<underfire> compassion and com-passion

[John Hopkins]

A short response to Sarah, then another couple comments to Alan's 
previous posting:

Sarah -- lots of questions, and it seems that there is a divide in 
your mind (and body) between thoughts and actions. Many of your 
questions fall into a gaping void between the original apprehension 
of a situation , of the Other, and a following-up action.  The gap is 
the space of endless internalization and intellectualization which 
seems to haunt the psychic traditions of the West.

I would never conceive of compassion as anything but a synergized 
psychic impulse to an action of receiving the conditions of the Other 
openly.  Subjective? well, in the Western way of seeing the world, it 
might fall under that broad descriptor, but it also spans a space 
much further beyond that -- where it circumscribes the entire space 
(I call it the "continuum of relationship") that exists between the 
Self and the Other.   If the Self brings baggage with compassion, 
that is not compassion, that is baggage with.  There is a difference. 
Would you rather only the baggage and no compassion?  Humans are 
abundantly fallible, that is clear.  If compassion does not meet your 
purposes in that continuum of relationship what are the ways that you 
relate to the Other without guilt?  If if there are none, then isn't 
that guilt an internal condition in the Self and not something to be 
projected into the continuum of relationship?

>In the context that Bracha describes -a micro level of 
>activity/exchange between Israeli/Palestinian/Jew/Muslim/Christian - 
>this is where it seems 'compassion' become more comprehensible. From 
>my own experiences these are the types of events in which a 
>convergence of the political, the artistic and the philosophical is 
>a possibility. Items which I consider to be

yes, Allan, I would agree -- and I am at a loss how one can summarily 
reject the power and significance of the person-to-person interaction 
which is at the base of all conflict, in the end...  it could even be 
called THE context of all conflict.  Except that there is the 
tendency for social structures to obfuscate this  in order to 
manipulate the emotions of the gullible for the purposes of 
maintaining the social structure (like sending children to war)...

>As reflected in this wide ranging discussion, there are a myriad of 
>issues and questions at play reflecting the different societies we 
>live in. Both in the neighborhood (reflected in school shootings and 
>other acts of random violence) and on the national/global level 'A 
>"chaos" has now completely, and for years to come, replaced the 
>orderly world of the Cold War.' (Alain Joxe) Among other things, 
>what this signifies is the transitory nature of the present moment - 
>a Yeatsian moment 'where the center cannot hold.' Now the normative 
>values of the Enlightenment have little traction. To assume that 
>this traction will return (because the Republicans lose an election 
>or other electoral adjustments in the political landscape) is 
>illusory.

Somehow, it is hard to imagine that a worldview, that of the 
Enlightenment, has any affect on the progressing flow of the surround 
world.  Of course, different worldviews have more or less 
capabilities of accurately circumscribing those flows.  Certainly 
'measurements' of the level of entropy / order / chaos at any point / 
time are variable, given that all those concepts are in flow, but it 
seems to me that the 'average' of those levels over time and space 
are probably constant.  Two socia-political institutions, leaning 
coldly against each other to prop each other up do not constitute a 
device to ban chaos from momentary life.  This fact became abundantly 
clear to me 18 months ago when a completely freak accident in my 
mother's home left me with a shattered vertebra from one second to 
the next.  ANYTHING can happen ANYTIME!  That's the nature of be-ing.

Cheers
John

PS -- thanks again so much Bracha for your highly original and 
insightful expressions on these issues!