Sigh. This is depressing. Not the failure to convince anyone; that's fine. It's the failure of people to grasp what I'm saying. I try to express it as clearly and as forcefully as possible, apparently to no avail. I'm beginning to suspect that the problem lies in a basic resistance to the message rather than in my expression of it. But, in case the fault lies with me, I will give it one more try.
You write that I "strike the balance so egregiously in what seems to most of us to be the wrong direction" when my entire point is that there is no balance to be struck. To weigh JonMon's worthiness for compassion against that of his victims is to exclude compassion altogether. It is mere egoism, completely natural and normal but (I paraphrase Schopenhauer again) neither blameworthy or praiseworthy. Compassion shatters the ego. It occurs when someone acts not, as is normally the case, out of egoistic motives but to relieve the pain of another without regard to ones own self-interest (and even contrary to ones self-interest). This can only happen when we throw away the scales and see the other person and ourselves as one. We are all suffering beings thrown into a life we did not choose and subject alike to its lacerations. The distinction between perpetrator and victim (and all other individual distinctions) vanishes. Compassion shatters the illusion of duality and we realize that we are all, ultimately, one. As the Hindu scriptures put it, "tat tvam asi" (thou art that). Or, to quote Shelly, "The One remains, the Many change and pass."
To say that JonMon doesn't deserve compassion or that his victims deserve it more is to miss the point. To quote Shakespeare again, "In the course of justice, none of us / Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy, / And that same prayer doth teach us all to render / The deeds of mercy."
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Date: 2013-05-22 04:13 pm (UTC)You write that I "strike the balance so egregiously in what seems to most of us to be the wrong direction" when my entire point is that there is no balance to be struck. To weigh JonMon's worthiness for compassion against that of his victims is to exclude compassion altogether. It is mere egoism, completely natural and normal but (I paraphrase Schopenhauer again) neither blameworthy or praiseworthy. Compassion shatters the ego. It occurs when someone acts not, as is normally the case, out of egoistic motives but to relieve the pain of another without regard to ones own self-interest (and even contrary to ones self-interest). This can only happen when we throw away the scales and see the other person and ourselves as one. We are all suffering beings thrown into a life we did not choose and subject alike to its lacerations. The distinction between perpetrator and victim (and all other individual distinctions) vanishes. Compassion shatters the illusion of duality and we realize that we are all, ultimately, one. As the Hindu scriptures put it, "tat tvam asi" (thou art that). Or, to quote Shelly, "The One remains, the Many change and pass."
To say that JonMon doesn't deserve compassion or that his victims deserve it more is to miss the point. To quote Shakespeare again, "In the course of justice, none of us / Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy, / And that same prayer doth teach us all to render / The deeds of mercy."