In 1984, former Oregon State University basketball star Lonnie Shelton was the victim of a robbery attempt. At 6-foot-8, 275 pounds, Shelton was a formidable figure. One day while emerging from a restaurant with his girlfriend, Cathy, he was faced with a would-be thief holding a 357-magnum and a demand for all his money. The thief might just as well have challenged him to a one-on-one basketball game as Shelton disarmed the villain and trapped him under his 275 lbs of body. As a born-again Christian, Shelton saw an opportunity to convert his attacker. But the thief was deaf to Shelton’s Christian testimony and began to squirm, so Shelton hit him on the head with a rock.
There is no evidence here that either a compelling argument or a physical incentive transduces the Holy Spirit or any other electrifying concept successfully unless the listener is receptive on his own. Well, there’s no harm in trying, except, that is, there is the risk of a bump on the head. That brings up several questions, the most immediate one being, what is compassion? The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as follows: “The deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another, together with the inclination to give aid or support to show mercy.” Acting compassionately entails a relationship between two or more people in the same situation.
For the devout Christian, the biblical story of the good Samaritan informs personal judgment. The victim, a Jew, is injured in a thief’s attack. Several Jews pass him by. A Samaritan, a religious outsider and unclean to the Jews, stops, dresses the victim’s wounds, and places the victim on his “own beast.” The Samaritan takes the no-name victim to an Inn where he tells the inn keeper to take care of him and spend what is necessary and he will reimburse the inn keeper later. The story teaches how we live with one another as members of the same species. Bad things happen to good people though the story does not pass judgment on the victim.
Compassion, therefore, is a person-to-person relationship. It is also possible to feel compassion for someone from afar, or within physical reach. Consider the people of Haiti after a deadly hurricane destroys lives and buildings. The experts on the Haitian experience certainly are the Haitians. The rest of us can feel compassion for the victims of a natural disaster, but the remoteness of the event dilutes the empathy. Besides, the news passes onto the next cat-in-the-tree story. Yes, the firemen saved Buffy again. Now do you feel better. Pictures at eleven.
Human personalities are so empathetic their imagination can take them to the island, and the other extreme is a sociopath who feels nothing. The human experience is, for sure, diverse. There are many reasons we feel compassion and many reasons the physically remote space, culture, or repetitive nature of human traumatic drama allow us to move on. The term in vogue is compassion fatigue. In the end, compassion, kind, loving, and empathetic people step in and help their neighbor. Christmas can’t come too soon for the destitute and the weak, but it doesn’t come often enough.
Who do we help first and the most? Usually it is family members. Next, we might find ourselves supporting our friends – maybe offering a room to someone we are close to until they can find a job. But it is only normal that as the emotional and geographic distance become greater, most (though not all) of us are relegated to a few dollars to the bank fund to help the poor and unfortunate. We help those we are closest to first. This is not an indictment of humanity, but a practical way of dispensing resources with the assurance they will be well used and benefit the intended target. Unfortunately, it works against those who lack resources. Most people realize this and place their trust in organizations that have expertise in helping the specific problem – rebuilding a city after a natural disaster, coaxing the addicted to sobriety, and treating the sick.
The history of the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches direct compassion towards the innocent and the guilty, as the dictionary definition implies. The obese who can’t stop excessive eating, the drug addled alcoholic who can’t stop drinking, the spendthrift who lives high only to lose a home or family (see the Prodigal Son), and societies who fail to improve materially despite great resources, are all objects of compassion, perhaps reluctant compassion, but, may earn our efforts at reform anyway.
Compassion is a human relationship built on judgment and rationality after we are moved by our emotions. It is above all a relationship. There is a donor as well as a receiver of the donation. Someone who donates an organ to a stranger (at some personal risk), or the donation of money, or filling sandbags to hold off the swelling river threatening someone else’s house, define giving. But, also, there is an exchange, for the old saying is, that it is better to give than to receive. As a relationship, compassion is a condition which benefits both the giver and the receiver. We live daily with a relationship with other people. Even the capital punishment condemned have a relationship to their executioner. Compassion is about the favorable exchange between two humans. It is an exchange of humanity.
There is, also, a kind of middle ground of compassion as projected by Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and bygone era foundation founders such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and a host of lesser donors. These donors have lived lives of varying luxury, and the greatest luxury is to be so filthy rich that you can give it away (in some cases after death) and still maintain your elite lifestyle. One can hear Christ saying, give your wealth away and follow me. It would be unfair to totally castigate this group of donors. They have the choice to undertake compassionate relief or not. Not everyone does, and even those who may donate only for the (now disappearing) tax advantage, deserve credit for their actions as opposed to the possibility of inaction. Even here there is the satisfaction of accomplishing something. The end to poverty and disease would give us all fewer objectives to pursue. Don’t worry, it isn’t happening soon.
In our more primitive lives, there was nothing but personal intercourse. As humanity became more mobile, geography played a part in our relationship. There is no doubt that it is easier to start a war remotely with the robotic arms of hidden drones than to throw a rock at your neighbor as he chops down a tree that lands over your property line onto your roof. It is more blessed to give than to receive or the dark side wins. The dark side, though, has more tricks up the sleeve than a successful magician.
Among the fraudulent representations of compassion is government compassion. The idea of a fulfilled taxpayer as a cheerful donor of funds via a compassionate government intermediary who professionally administers generosity to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses makes about as much sense as your average carcinogenic FEMA trailer (which you can have in any color as long as it is white). Or, consider the Veteran whose foot is about to fall off and is told there will be an appointment opening 365 days from today.
Many Americans have come to view taxation with representation as nearly as bad as taxation without representation. Bureaucracies take on a life of their own and metastasize into ineffectual behemoths that consider self-perpetuation as their prime directive. Unfortunately, the relationship between taxpayer and government is about as close as any two stars you care to mention. This isn’t to say that government as an organizing force has nothing to offer, but it underlines the lack of humanity in the process of taxation with representation. The need for government to undertake welfare support ought to occasion deep reflection about the nature of one’s society. It should not be the reason for increased spending, which, just by the way, might gain the political advocate of such a policy a few votes. The remoteness of the donor to the receiver, in both the geographical sense as well as underlying emotional attachment, dilutes the good to a faint trace.
Nearly all utility companies offer some sort of charitable opportunity designed to pay for electricity to indigent users in need—usually during the frigid winter months. Utilities which mandate “Low Income Assistance” are no better than the government regulators who allow utilizes to offer such opportunities. If either of these approving entities wanted, they could provide the assistance themselves. Some governments mandate it as a part of the bill the paying users receive. At that point it becomes involuntary. It’s interesting that the utilities, in order to entice the voluntary contribution to the low-income assistance cause often show a picture of a child as an example of the beneficiary who might receive the donation. In doing so, they spend money on the printing of the advertising involuntarily donated by the paying public. In other words, they humanize their computerized appeals in order to achieve a calculated result. Again, the geographical distance and emotional distance require utilities to boost their appeals by pulling at the strings of guilt. The difference between guilt and conscience might be a topic for another day.A tax by any other name is still a tax. Lonnie Shelton can tell you, a rock or good intentions are not enough.