I’m working up a series of entries around the concept of living compassionately. This is not a new idea, and I’m willing to accept that I’m not the best qualified to preach it, but (in the words of someone better qualified): if not me, who?

Nicked wholesale from Wikipedia:

Radical compassion is a term coined by the philosopher Khen Lampert, in 2003. His theory of radical compassion appeared in Traditions of Compassion: from Religious Duty to Social-Activism (2006). Lampert identifies compassion as a special case of empathy, directed towards the “other’s” distress. Radical compassion is a specific type of general compassion, which includes the inner imperative to change reality in order to alleviate the pain of others. This state of mind, according to Lampert’s theory, is universal, and stands at the root of the historical cry for social change.

“I have noted that compassion, especially in its radical form, manifests itself as an impulse. This manifestation stands in stark opposition to the underlying premises of the Darwinist theories, which regard the survival instinct as determining human behavior, as well to the Freudian logic of the Pleasure Principle, which refutes any supposedly natural tendency on the part of human beings to act against their own interests and proposes viewing such an inclination as the product of cultural conditioning…”

While I’m not sure how much I agree with Lampert’s reduction of both Freud and Darwin, I agree with the basic premise: that there is an imperative to alleviate the pain of others. If I’m reading the summaries correctly, Traditions of Compassion looks at Christian, Buddhist, and modern secular traditions of so-called compassion and finds all of them wanting. The key to Lampert’s philosophy seems to be that the heart of the social contract is the need (and compulsion) to act in the interests of those in pain, distress, or otherwise at a disadvantage.

I started to formulate my own idea of radical compassion while watching the run-up to the recent parliamentary elections in the UK. Some of my friends who are able to vote there discussed ‘holding their noses’ and voting conservative for a variety of reasons, the main one being that they didn’t find that the Labour leader could realistically bring the UK out of its current crisis. I don’t fault this reasoning, but it seems to me myopic. The idea of ‘getting Brexit done’ doesn’t contain a plan, for example, for securing the food supply, keeping the peace in Ireland, or maintaining a functioning and affordable health service in light of how many medications and members of staff come from outside of the UK.

One aspect of this compassionate behavior is voting compassionately. My friend RC was accused of treason when campaigning for her preferred not-conservative candidate in this election. Treason for advocating for participating in the democratic process. (The shades of pre-fascist Europe in this exchange don’t escape me.) It won’t escape the reader’s notice that I’m socially liberal in my philosophy, and that when I talk about compassionate voting, my perspective is to vote for candidates who advocate for reducing suffering in whatever form.

My friends who advocated for the conservative candidates may very well project that there is greater long-term good to come out of what those candidates offer and promise and what their track records show they might get done.

I would argue that hunger and need shouldn’t have to wait for the undefined solution of this human-engineered crisis. Yes, I’m shouting at the barn door long after the horses have bolted.

To use another hackneyed metaphor, I know that expecting compassion from politicians is tilting at windmills, and that it’s probably no longer possible for voters to hold their representatives responsible for anything, but I’ll vote for the alleviation of pain rather than its aggravation every time.

There’s a further argument that voting this way can be seen as a kind of enlightened self interest. If we vote for greater access to medicine, we’re voting for a healthier population. (Also true for voting not to make life difficult for the large percentage of National Health Service medical staff who are from outside the UK.) Voting in favour of better primary schools sufficiently staffed with better-paid and -supported teachers so that your country’s children don’t grow up undereducated and resentful of the education system can also be seen as enlightened self interest. If that works for you, run with it, but I would suggest also doing so out of compassion for all the others concerned.