Is Your Ego Louder Than Your Compassion?
The most basic of human rights, the right for all people to live without harm, is the most important, the most precious, the most vital thing to humankind.
Arguments that justify the violation of this right in any case are inane and offensive. Deserved abuse does not exist. Rightful oppression, justifiable prejudice, these are nothing but excuses for bigotry.
This particular bit of truth should need no elaboration or rhetoric to support it, but I’m going to provide some anyway. If you find that you need it, please consider the possibility that your ego might be louder than your compassion.
First, truth is not confined to the scope of your own personal experiences. Just because you have never seen a phenomenon in action does not mean that it isn’t someone else’s governing reality. Our experiences color the lens through which we see the world, but they don’t have to make it opaque, reflecting only ourselves back at us. If your own challenges and heartbreaks don’t serve to increase your capacity to understand others’, then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
We have a responsibility to care for one another. If you live in this world and you expect society to take care of you; if you expect to benefit from the goods and services of the businesses that you visit and the people who work in them; if you expect food service, bar service, grocery service to be clean and swift; if you expect the people who work in hospitals, emergency response, and government offices to be above reproach; if you expect the school system to educate your children; then you have entered into a social contract with the people around you. You cannot expect to receive care, empathy, and respect from others and refuse to give any in return.
Here’s the language that I use when I teach my modern dance students contact improvisation: Your job is to take more care of your partner than you take of yourself. If you pay more attention to your partner’s safety than you pay to yourself, and you trust that your partner is doing the same for you, then everyone always gets what they need. I’ve never had a group of students at any level argue this point or fail to grasp the truth of it. So why do so many of us fail to understand now?
The most glaring example of this today? Every single person should be making selfless choices about how and where and with whom they spend their time right now. If you don’t believe the plethora of scientific proof that explains in detail why this virus should be taken seriously and what measures we must all take to slow its progress, I’m not going to convince you of it now. But if, in the face of that evidence, you won’t do something as simple as wearing a mask, as simple as distancing, as simple- inconvenient or disappointing as it may be- as postponing or sacrificing your social activities, simple things that harm you not at all and will help to protect those around you, then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
Racism is alive and, God help us, flourishing. I’ve seen it. I’m ashamed to have privileged from it in ways that a very long time ago I thought were innocuous. What is it about the color of someone’s skin that could in any conceivable world make them “less than?” Humans are being hunted in their neighborhoods, their homes, on the streets in a way that reflects our darkest, most shameful character and it must stop. Black lives absolutely and incontrovertibly more than matter. If you are unable to say these words, if you feel indignation at hearing them, then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
Women are in danger. As long as feminism is a dirty word; as long as our submissive, plastic bodies are valued above our character, our accomplishments, and our intellect; as long as our narratives are disbelieved; and as long as the damage done to us without our consent is treated with less significance than the notion of damage that might be done to men as a direct result of their own actions; women will continue to be in danger. If you are unwilling to hear and believe the narratives of nearly every woman you know, then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
I’ve heard the Black Lives Matter movement likened to the Me Too movement, and while this kind of reduction can be problematic, I’m going with it for the moment. Here’s why: what the Me Too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement have in common is that the primary and first-response rebuttal is “But not all [insert here].” And thank God for that. It’s great. I even believe it’s true. I’ve known more good men than bad, more good cops than bad, friends and colleagues and family who live their lives governed by integrity, who would never, ever commit rape or brutalize the people under their power. But the bold and blatant truth is that even if that argument is true, right now it is not the rule but the exception that has been given the power to govern our experiences.
Gender and sexuality are complex. Short of living in a person’s skin, you haven’t the capacity to inhabit their experiences, their desires, their unique sense of self, so how can you have the right to limit them? All other matters aside, what person has the authority to stand in judgment over another, not for any crime, but simply for being? If you feel it is your right to say that something so fundamentally personal, something that is none of your business whether you accept it or not, disqualifies a group of humans from being treated as valid and valuable, then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
Children living in cages- any children, for any reason- is a horrifying abuse of power. Having taken these children from their families in the first place was a horrifying abuse of power. Allowing the shameful neglect (at best) and cruelty (at worst) that these children are enduring to continue long after we have known it is taking place in our custody is a horrifying abuse of power. Unilaterally denying sanctuary or withholding relief to the desperate, endangered, and vulnerable is a horrifying abuse of power. The damage that has been done can never be undone and if you are not outraged, then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
Your individual belief systems, up to and including your faith or religion, should not be forcibly imposed on others around you. Your neighbor doesn’t owe you the deference of following your rules and observing your beliefs… unless you are willing to assimilate theirs in return? You have a right to your faith and to speak your beliefs into the world. There is no apology for a faith that calls its followers to a narrow path; however, in every case that I can think of, the abuse of others, including those who are not called to your path, is a rejection of the core concept of faith. To choose to live a life governed by the righteous, the merciful, and the enlightened is a noble thing, but oppression in the name of God is never a faithful witness.
Many of our social systems are broken. If you can read narratives of patients receiving medical bills for hundreds of thousands of dollars and agree that such a thing would be insupportable in your own life, but you do not support healthcare reform; if your rightful awe at the accomplishments of teachers in shockingly inadequate conditions does not translate to support of educational reform; if you fail to recognize the gross bias against minorities and women in law enforcement from first encounter through incarceration; if you feel disdain for the person and not the system at the sight of homelessness and abject poverty; if your “Pro Life” is an issue only of the womb and not of the child after birth or the woman creating it; then your ego may be louder than your compassion.
It costs me nothing to live a life governed by compassion; however, if I refuse to act compassionately, the cost in suffering to others may be great and to exact that cost is outside of my rights. So, once more, there is nothing in the world that is more important than the sanctity of human rights, the most basic of which is the right to live and not to be harmed.
It doesn’t end there. Obviously, it’s setting the lowest of bars simply to allow someone who is “other” than you to exist, unmolested. Don’t mistake it for benevolence to have met that particular standard. But some of us clearly need to ease into the concept, so let’s start there.
