever the hidden motif is, the fact remains - one cannot want to help someone, without the other first wanting it. That is not ‘help’.

It is perfectly normal to want to aid someone for the sake of receiving something in return. I do not aim to make moral claims. One can be as manipulative, as deceiving, as unscrupulous as they want to be. If they want to live their lives as some Godfather (“Favours for favours”), I take no issue with that. What I take an issue with is the incorrect classification of help. If the party that is seemingly helping another, but for ulterior motives, is perfectly aware of that - I have no issue if they call it ‘help’ for the sake of deceiving others. I have an issue when they justify it as help to themselves. 

3. Can you help them?

The former two questions concerned themselves with illusory concepts such as the desire for help. This one is much more straightforward. It also seems as a very obvious question one needs to ask themselves before helping another. I feel like many people, in their (perhaps even well-intentioned) eagerness to help another, fail to ascertain their own ability objectively. Can you offer them the best help in the current situation? Do you have the ability to provide them the assistance needed? Do you have the means to assist them? If, yes - then proceed to the next question. If not, then maybe you shouldn’t try to help them directly. You may only make the situation worse. Finding someone who is capable of providing help is help enough. 

This does not mean succumbing to the bystander effect and never offering your assistance out of fear that it may be inadequate. Keep your help to work you can manage with. If you feel overwhelmed or your own abilities are not enough, find someone who is more capable of helping. Think how common it is for people to call “Is there a doctor here?” or “Does someone here know CPR?”. If such a person responds to your inquiry, ask them how you can be of assistance. Your help may still be needed. While you may not take the spotlight of the saviour, the point of helping another (which should have already been established with the first two questions) is not about receiving recognition or praise. You have found a person that can resolve the issue and (possibly) aided them to make it easier on them. While your contribution might be minor, it is help enough.

Still, some situations may exist where you may be the only person that CAN help. It may be just you and some other person, with no one else in sight. If an emergency presents itself, while you should call someone that can help them better, you might need to do your best to assist the person, even if you feel overwhelmed. Thus this question can be thought of as: Are you the one that can provide them with the greatest benefit for the current situation?

Of course, in the heat of the moment it may be hard to objectively ascertain the situation. That cannot be avoided. The only remedy I can think of is to get in the habit of asking if someone knows how to do the thing that needs to be done. 

4. Should you help them?

The previous three questions may seem exhaustive enough for the notion of help, however a few corner cases exist where they are not sufficient. Consider the following example - a classmate of yours asks you to copy your exam (thus cheat on it with your help). While they have clearly requested your help, you may be inclined to WANT to help them (as you probably would want your friend to not fail the exam), and you have the ability to help them, it is easy to see that maybe you SHOULDN’T help them. 

This question is more nuanced. Certainly here apply ethical issues, cultural norms, and legal concerns when helping another. But it also covers the cases where your help risks making the other party overly dependent on you. Sometimes it is more helpful to let someone fail, so that they can learn from their failure and improve in the future. If you outright help others, without putting in the thought how your help can affect the other, you may cause them problems in the future. You may inadvertently deny them the opportunity to develop themselves. Sometimes it is better help to be callous and push someone to become more independent and self-reliant. Additionally, while a person may request your aid, you would be willing and capable to provide it, it may become in the process of helping the other that they are not seeking to be helped, but are merely looking for attention or justification for their own situation. An example for this is the “why-don’t-you-yes-but” game as identified by Eric Berne. When one finds themselves in such a situation it may be best to seize offering your help - no progress will be made, no party will have any benefit from this interaction continuing. At best the two sides may become agitated.

As mentioned, this question also guards against issues arising due to legal or ethical concerns. If the help you will provide is illegal or goes against your moral principles, you should probably decline offering your help.

Perversions of help

This chapter outlines in a brief manner some of the deviations (or perversions) of ‘help’ - what they are, why aren’t they ‘help’, and what can we learn from them. This list is not exhaustive. It is incomplete. But that is due to the nature of things. Everything is either ‘help’ or it isn’t ‘help’. There just are more things that aren’t. Of interest to this chapter are those things that pretend to be, but aren’t.

