How can we be genuine with compassion?
I am really interested in social justice. I believe that ultimately, the problems we have in this world will be fixed when we become less self-absorbed and start following the “golden rule” (or better yet, loving our enemies). So it disturbs me a bit when I see organisations who have what I consider a myopic view of social justice and are willing to market compassion in order to meet a specific need.
It’s like many organisations are in the business of making-people-feel-good-buy-giving. And it means that people who are compassionate might not be doing it for the sake of the people they are helping, but for the fluffy feelings. And if that is true then they are eventually only contributing to the social ills that created the problem of poverty in the first place.
Many people believe that people will only ever do something if it benefits them in some way. I desperately want to prove them wrong. But how can I ensure that I have pure motives in my activist endeavours?
And what if I aren’t after the feeling of compassion but something worse – the comfort of self-righteousness.
I really don’t know the answer to this one. We have commoditised justice and compassion. How can we be genuine?
