The Compassion Conundrum

It was a little more than four years ago that I left America for the country of Brasil, and I have yet to return to visit. When the plane lifted from the runway, American soil, I admit I felt something close to a kind of relief. I was leaving a good deal of strife behind, much of which was personal and had built over the years.

There were other pieces that had little to do with me personally. It was my country, the place where I was born and had lived my entire life that had descended into chaos. Throughout the pandemic, I saw, we all saw, our fellow countrymen at hopeless odds with one another. Limited in our daily functions, perhaps stifled in our routines, relegated to our homes, muzzled in masks, the country was now a powder keg, with many of its citizens having identified their lines in the sand as well as their domestic enemies.

Much of this strife, this unease, was already in place before COVID charged in like a bull–the ground was hot, fertile for division. What was only needed was the unknown ingredient, foreign or domestic, imaginary or real–one event or idea to be thrown into the mix to be dissected, and inspected–one more thing to argue over.

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And so ingrained is our idea of patriotism, so common the conversation of what constitutes a fellow countryman, that these arguments often take the shape of deciding who the real patriots are, and who are the treasonous? Who is it that truly loves America, and who is, more or less, an enemy of the citizen, an enemy of the state?

Even from Brasil, five years after the streets filled with angry mobs shouting for justice in the streets, four years after a mob from the opposite political spectrum took the Capitol in defiant in violent protest, and after the legacy media imploded, years after the masks, mostly, went away, yes, years after all this and America still has not decided if, when or how this phenomenon, this divide, that which strikes through the very center of the American psyche, can reach its resolve. It is hard to say whether or not anything can be done inside the realm of politics. Politics can only enact policies, legislature, and lawfare. What is necessary, it seems to me, is a change in the heart of the American, as sappy as it seems. Yes, I know how I sound…

We often speak of compassion as being one of the highest human virtues. To see others as we may see ourselves. To make judgement and decision not based on political affiliation, skin color, or ideology, but based on a shared humanity and empathy. But every ideology has its own insipid, cynical way of weaponizing words like compassion.

It is often noted that those with “Be Kind” bumper stickers and hashtags are often not kind at all––using compassion for a few selected groups as a tool for bludgeoning another. Like a Mama bear who has so much compassion for her cubs, she rips into you unflinchingly, compassion, or the use of it as a shield, can produce horrific results. In this way, a whole lot of our culture has fortified its temptation to wreak social havoc underneath the cover of One LoveTM.

Also, there are those who are quick to reference and espouse the virtues of Jesus and seem to know very little of the man. Those that nod along obediently when the virtues of forgiveness, and empathy vibrate from the pulpit, but have little empathy or forgiveness to give to anyone that doesn’t need it. We are all guilty of it. We protect the freedom of the speech we want to hear. We forgive the most of the people who have offended us the least. Our virtues, in this way, stretch as far as a rubber band when pulled from inside the fingertips, it snaps back with the slightest tug…

Outside of the specific, extreme portraits I offer, are many who fit neither bill, and in extreme cases, historically, they may be required to choose a side. Their inability to do so may attract the ire of either party or both. At any rate, it is a nation of teams––only through a shared dream does the nightmare crack, does the machine become a well-oiled engine for prosperity, whatever it means to be “prosperous”.

From Brazil, I, like many others in the world, wish America could see itself from the outside. The most ambitious, flourishing, inventive, and free nation in the world, fighting itself––assuring nothing but mutual, self-inflicted destruction.

But innovation, ambition, and responsibility are all well and good. There are many virtues of the left and the right that are worth pursuing when applied correctly and intentionally. But the virtue of the now will have to be one of reparative quality. A virtue that not only embraces the future but is capable of acknowledging the past. What I am speaking of is forgiveness, we need a lot of that, too. Our shared humanity cannot be said to be civilized without it.

Writing from Brasil,
Judson Vereen

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.