The BBC (British Broadcasting Co.) has a profound video at it’s web site comparing empathy and compassion and explaining the pitfalls of empathy. Empathy is all heart and has us feeling another’s emotions without regard to the truth or consequences of those emotions. Empathy is born of caring impulse but unless it evolves into compassion it can become highly destructive. Compassion encompasses empathy but is much more. Compassion is knowledge, wisdom, and experience combined that work to achieve a better outcome.
When Sonja Carson saw her young son Ben’s failing report card and attitude she could have acted with empathy and let Ben watch as much tv and play as much as he wanted but her compassion told her she had to act to save Ben from ruining his life.
She limited Ben to 5 hours of tv a week and gave him a free library card and required him to go to the library every day after school and read any book he wanted and write a written book report on every book. She was told by empathetic neighborhood mothers that Ben would hate her. Yet, with that loving discipline he quickly rose to the top of his class and went onto become one of the world’s best brain surgeons.
By getting Ben into the library Sonja also removed Ben from the poisonous victimhood anti-education culture that pervades inner cities like Detroit. The Ben Carson story proves that bad culture, as Thomas Sowell explains in detail in his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals, not racism, is what is harming black Americans in inner cities.
Also, compassionate loving discipline from a devoted parent(s), not money, is the key to a great education for all Americans.
In Wokeism we are seeing runaway empathy become mental illness. The Kyle Rittenhouse case is a superb example. Those who think he is a vigilante murderer like Bishop Eaton of the Evangelical Lutheran Church are either mentally ill or evil Marxists. Blind empathetic support for the Black Lives Matter organization has resulted in enriching the Cullors family so she can (blm) buy larger mansions, but liberal white guilt is literally getting a lot of people killed. Murder statistics from every Democrat run city since the attacks/defunding of police started show white guilt is getting thousands more black Americans killed than before, more than the Democrat KKK killed. Same party, same result.
Harvard professor Roland Fryer, himself liberal and black, was shocked to find in his study that cops are not hunting or shooting blacks unjustly.
He even hired new staff and got the same result. Yet our nation’s police forces in many Democrat run cities have been vilified and defunded unjustly, and we are much less safe as a result. There is no doubt of this fact. Empathy without compassion kills.
The poor of all colors have overwhelmingly told pollsters they want more police. Liberal white politicians, district attorneys, and media are the ones standing in everyone’s way to safer lives. We must return to the common sense of what works and stop the incompetence, even mental illness of runaway empathy that is killing so many Americans.
Gregory Erickson
Former Army infantryman
My oath never expired!
