Dear Grace

Germantown/Louisville 2012 

I gotta say I'm not with you on this whole idea you have of "compassion".  If compassion is "feeling/sharing suffering", then fuck compassion.  I think it's a bit presumptuous - and I think you would agree with me here - to believe we can feel or share anyone else's suffering. Where I believe we really separate is that I don't even think it's worthwhile to mentally approximate someone's suffering.  Empathy by itself never contributes to a solution, and upping the total of suffering in the world is never a good thing, even if it is (just?) empathetic suffering.

I think of compassion in a less empathetic, more intellectual sense of the word (I know, right?).  I think it is important to understand as much as one possibly can: you can't ever fully know another person, but you can have a context for that person.  Again, if you go back to linking compassion to suffering, and you propose a limit to compassion based on suffering, then I don't think ANY compassion is a good thing.  How much suffering does one have to encounter before compassion is jettisoned?  I know, that's essentially the point you are trying to address by linking action to compassion; but to me, that still sets up a calculation of suffering, and doesn't answer the question "how much suffering is too much suffering?", much less the question "what qualifies as real suffering?".

If, on the other hand, you dispense with empathy, and strive for understanding (context), then you don't subject action to some calculation of suffering.  You don't, for instance, differentiate between murderous child soldiers or mercenaries whom you feel should "know better": one just moves to stop violence and oppression, no matter what the source.  And again, I know that's what you're pointing toward, but a calculation of suffering is moving the wrong direction.

So, leave empathy and compassion out of it altogether.  It is a simple question of resisting violence and oppression.

On the other hand, if we leave out empathy/compassion, we should always strive to supply a context for any action.  Why did a given act happen?  Forget feelings, what are the motivations?  How are these motivations formed?  How can one go further back up the stream of an event to eliminate the poison which informed the event?

We can, of course, get totally lost in labyrinthine weaves when we try to get to the root of motivations, and that really wouldn't do either, would it?  First, I say never assume bad faith on the part of the opponent: I always believe an opponent is simply misguided until proven otherwise (and really, aren't the most evil of bastards at some level simply misguided?).  Secondly, realise that ignorance and ill will frequently have the same outcome but different solutions.  Third, don't become a slave to your ideology; or, fight for the good, not the right . . . and if one can't tell the difference, it's time to search one's own soul for error.

Anyway, we're probably not far off here, but any calculation of suffering is, at best, a waste of time.  If that seems callous, then think of it as a more efficient way to fight oppression, and it then becomes less so.

Love,
Bill