MESSIAH COMPLEX - The saviour want-to-be. Here fall all the religious zealots mentioned before. A few examples to make this person more concrete. The Westboro Church is a popular example in the current media. Some of its followers genuinely believe that they are saving people from the ‘homosexual’ menace and most important - from eternal damnation in Hell for one’s sexual preferences. Some of them really believe they are helping people. Examine it from their perspective. A god truly does exist. A God based on some reading of the Christian doctrine. An afterlife does exist. An afterlife of Heaven (eternal pleasure), Hell (eternal pain), and, maybe, Purgatory (some thousands years of pain). As their fellow human, a brother in Christ, they want you to reach salvation through Him as well. And thus they view their rhetoric and actions not only as reasonable, but as Good, as Help. Of course, even if they were right, they neglect a fundamental cause of resistance - their help is not wanted. The meek do not want to be saved. Even if their God were to exist, some people have the right to choose to be damned to Hell if that is what they want. And as Help is “wanted” and “for the benefit of the other”, a follower cannot help them by guiding them to Heaven. They may only, at the request of the other, aid them to Hell. Whether the Westboro Baptist church’s practices ought to be done or not is out of the scope of this paper. I am merely stating that they cannot claim to be helping the ‘meek’. They cannot claim to be helping anyone, unless the other party has explicitly requested their help. 

While the term MESSIAH is used here, it does not need to be tied to religious groups exclusively. Atheists (though they ought to be more properly referred to as anti-theists) are as much offenders of similar practices as is the zealot. The horse-shoe theory. However, I believe that a much larger group exists guilty of the Messiah Complex. Mainly - the engineers. Much progress has been achieved in the last century. The human population grew with more than 5 billion people. Mankind reached the moon (several times). 

THE TYRANT COMPLEX. Much in the same vein of the Messiah, the tyrant gives unwanted help. The difference is that the Messiah assumes the meek wants salvation, while the tyrant knows no help is wanted. The tyrant helps, because they see the receiving party as stupid, foolish, incapable of recognising their own need for help. As an example, consider the forceful religious conversions carried throughout the Middle Ages.

The previous two complexes both deny the right of a person to choose, even if it is to choose poorly.

THE WANT-NOTHING-IN-RETURN. This is a very peculiar case of a person and I have seen this perversion in one of two forms. 

First, is the person who helps you and claims they want nothing in return, but at a later point in time they will remind you and stress to you the importance of their act. This reminder can come in one of two situations. One, they need something you have or can provide. Whether they were giving you ‘help’ with the intention of receiving something in the future or have only now realised their need for it, doesn’t matter. The fact remains that they want compensation for their help. But that is not ‘help’, as otherwise it would reduce ‘help’ to a mere transaction, where both parties exchange goods or services for equal value. There isn’t much difference between me buying a bottle of water from a shop for a said amount of money or someone ‘helping’ me by giving me the bottle, only to later ask for compensation for it. The only difference would be that for one the price was known and paid upfront. It is of course perfectly acceptable to want to be compensated for your work, but do not call it ‘help’. This would pervert and distort the meaning of ‘help’. Instead view it as nothing more than an exchange. The other situation in which someone may remind you of the help they once offered you is to put you down. In which case, they probably offered you the help in the first place out of a feeling of superiority (or to affirm this feeling). In this case, one can reflect on recent events to figure out the exact moment when the other party felt their sense of superiority threatened. Oftentimes they might try to make the UNREASONABLE claim that your success is (in part) thanks to them. It is important to stress the ‘unreasonable’. Sometimes such a claim may be valid. By unreasonable I mean that their help had no bearing on your success. For example, they gave you a lift to an important audition, where you got a lead role in a big-budget movie. Whatever the case, it is important to remember that help is done without an expectation for any compensation (even in the form of gratitude). Gratitude is indeed a virtue, but it should not be demanded.

Second, is the courter. Most often a man (as we are species where the man needs to pursue the female) will commit benevolent acts (whether wanted or not by the other party) to gain the favour of a romantic interest. Even if the help is wanted, expecting a relationship as compensation does not make it help. This often becomes evident if the giving party is rejected. Then the veil of ‘help’ will become much thinner and all the acts brought up, listed, as if documented with great care. Often it will be paired with “I was so nice to you” (or something with a similar meaning).

Help MUST BE performed without any expectation for compensation. If you receive compensation (whether material or in the form of gratitude), then that is great. But you should not demand it. Otherwise the act is not ‘help’, but a mere exchange of goods or services.

The do-all-gooder. For this type of person I am reminded of a saying - “I would rather work with someone stupid and lazy than someone stupid and eager to do something”. The takeaway is that the latter person will impede other’s work with their eagerness to do something. Such is the nature of the do-all-gooder. They are eager to provide wanted help for no compensation, however often they take on tasks they cannot do. And in their eagerness they may prevent actual proper help from being offered or end up damaging the receiving party. Their mistake stems either from pridefulness or from insecurity. Too proud to know their limits, thus attempting to do that which they cannot. Too insecure to reject helping someone, because they have realised they lack the ability to. In both cases the solution is simple - find someone who can help. The ‘help’ they offer can be recognised not as such thanks to the third question. An act performed from one to another is ‘help’ when the giving party can indeed perform the action fully. Thus, it is help enough to find someone else who can help properly.