A Call for Creative Social Compassion Solutions

   While instances of the media using the word compassion can be widely found through Internet searches, a social discussion about the need for more compassion is sorely lacking.

   This is particularly true given the trivializing of compassion by using the word as a synonym for empathy or sympathy.

   This usage minimizes compassion as a mere feeling, and removes the action orientation that is inherent in the word.

   To reiterate: Compassion is perceiving another’s suffering, and feeling moved to relieve that suffering.

   It is difficult to deny that on the national stage compassion is often portrayed as the bleeding heart response to a lack of personal initiative. But compassion isn’t always about “doing for” another, rather – if possible – it can be about providing the opportunity for one to do for one’s self (or for a community to do for itself).

   Like the old saying: “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”

   Somewhere on the dividing line between compassion-as-social-justice and compassion-as-social-codependence there needs to be a shared space created that recognizes a common goal: There is suffering, and there exists the means to reduce that suffering.

   But we can’t get there without first recognizing that suffering exists, and acknowledging that we, as a society, desire to find a solution.

   (Sidebar: We, as a society, decided a while ago that [for example] public education and public health were in our best interests, if for no other reason than to have intellectually qualified workers for our factories, and a minimum of plagues and disease.)

   Part of the problem with discussing the need to broaden social compassion is that the public dialogue often gets bogged down in all-or-nothing, black-and-white thinking, rather than allowing for a more creative, broader spectrum of possible solutions.

   Just because we want to end childhood hunger doesn’t mean we are asking the government to create another trillion dollar program to feed all the children. While that may result in the desired outcome, it is not a sustainable solution.

   And though we want to end homelessness for our Veterans and families with children, that doesn’t mean we are asking the government to build everybody their own house. Again, desirable outcome, unsustainable avenue.

   Besides, who decided Congress was forced to come up with all the solutions? Last I checked we didn’t elect them to be our collective Daddies and Mommies. There are a lot of extremely intelligent, passionate, and caring people in every community across the country. Why not give them the opportunity to find workable solutions to their own local, regional, or state problems?

   I have a few ideas of my own, but suffice it to say the discussion needs to be given to the people, communities, and populations affected to come up with creative, compassionate, and workable solutions – supported by the funds being misused on wars, corporate welfare, and good-old-boy boondoggles.

   There is a middle ground between complete government bailouts and casting our nation’s most vulnerable citizens to the sharks.

   We need to dial down the rhetoric on both extremes of the political spectrum, and find a moderate middle ground from which we can respectfully discuss compassionate solutions to our nation’s greatest challenges.

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   To read more about the need for a social dialogue on compassion, go here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.compassionspace.com%2FPapers_on_Basic_Compassion%2FWhy%2520Do%2520We%2520Need%2520More%2520Discourse%2520on%2520Compassion.pdf.

To read about other topics related to compassion, go to: www.CompassionSpace.com.