Compassion Is Required If We Are To Right Our Ship
In my recent post The Connection Between Rural Electrification and Environmental Devastation, I extol the importance of bringing electricity to the developing world so as to promote education, affluence and family planning, while reducing the size of the field for terrorist recruitment. In response, conservative reader MarcoPolo notes: Top down solutions seldom work… The big difference seems to be when the individuals in a community accept a duty to actively participate in community governance. Only then do individuals feel responsible for successes and failures within their society.
Over the years, I’ve noticed that you’re very good at what you do, i.e., explaining how free market capitalism is the only answer to society’s woes. It’s unclear why or on whose behest you do all this, but you are a very talented person in any case.
Clearly, there is a great deal of truth to what you write here about community participation and personal accountability, but also I believe that without compassion, i.e., without humankind’s coming together and helping one another out of this mess, we have a world population that is headed for unprecedented levels of suffering.
Few people understand how very lucky the whole world is that Donald Trump is in the process of imploding and is plainly going to lose this election. His glaring ignorance of important world matters, not to mention his astonishing levels of hate, childish vindictiveness and narcissism would have brought not only the U.S. but our entire civilization to its knees in very short order.
But we can’t count on our being so lucky next time. At this point, we need to work hard on eliminating the conditions that brought us so close to an apocalypse. In particular, we need to do whatever we can to replace all that hate and stupidity with tolerance and kindness. This may sound idealistic and impractical, but I’m convinced that it’s an absolute requirement if our society is going to survive; in the absence of a creating a deep level of empathy between the peoples of the world, we’re finished.
——– Original message ——–
From: marcopolo
<wordpress@2greenenergy.com>
Date:06/19/2016 7:32 PM (GMT-08:00)
Subject: [2GreenEnergy.com] Comment: “The Connection Between Rural Electrification and Environment Devastation”
New comment on your post “The Connection Between Rural Electrification and Environment Devastation”
Author: marcopolo (IP: 58.108.254.245, static-58-108-254-245.optusnet.com.au)
Email: pag@optusnet.com.au
URL:
Comment:
Craig,
Craig,
I’m not sure why you conclude I’m an advocate for “explaining how free market capitalism is the only answer to society’s woes” !
Nor do I understand why you would believe that I comment on the behest of anyone else ? Is it so unbelievable that I’m just a concerned (in your own word’s)”citizen of the world”.
The concept that “education” will eradicate terrorism, is one of those concepts that should be true, sounds true, but in reality is wrong ! A quick background check into the history of terrorist organizations and outrages exposes the vast majority of terrorists are highly educated and usually children of relatively affluent families.
This week ( with great reluctance) I will cast my vote for the UK to leave the EU. I do this with reluctance as the EU offers a lot in terms of trade and other advantages. Like many citizens of the UK, we have appreciated and benefited from the positive aspects of the EU. However, in recent years it has become obvious the UK legal system and institutions are not compatible with the EU, and the UK should not surrender these aspects of our national life, along with our sovereignty.
I feel very sorry for the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who has worked very hard to get sufficient concessions from the EU to allow UK membership on a more acceptable basis. If (as I believe they will) UK voters vote ‘yes’ by a narrow majority, it will be the determination of our courageous PM that persuaded swinging voters to give him a chance to continue extracting concessions.
Despite all David Cameron’s hard work, I believe even if he is successful and a achieves a narrow and a narrow ‘Yes’ vote victory, it won’t stop the momentum of Britain’s desire to retain more control of it’s own destiny.
Idealism is all very well, and certainly has it’s place, but where is the “compassion” for the citizen’s of Detroit ? Surely the US taxpayer should be more concerned with the causes of social decay and suffering in US society, than concentrating on interfering in the internal affairs of other regions which it neither understands, nor can be of any real value.
The conservative government of Australia is criticized for it’s hard line immigration policy, and the cruelty of off-shore detention. Yet for nearly 10 years this policy worked effectively. When the government changed and a more “enlightened” leftist government abolished the conservative policy, relying on a more idealistic approach, ( compassion, caring, empathy), it became overwhelmed with illegal migrants, a large number of whom perished on the journey.
The Labour( leftist)government’s indecisive policies only added to the problem, until a conservative government returned and ended the chaos. With the restoration of old policies, the influx of illegal migrants ceased and a huge number of lives have been saved.
Unfortunately, the collateral damage of the Labour era remains. Those individuals caught by the policy changes are paying a terrible price. It’s impossible not to feel compassion for the unfortunate victims of misguided “idealism, compassion, and empathy”, but equally impossible to return to the chaos and high death toll.
Tragically, it seems that not every solution has a happy ending.
