Social Question

tups's avatar

Do you think the world lacks compassion?

Asked by tups (6737points) May 5th, 2013

Do you think the world needs more compassion? Do you agree that compassion is the way to happiness?
Do you think compassion has increased or decreased throughout time?

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27 Answers

cookieman's avatar

The “world” doesn’t give a shit about you or anyone else. Individual people have and display compassion based of shared experiences, love, kindness, empathy, etc.

Are more or less people compassionate today than before? No idea, but I’m gonna say more because I want to be optimistic today.

tups's avatar

@cookieman In this context, the “world” means humanity.

cookieman's avatar

@tups: I surmised that but I was being literal in an attempt dispel any pointless romantic notions of the “world” as some living, breathing organism that has any feelings toward us whatsoever. ‘Cuz that is just bullshit.

marinelife's avatar

People have compassion not the world. I think people overall are more compassionate than they have been in the past.

tups's avatar

@cookieman What do you possibly know about that?

thorninmud's avatar

Happiness and compassion go hand in hand. I’d hesitate to say that compassion causes happiness. It seems to me that they both have the same source: shifting the focus of attention away from yourself.

The barrier to compassion is the barrier that you see between yourself and others. The more pronounced that self/other boundary is, the less you’ll care about what happens outside that boundary. The boundary is mutable; it can be made bigger or smaller, softer or harder. It can come and go. Compassion is what happens when the boundary fades and becomes permeable.

Happiness is paradoxical. Set out to make yourself happy—to “pursue happiness”—and it’s elusive. Happiness, like compassion, is the result of getting beyond the barrier. That can’t happen if you’re just looking out for your own well-being.

Are we too self-centered, then? Sure. There are all kinds of cultural influences pushing us that way. If you want to manipulate people, there’s no better way than to tap into our primal urges for greed and anger, both of which are ultimately about self. There’s a whole lot of money to be made by appealing to self-interest. And you can arouse a whole lot of political passion by appealing to anger.

I think that’s always been the case, but it is a critical problem now that there are so very many of us, and we have such destructive capabilities. We can become more compassionate, but that won’t be easy.

Judi's avatar

I don’t think the state of humanity has changed much in the last 6000 years. I think that the more a person suffers the more they are capable of compassion and empathy. We may be somewhat less compassionate than in previous generations because we have been spared a lot of the suffering due to modern advancements in medicine, but we are still capable of torture and violence. We never really seem to get it (as a whole.)
On the other hand, with our instant news cycle and seeing horrors on a daily basis we may in someway identify with suffering more, but then again, I think we’ve chosen fear instead of compassion.
Bottom line, I think there will always be room for more compassion.

Mr_Paradox's avatar

I believe that individual people are kind a compassionate (usually), however, humanity is a cruel and heartless race.

dabbler's avatar

Everything that humans accomplish and that requires the effort and attention of more than one person forces some harmonizing of those involved. That’s civilization.

I think “the world”, humanity, could use more civilizing/harmonizing aspects including compassion.
And that’s what humans have invented civilization for, refining our collective base nature one individual, one moment, at a time. Until we have reached a level of perfection, we still need more of that.

Pachy's avatar

To me, “compassion” implies feeling for others without necessarily doing anything for them. Compassion (or even better, empathy) is a good start, but without action, it’s a wasted quality.

Inspired_2write's avatar

Some have to be subjected by pain to come and therefore realize more compassion..
Others only need to be affected by it though personal experience ( a loved one) etc
Still others only need to remember in their pasts and relate.
A small portion can only imagine the sufferring and can place themselves in the suffers
place ( empthay).
We all learn compassion in our own time and way.
And we all give in ways that differ from each other.
Some give of their time, money,spititual prayer etc
WE all give in a way that is unique to individuals personality.
In time of crises compassionate people appear and assist.

cookieman's avatar

@tups: About the same as any of us. Just my opinion.

tups's avatar

@cookieman Okay, your opinion. We are all entitled to our opinions, but to claim to know something that is not certain is, in my opinion, not right.

ETpro's avatar

Great question. My guess is that in our early stages as small tribes of hunter gathers, we were pretty compassionate with regards to other members of our own tribe because we knew we relied on the group for our very survival. But we were utterly heartless with members of other groups. Tribal warfare was commonplace and deadly. The vanquished were either slaughtered immediately or enslaved and worked to death.

As population density grew, what had been the tribe expanded to the city state, and eventually grew to include national borders with numerous cities inside them. But the warring went on unabated. We had a very long Age of Conquest where the way to glory was through rape and pillage expansion and leaders like Alexander and Genghis Kahn got “The Great” tacked onto their names by being the most rapacious, murderous human of their time.

The Age of Colonization changed the equation a bit. When the base of power shifted from the East to Western Europe, the European nations intent on dominating one another sought to do so by taking over nations here and there around the world, and sending out explorers to claim new-found lands in the Caribbean, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand; even if those “newly discovered” lands already had people living in them. But to profit from those lands over the long haul, they recognized that they could not just cart off the gold and silver they found there; they needed human capital for agriculture, crafts, mining, logging, and trade. And so things got a bit less violent than they had been back in the Age of Conquest.

As we approached modern times, outright colonization gave way to neocolonialism, where global capitalism and imperialism replaced outright conquest. The powerful sought to dominate weaker nations through economic means, but still to dominate them. This led to some spectacular wars like WWI and WWII, with destruction on a scale the world had not seen since the Great Kahn was sweeping across the know Earth destroying all who refused to bend to his will. But WWII ended with a game changer. The nuclear age dawned with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As the former allies in the Communist block countries and Capitalist West split apart and became instead of allies mortal enemies, each pushed their own nuclear weapons development. The result was that hydrogen bombs with 3,000 times the explosive force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima were soon in each nation’s arsenal. The world soon recognized that WWIII, fought with the nuclear capacity to destroy all humanity many times over, was unthinkable. The age of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) dawned, where the only way to shoot your opponent was to put the gun to your own head and blow your own brains out in the process.

MAD had given the first glimmer of hope that mankind might learn to limit warfare. We have actually restrained ourselves from launching another all out war for some 77 years. That’s unprecedented. We have also begun compassionate outreaches to areas devastated by famine, drought, AIDS, and natural disasters. Compassion has been on the rise. The greatest threat I see to that trend continuing is the rise in power and appeal of apocalyptic, fundamentalist religions that actually yearn for the destruction of all mankind so that a handful of “true believers” can meet up with their imaginary friend in their imaginary Valhalla in the sky. Stay tuned. It remains to be seen whether reason or irrationality will prevail. And that, my dear @tups, will ultimately answer your question.

Judi's avatar

@ETpro, human history in a nutshell!!

cookieman's avatar

@tups: So you’re holding for the possability that the “world” is some living, breathing organism that has feelings toward us?

thorninmud's avatar

@tups , @cookieman If I may offer a compromise, maybe we are the organs through which the world feels.

tups's avatar

@cookieman No, that is not what I think, but I do not claim to know what the world is and what the world isn’t. I know that I don’t know this.

cookieman's avatar

@thorninmud: Sure, that works.

@tups: Fair enough. My agnostic self cannot disagree with you.

tups's avatar

@cookieman Peace and harmony, then.

ninjacolin's avatar

People care. On a day to day basis, sometimes individuals fail to show compassion in one instance.. but then give generously and compassionately in the next.

We could use more compassion, I would say, but we’re definitely improving as a whole.

KNOWITALL's avatar

Compassion is innate to some but not all and obviously there’s not enough.

augustlan's avatar

Compassion seems to be on the rise, over the long term. There are pockets of people who seem incapable of it, but I don’t think they are in the majority. We can always use more compassion, though.

ETpro's avatar

@augustlan With great joy in my heart to see it happen, I agree. I have watched it change over my rather long lifetime.

mattbrowne's avatar

Yes. Especially at Wall Street.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I agree with you @augustlan.

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