Philosophizing
Posted by Hazel Stone | Filed under Hip Waders Required
Interdisciplinary World asks an interesting question (which actually relates to Ted’s post regarding the subsidy of retirement home occupants through taxation of the adult entertainment industry):
Another radical question(ing): It is assumed that we should clothe and feed our fellow man when he cannot do so for himself (some go so far as trying to do so even when he can do so for himself). Why should we?
I suppose the only answer to that is “compassion,” but from where does that compassion spring? Religious training? Parental indoctrination into the mysteries of the Golden Rule? Instinct?
Sociology 101 tells us many of the customs that still exist today originated in either self- or species-preservation, and are so ingrained at this point that to flout them is considered “uncivilized” even though the continuation of our species is hardly in danger.
That collection of genetic culls in Africa who insist on hacking each other apart with machetes (due solely to tribal affiliation, mind you) do not appear to have much in the way of compassion for their fellow man…so did their indoctrination fail, or was it simply abandoned due to the lack of imminent threat (other than from itself) to the species?
Any street gang in any city in any country likewise fails utterly to exhibit compassion, for each other, for their victims. Again, did the indoctrination fail? Or is it being overridden by the “too many rats in a cage” syndrome? Not enough territory (and no requirement to work for survival) inevitably equals warfare.
Fathers who rape their stepdaughters, parents who murder their children, children who murder their parents…not a lot of compassion exhibited there. It has to be something more than lack of proper indoctrination. I would say we’re not so nearly removed from animals as we’d like to think, but you don’t see a lot of piping hot crazy in the animal kingdom.
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February 7th, 2008
I would venture that compassion (for your fellow man) really springs from an individual’s ability to see another person/other people as thinking, feeling human beings in their own right- not just entities that also inhabit the planet and may be used as tools and/or commodities until they complain.
Being able (or choosing) to see one person or group of people as equal to you (existentially) doesn’t mean that you see all people as such. And compassion isn’t something that we’re born with- little children are generally far more vicious than adults.
Unfortunately, it’s not just that compassion is missing in so many cases. It’s that it has been replaced with an entitled-self indulgent narcissism which
at best justifies and at worst encourages treating other people like non-entities. Then combine that with a lack of basic knowledge with which to place their current situation into context with the rest of human history.
And that’s just here. I think this post is long enough already, but briefly; I think the problem with African tribes is that they never moved out of that “tribal warfare” stage long enough for anything else to become the norm. Also there’s a deffinitive lack of freedom and prosperity which tends to create instability (to put it mildly).
February 8th, 2008
Compassion is a form of enlightened self-interest. If I were in their shoes, I would want someone like me to help me.
The failure points are:
Putting oneself in another’s shoes
Being willing to accept help
Imagining oneself as the sort of person who would seek help
Imagining others as being willing to help
Being willing to accept help from the sort of people who would offer
Imagining oneself as someone others would want to help
Being willing to put forth the effort
Loathing on several levels can screw that up. Hatred of self, of others. Fear of others, of rejection by others, of being in that position, of needing help.
Individually, selfishness is almost always better. But it prevents anything approaching commonality to form. If you have to worry about everyone else all the time, you run out of energy, get overstressed, and die early. Compassion is a basic social instinct that keeps us from killing ourselves keeping from killing each other. People have stopped learning that.
Maybe it can’t evolve as a thought process until certain other needs are met, like food, water, shelter. If you spend all your time trying to stay alive, you can’t think so much about the other guy, even if in the long run the two of you could survive better than either of you separately.
Or maybe it grows out of having to work hard to survive, and occasionally needing the help of others, in a situation where earning what one receives is largely a function of effort expended. Being given resources leads people to think they deserve them, and if they deserve that, maybe they deserve other stuff too. If you happen to own (or be) the stuff they think they deserve, bad luck for you.
Whereas if you and your neighbor both work the fields, but your crops won’t feed you over the winter while he has extra, then he gives you his extra on the understanding that if he gets the short end next year, you’ll do likewise. If these two had been given sacks of grain, and one eats all his up too fast, the other one says tough darts. He doesn’t need to help the fast eater because he’s getting his bags of grain next year no matter what.
Just some thoughts on the subject.
February 8th, 2008
CB – It’s where the compassion comes from that (still) perplexes me. Observation says it’s not innate, so it has to be learned. And if it is learned then some people are failing miserably at the teaching.
Mycroft – And I thought *I* was a cynic!
So, as a society, we’ve gone past the point of community, and are swinging back around to survival of the fittest (or actually, the meanest and greediest). I just want to know WHY.
February 8th, 2008
hmmm…I disagree, Hazel. Some elements of compassion *are* innate, particularly that of the parent-child relationship.
Beyond that, there’s a “distance function” that relates nearly everybody, sometimes by proxy by distance to a group rather than an individual. In tribal societies, that function drops off quickly — they don’t have the “civilizational” technology to be able to put themselves into a larger group with a smaller distance function. This is probably why tribal societies tend to get stuck in the neolithic development, too. They end up in a state of constant warfare living too close to the brink of extinction to do things like sending spacecraft to the moon, etc.
Identification with a group is probably something well studied by the sociologists and psycho-babblers. I’m neither, so I’m going to speculate that group identity is largely a function of interaction and common purpose. If we have common purpose but no interaction, we will be competitors. If we have common purpose and interaction, we’re likely going to be teammates. In a purely self-interested fashion, helping teammates is (mostly) a good thing since it has the byproduct of helping you achieve the common purpose.
That said, I don’t think the religious aspect should be overlooked. While we *might* be living in a post-Christian society, no doubt we’re still coasting on the momentum of the Christian legacy and probably will be for several more generations at least. (Frankly, I don’t think the US *is* post-Christian, but much of Europe probably is.)
Christianity is by no-means the only religion that places value on compassion (e.g. Judaism is the well-spring of that feature of Christianity), however in the West, Christianity and the various institutions of the church have left a significant impact on our attitudes towards others — especially at the relatively small scale at the boundary between “my” tribe and “your” tribe.
February 8th, 2008
Compassion is most definitely a learned trait. I think we all have a little innate empathy towards other living creatures, but compassion is learned by example.
If you grow up with parents who demonstrate compassion toward you, who demonstrate compassion to others, who take the time to teach you to be compassionate of others (i.e. the Golden Rule), you will, baring any severe mental health issues, grow to be a compassionate person. The compassion you see others display towards you and your family also plays a role in developing that sense of compassion. Compassion also has an element of trust, it is hard to be compassionate to someone if you do not trust them to be compassionate in return.
Now think of a street gang. Parents and family are most likely absent or uncaring, society as a whole could care less about them until they get dangerous, and then society has little compassion for them. The gang is most likely the only family they know, the only thing that they have compassion for, and might have compassion for them. And even then, it is a dangerous relationship that can turn on a dime.
I’m betting a similar lack of demonstrated compassion can be found in most cases of abuser/victim, with the outliers being the severely mentally ill.
Of course, I just design planes for a living, I could be talking out of my…