The hypocrisy of compassion

[connor17]

If someone has a right, he doesn't beg for it. He just takes what's his. If he doesn't take it, maybe he's not really entitled to it, and he "depends on the kindness of strangers".

If something is unjust, then the law should be changed. When this is done, be sure no one will beg you for nothing, they'll just take what's theirs by law.

If deportation is unjust, then the law should change, so no one would be deported. This is obviously not feasible, because the influx would be limitless, hundreds of millions with no end.

This obvious problem seems not to be so obvious for the people who say that no one should be deported. How's that possible? The answer is that they don't really want to change the law, they are not looking for justice. They just want them to beg for compassion, that they will deliver magnanimously.

If the law were really changed, no immigrant would ask them for nothing, they'd just take what's theirs, so no begging, no redemption from the saviours, just business as usual, and that's a no go. They have to know that what they have is what they have given them.

[joew771]

Wut?

All immigrants should follow the immigration laws and all other laws of where they are going to. If they don't they should be sent home. Pretty simple.

I'm entitled to understand what you said, so I'll take that from you. Because so far I don't really understand.

[connor17]

Compassion yearns for submission.

Dignity comes with emancipation.

[Headbanger]

I don't think that's completely true. Some philosophies only believe that you could consider it an act of kindness if the individual showing kindness does not expect any kind of reward or feel some sort of pleasure out of knowing they helped people. I want to say that was part of Kant's Categorical Imperative [someone please correct me if I'm wrong, don't remember anymore]. There are many people who donate anonymously to charity without any expectation of even interacting with the people they are affecting.

Edit: Can't think of the name of the psychological condition on the other side of the spectrum now, but its basically people who keep other people sick because they want the social attention and affection of helping sick people. That's the image that your assertion puts into my head.

[joew771]

The thing you are trying to think of sounds like 'Munchausen Syndrome', which doesn't really apply to the other thing you were talking about.

The philosphy of 'objectivism' is the opposite of what you said, I think, and seems to me to be the most realistic. Sort of the opposite of what you claimed that Kant said. Objectivism says that all people are selfish. They all want to make themselves feel good. For example, let's say someone sees a starving person, and gives them food. They didn't do it out of altruism, they did it because it made them feel better. When they got home later they could sit on their comfortable couch watching their large screen tv feeling good because they 'helped' someone.

Or let's say someone sees a stranger drowning. The person seeing it will usually try to save that person, not because they care about that person, but because they will feel bad if they don't try to save them, and if they do happen to save them, then they will feel good about that.

And for an extreme example, let's say that person sees their mother drowning. Of course they will try to save her, but why? Objectivism says that you will save her because you don't want to feel the pain of your mother dying. You don't want to feel the guilt of not trying to save her. It's not so much about not wanting your mother to drown and die, and what she may feel, but about the consequences of that. It's about how you would feel about it.

Everyone is selfish. Everyone wants to make themselves feel good.

The most charitable person does it only to make themselves feel good. Bill Gates has given millions of dollars to charity. Did he do it because he is a good person, or because he would feel guilty about having so much money? I tend to think it's because he feels guilty, otherwise he would have given away all of his money.

Even Jesus isn't a true altruist. He helped people, but he got some benefit from it. He converted people to his and his father's religion.

[Headbanger]

Just checked online. I'm was thinking Munchhausen by Proxy syndrome. Same idea, but anyways, back on topic.

I'm not too familiar with objectivism, but it sounds like a solid philosophical base. From the standpoint it would seem that people are not compassionate because they want the submission of those they are nice to [at least for the most part]. There are other drives that push humanity to be nice to one another, even if it is just to feel good about oneself.

[connor17]

The devil is in the detail

[joew771]

I'm not too familiar with objectivism, but it sounds like a solid philosophical base. From the standpoint it would seem that people are not compassionate because they want the submission of those they are nice to [at least for the most part]. There are other drives that push humanity to be nice to one another, even if it is just to feel good about oneself.

Objectivism is not at all about the submission of anyone. Only that a person feels good because they do things for themselves.

[connor17]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/a...ul-refugee

"I don’t believe in that explanation. What actually happened was that we learned what they wanted, the hidden switch to make them stop simmering. After all, these Americans had never thought we were terrorists or Islamic fundamentalists or violent criminals. From the start, they knew we were a Christian family that had escaped those very horrors. And they, as a Protestant community, had accepted us, rescued us. But there were unspoken conditions to our acceptance, and that was the secret we were meant to glean on our own: we had to be grateful. The hate wasn’t about being darker, or from elsewhere. It was about being those things and daring to be unaware of it. As refugees, we owed them our previous identity. We had to lay it at their door like an offering, and gleefully deny it to earn our place in this new country. There would be no straddling. No third culture here."

"The refugee has to be less capable than the native, needier; he must stay in his place. That’s the only way gratitude will be accepted. Once he escapes control, he confirms his identity as the devil. All day I wondered, has this been true in my own experience? If so, then why all the reverence for the refugees who succeed against the odds, the heartwarming success stories? And that’s precisely it – one can go around in this circle forever, because it contains no internal logic. You’re not enough until you’re too much. You’re lazy until you’re a greedy interloper."