The Capacity and Compunction for Compassion

Posted | 1 comment

[A pdf version to print and read may be found here.]

Preface

In a drenching rain in Oslo, an estimated 40,000 people recently stood in protest outside the courtroom where the self-confessed mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik was being tried for his crimes. When convicted, under Norway’s laws, he will either be placed in a psychiatric facility or incarcerated for a minimum of 21 years.

This protest demonstration on the streets of Oslo, however, was not a lynch mob shouting for retaliatory justice to be meted out in equal measure to the violence Breivik committed. Instead, as an utter refutation of Breivik’s cruel and unspeakable acts, they sang a Norwegian version of Pete Seeger’s children’s song, Children of the Rainbow.  It was the very song Breivik had claimed was brainwashing the country’s youth and weakening their society by promoting more tolerant immigration policies.

Meanwhile, in this country, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments pro and con in the dispute over the constitutionality of Arizona’s SB1170, and the state’s rights to usurp or supersede Federal immigration policies.  Opponents object to the arbitrary and subjective manner in which law enforcement could single out anyone suspected of being an illegal alien, tantamount to racial profiling; while exasperated proponents are determined to seek any means necessary to mitigate the detrimental impact felt by American citizens in border states.

And finally, this week the national media stage turned its attention to the one-year anniversary of U.S. special forces finding and killing Osama Bin Laden; a religious terrorist who makes the deranged Norwegian ideologue look like an amateur.

No matter what one’s opinions may be with regard to any of these three seemingly disparate stories a common question could be asked: Is there any place for a compassionate response to every person in each case?

That is, beyond any question of ethical and legal right or wrong, reason or rationale, human goodness or human evil, guilt and judgment, worthiness or worthlessness — when all is said and done — does there remain yet a response that is not only possible, but necessary, to acknowledge the dignity and worth of every human being?  In what are perhaps the most difficult and extreme examples just mentioned, do we have both the capacity and compunction to include in the mix some expression of compassion in such tragic stories of brokenness and estrangement, violence and vengeance.

It is not a matter of accepting or excusing the actions of another; nor even, in some cases, expecting forgiveness and reconciliation where all bounds of reasonableness have been surpassed.  It is rather a matter of acknowledging the utter necessity for what may seem to be the last resort, and should probably be the first: to allow the transformative power of compassion to short-circuit the typical juxtaposition of egos battling for same turf.

But how do we muster the capacity to express a sense of compassion for the sake of the other? And, what is it that wells up within us when we find ourselves moved to act with that sense of compunction; to refuse to cast one of us into the realms of outer darkness, or even stand for a fleeting moment in someone else’s shoes.

The Capacity for Compassion

A recent cartoon in The New Yorker depicted a customer standing in front of the sales counter of a gun shop.  On the wall behind the sales clerk various rifles of different sizes and shapes were displayed.  The caption was a question posed by the clerk, “Well, just how much ground do you want to stand?”

This is the presumptive place from which we all function and relate to one another. I have my position, and you have yours.  In my own defense, at least I maintain my position based on principled convictions, right? In the center of my position I place my self.  From there, I safeguard my position, while advancing supremacy and dominance over your position.  It is in my best self-interest to do so. And that’s just the way it is.

But in an article for The Greater Good Science Center entitled, The Compassionate Instinct, UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner contradicts such common assumptions with the evidence of new research. He begins with those common assumptions we all have that are taken for granted: