Compassion

The trouble with “compassion”

Compassion is a wonderful virtue.

But you need to have many virtues to call yourself a moral person.  Compassion is trendy-we want to show others how wonderful and thoughtful we are-but if we really thought about it, showing “compassion” (a subjective word if there ever was one) to someone is almost always at the expense of someone else.

Example-an 18 year old kid from a broken home was raised in poverty.  He never really had a chance. He decides to enter into a life of crime, breaking into homes for his Oxycontin fix. The cops arrest him.

You are on the jury, and out of “compassion” you decide not to convict him. After all, isn’t that nice and thoughtful?

But! Where is your “compassion” for the home owner whose house he broke into? 

Don’t get me wrong, compassion is good, even admirable. It is, however, disturbing to me that in this society we tend to place it over every other virtue.