Try Compassion

by Wade Hudson

“Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”

Human beings are genetically wired to be compassionate, empathetic, and altruistic. This attitude naturally fosters community. Yet we’re also innately prone to fear and anger, and these emotions foster division and ego-centered thinking.

When Karen Armstrong and her colleagues released the Charter for Compassion, I was convinced that this powerful, all inclusive, non-ideological affirmation would appeal to a broad range of individuals. The Charter, which has more than 37,000 signatories and almost as many Fans on Facebook, therefore prompted me to reactivate my membership in the WiserEarth community to share and discuss this vision.

In recent years, after some 40 years of community organizing and political activism, I’ve pulled back from activism to read, reflect, and network with the Strategy Workshop about how the progressive movement might be more effective. While spending winters in Mexico (for a tour, see my “Video Letter to the Faloona Family“). I’ve begun sharing my conclusions.

Unfortunately, modern society systematically inflames anger, fear, and division. Even worse, many activist organizations reinforce this dynamic by relying excessively on tapping fear or anger to motivate members. In the United States, for example, the early civil rights movement was well grounded in love, nonviolence, and reconciliation. But in the mid-60s, an avalanche of frustration, rage, and efforts to force “enemies” to surrender overwhelmed this commitment. This tone carried over into most other movements during the late 60s and continues to this day in “radical populism.”

This approach may have a role to play. Society can benefit from prophets and gadflies who turn up the heat. And radical populists may spark a revolt from time to time. But I’ve concluded that this strategy is not the best way to sustain a movement over time. These revolts tend to burn out and with their broad, often ad hominem, attacks, they’re unable to connect with mainstream people whose support is essential to mobilize the massive numbers that are needed

Awakening compassion offers an alternative. We can learn to move beyond our ego-centered thinking, let go of our anger, really pay attention and listen to others, and focus on doing what we can to improve the world now, rather than dreaming of some future utopia and sacrificing ourselves and others for the sake of that future.

Most of us want to be more self-reliant, which means we must reduce how much we rely on the exploitation of others; by becoming more compassionate, we become stronger as individuals. Moreover, most people want to carry their fair share of the load to help change destructive, oppressive public policies that inflict so much needless suffering.

Providing inactive individuals with easy, attractive opportunities to become actively engaged in transforming the world is, indeed, an urgent task. We need to snap out of our self-centered certainties and inspire one another to nurture a more compassionate attitude minute by minute.

We need to be the change we seek by growing model communities that reflect the kind of society we want – one that is rooted in love, win-win solutions, communitarian populism, confidence in the wisdom of the group, cooperative problem-solving, nurturing the whole person, and honoring emotional intelligence.

This is the direction promoted by the Charter for Compassion Network, including its WiserEarth branch. The fact that this worldview seems to resonate so well with so many others on WE provides me with hope that those of us who share this commitment are not as alone as it sometimes seems.

Can humanity grow into a viable, authentic, cohesive, inclusive global community? Let’s talk about it!

About Wade:

Wiser Earth brings me in touch with like-minded individuals throughout the world who are dedicated to the welfare of the entire human family and our Earth Community. Interactions on several WE groups, including my group, Charter for Compassion Network group, enable me to learn and share my ideas with others who hold similar concerns. I can pick up on references to resources, like Donella Meadow’s “Dancing with Systems” which Michael Kwan posted on the “Fixing systems not symptoms” group And feedback from others to my own posts is beneficial, like when I posted “The Global Social System” and learned that my somewhat original deductions made sense to folks.