Donald Trump is not the cause of so much anger and insecurity by a vast number of Americans. Trump, like any populist, has merely given voice to the concerns of so many Americans who feel alienated, intimidated, and neglected by ‘politically correct’, media conscious, ‘professional’ politicians.
Compassion and good intentions are very laudable, but if in reality they produce very little else than a “feel good ” factor, what of real value is being achieved ?
I know, I know,…you will counter with phrases like “humankind’s coming together and helping one another ” etc, followed by a quick chorus of Kumbaya , and we’ll feel better, but the poor of Detroit will remain living in their failed city, and the number of refugee’s, (economic migrants) continues to grow.
Please don’t think I’m being disparaging of your ideals, in fact I share your belief in compassion, tolerance etc. Nor do I believe that Lazare-faire economics possesses the answers.
It’s just that at some stage, we have to look hard at the effectiveness of what we are doing, and devoid of emotion conduct a realistic appraisal.
Simply writing Donald Trump off as a hateful ogre is to ignore the concerns of his numerous supporters. Removing Trump from the equation, doesn’t remove the concerns, just removes the spokesperson. The platform has been created, all it requires is a more acceptable populist.
I really don’t know how societies can develop the kind of community participation and personal accountability that builds successful responsible social institutions.
I suspect, like individuals, it comes from the confidence and strength developed in overcoming adversity as a result of ones own resources.
It’s without a doubt, a very difficult dilemma….
You make a great number of good points here, as always.
You write: “Nor do I understand why you would believe that I comment on the behest of anyone else? Is it so unbelievable that I’m just a concerned (in your own word’s) ‘citizen of the world?'” I wouldn’t say that it’s totally unbelievable, but that it’s hard to imagine how or why anyone would be so steadfast at repeating a single mantra: the ideologies of do-gooders dreamers are impractical.
Craig,
“so steadfast at repeating a single mantra: the ideologies of do-gooders dreamers are impractical.”
Well, I’m sorry if it appears that way. My observations are not really directed at you personally, but intended as part of a wider discussion.
Of course not all noble and compassionate causes are impractical, or of little value. As I type, I can derive inspiration from a painting of William Wilberforce hanging on the wall opposite my desk, along with a treasured photo of myself and RFK, and others.
My concern with ideologues and “do-gooders” offering sentimental, feel good solutions of little practical value, is the danger of detracting attention and sapping the energy from more practical projects that could achieve positive, if not perfect results.
I see this as particularly important as impractical schemes and exaggerated claims reduce credibility with the general populace. ( Even valuable and practical environmental projects and investment suffer ).
Given the abundance of extreme and exceedingly vocal advocates, I believe more conservative environmentalists must strive to take every opportunity to bring a measure of restraint and moderation, to counter-act the harm done by extremists.
(Please don’t think I’m referring to you)
I don’t take anything you write personally, and even if I did, I’d consider it complimentary. It’s true that I’m an enemy of unregulated capitalism; I’m quite proud of that. Having said that, I try to love my enemies–though they are enemies nonetheless.
While the data is soft and therefore difficult to quantify precisely, compassion, empathy, and positive intent, do provide real value, as they serve many practical ends effectively.
Positive intent (good intentions) have been shown to affect healing and lifespan by clinically detectable and statistically significant measures.
Plans and actions are also guided more wisely when the morale and well-being of others are more than simply a purely practical consideration. Compassion and empathy both serve as deterrents against causing harm or discomfort to others, and motivator to act cooperatively toward common benefit, to share resources, and to aid those in need who may (or may not) one day aid us in return.
The removal of compassion, empathy, and positive intent, has genuine, measurable and deleterious effects.
We see such impacts resulting from the behavior of sociopaths, for example (as distinct from psychopaths).
Sociopaths lack compassion and empathy, but their intellect is unmitigated by those lacks. As a result, however, they tend to behave in ways that are harmful to those around them, because the morale and well-being of others around them are not innate considerations.
This is because – to the sociopath – the value assigned to the qualities of morale and well-being of others is conditional only on what direct personal benefit is perceived by the sociopath to be likely results of those qualities.
Because the sociopath is prevented from appreciating those qualities fully, a useful assessment of benefit by a sociopath is unlikely.
There are other examples, but I believe that thought experiment serves well to illustrate the phenomena.
Very interesting. Yes, it’s hard to quantify, but I think it’s obvious that caring about the welfare of other people is an integral part of being a complete person.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions ” (Alternatively “hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works”.)[Saint Bernard of Clairvaux c. 1150 ]
I just thought I’d throw that in to lighten the mood 🙂
Ha! But the mood is always pretty light around here, IMO. 🙂