Compassion

I had planned to begin last week’s article with the following quote by Albert Einstein: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”.

My brother Philip (who is also my editor) convinced me to drop the quote because it might seem condescending to many people.

He was right.

In communicating it helps to be compassionate in our approach. The same holds for how we judge ourselves and others. 

Compassion is empathy in action. It is the ability to see things from a more complete perspective.

In contrast, insensitivity emanates from a more selfish perspective, a false sense of superiority and judgmentalism. 

Compassion comes from strength, whereas insensitivity is born from weakness.

Compassion for others begins with the effort to understand the other and put oneself in the other’s shoes. It requires sublimating one’s ego that tends towards the judgmental and understanding the other. 

From the individual to the political, I remember reading almost every book by Ayn rand in the 70’s as I tried to understand the essence of selfishness. In Rand’s view, compassion and empathy were the enemies of freedom – they served to weaken people rather than strengthen them. 

This became the essence of Thatcherism and Reaganism in the 1980’s, when Gordon Gecko in the movie “Wall Street” shouted out to the world that “greed is good”, “Go for it” became the mantra of many in that generation.

Ronald Reagan’s claims that government was the problem and not the solution led to the undoing of American government policies that, since 1933 until his presidency, had operated on principles that can be described as compassionate. Under Reagan, decent wages, labour civil and human rights took second place to a conservative ideology that focused more on benefits for the investor class at the expense of the working class. 

We see insensitivity today in the hatred sown by many leaders against minorities, other nationalities or religions in order to obtain and hold on to power.

We see it in taxation policies that often favour the few at the cost of expanding education and health opportunities to eventually enfranchise everyone. In fairness, we also see it in governments who mis-spend and mis-allocate the already huge tax dollars they collect to fuel bloated, irresponsible bureaucracies that work not for the population but for their own interests. We also see it in minimum wage policies of many countries where it is impossible to manage at that level of income.

This provides no guidance to the private sector which oftentimes, when not forced to, might, resist increasing employee wages in lieu of paying dividends to investors and in some cases, no taxes to the government! Indeed, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that investors deserve a fair return on their capital but those who do the lowest paying jobs also deserve to be compensated adequately or at least be better supported by government programs which can only be paid for when all are subject to pay tax on their earnings.

A compassionate, intelligently run government elected by a compassionate and informed society can address injustice and inequity with the balance needed to incentivize industry, innovation in a society where all can better contribute and benefit. This is evident in Scandinavia, where humanistic policies offer support to the less fortunate and offer an opportunity towards a more positive future.

Absent compassion, we live in a jungle devoid of humanity and justice with laws and behaviours that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Is that the world that we seek?

Edición: Estefanía Cardeña