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Do Bigots Deserve Compassion?
I get that we're called upon to extend lovingkindness to all beings without discrimination. This looks great on paper and I agree (at least theoretically), but there are some people that make this pretty damned challenging to put into practice.
I really don't know how I'm supposed to feel about people who spend heaps of time, energy, and millions of dollars working to ensure that a segment of the population doesn't have the same basic civil rights as everyone else. Or major religious figures who say that gay marriage is insidious and dangerous.
The only "in" I can manage to muster up is that those people looking to impede or take away my civil liberties are doing so with the same desire to be happy that I have. What's behind their actions may be fear, bigotry, and intense resistance to change, and misinterpreted religious dogma, but beneath all of that is the underlying desire for happiness their alleged enemies also share.
Strange, isn’t it?
It’s hard to fully realize this when the hatred seems so arbitrary and personal. And really, really mean.
I often get incensed by all the ways that homophobia rears it’s ugly head, especially now as attitudes towards lgbt rights seem to be gradually shifting in this country. But it doesn’t make sense to let myself get consumed by resentment, anger and aversion and allow that to guide my actions.
A lot of political activists of all stripes feel differently, and anger is often their driving force. To be truly effective for any cause, there needs to be something operating besides outrage. Anger can absolutely be a great motivator, but historically the people that are revered the most today and had the greatest impact on social change acted peacefully. Think Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks.
It’s important to be mindful of what’s fueling our actions, not matter what we’re doing or how noble a cause we appear to be fighting for. I see a lot of displaced rage and hostility that gets acted out under the guise of “passion” or “activism” when it’s really just as poisonous as the venom being spewed by bigots. As hard as it sounds, we can be more effective when we stop viewing the world in terms of "us" against "them."
I guess I don’t have to feel guilty if I don’t have compassion for everyone, everywhere, all the time. I struggle with this often but I just try to work with it the best way I can.
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Compassion
I love how you approach this topic and share your concerns.
It is hard to watch and hear what hate-filled individuals spew forth. Hate groups have increased since Obama's been elected and of course gay people are frequently targets as well.
I am incredibly appreciative that things are changing, one moment at a time, but changing significantly.
I hear you loud and clear - I also don't always feel compassion and I accept that, but try to stay ever mindful of the moments I don't. My intent is to experience more and more compassion.
When I imagine what it must be like to live as a person with such hatred, I CAN find compassion at times. When I think of the damage done by these people, it's harder.
I think it's all a process. I love that you're addressing it - we don't want to become part of the problem. It's easy to believe the problem is all "out there", but as Sam Keen points out in Faces Of The Enemy we can project onto others with our own intolerance.
Thanks so much,
Lauren
Supreme Court Ruling
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/02/scotus.westboro.church/index.html?hpt=C1
this is a great topic, and a great conversation thread. i saw on cnn today that the supreme court ruled in favor of phelps. the right to free speech is important and powerful. even if that speech isn't compassionate...
as a queer person, i spent a lot of time working to develop compassion toward phelps and people with similar (though usually less violent) beliefs. though this might come across as patrionizing, the approach that works best for me is to feel sad and concerned for them. and send compassion from that sadness.
clearly i dont approve of their tactics or their message. and i personal feel a great deal of harm from their actions. however, it makes me very sad to see so many people who are so driven and caught up in their fears and misunderstandings. it makes me sad to see people whose lives are shaped by their fear and anger. their entire life and worldview is shaped by fear... that seems like a really horrible emotional state to live in. and so i have compassion for them, and hope that they will be able to work through emotion that is causing them so my suffering. that emotion that is causing them to cause suffering for other people. i think of the place of pain, and fear that comes from within and how stuck they are in that space. and i think of moments in my life where i have similarly been stuck and consequently unmindful. and i can connect with them. just as i have had to work through my own fears and isunderstandings, send compassion to them and hope they can do the same.
and trust me. as gay person - who has been the target of such hate speech and action - that is the hardest thing for me to do in life. which makes mr. phelps perfect for my practice.
I agree with this decision,
I agree with this decision, painful as hate speech is.
Where is our "Buddha Loves Fags" sign?
Too bad the new decision comes in the age that the court has made such egregious decisions that money equals free speech as Citizens United. We must defend the right of any sentient being to free speech without violence. Corporations and other inanimate objects, not so much. :~)
I don't think they're seeking happiness
as much as they are seeking safety (another component of loving-kindness.) somehow homosexuality threatens them. I can't understand their view, but I understand that they feel threatened. I can't accept their tactics, but I know that meeting hatred with hatred never changes minds. I don't expect I can change their minds. they're already in hell.
meeting hatred with rationality, with compassion, won't affect them. it may affect other people who are watching the situation. it certainly affects me.
thanks for posting this.
everyone indeed deserves compassion
Thank you for all of your comments.
Perhaps the title of my blog and the last few sentences give the erroneous impression that I'm not sure whether or not all people (bigots included) deserve compassion.
So just for the record, I absolutely believe that everyone without exception deserves compassion, even those that act despicably.
What I was trying to convey is that it isn't always easy for me to remember this, and that I don't always feel so compassionately towards people like Fred Phelps and his ilk.
When I consider that people working against the civil rights of others are doing so out of a sincere desire to be happy, just like the rest of us, it helps make this a little less personal and reminds me that all people need to be understood from a wider perspective.
yes.
There are few people who upset me as much as these people. While they were in DC to picket the grieving families burying their dead at Arlington cemetary (blaming homosexuality in the US for the deaths), a group of them came and protested outside my son's school, because it is a popular Quaker school in DC and openly accepting of all LGBTQ community members - students, faculty, etc. Watching this, I was seething with rage, internally. But the students put together a counter-demonstration that was simple and made up of signs expressing only love, connection, kindness... including expressions of compassion for the anti-gay protesters. They stood with their signs in silence, which is their tradition.
The power of the students' compassionate, calm response was incredible. Far more so than any response given in anger (i have also witnessed a number of these - they do nothing to persuade the protesters they are "wrong" and just get everyone watching even more angry and heated up).
I like what someone said about meeting those difficult situations with acceptance of your own anger and inner response first as the first step toward compassion. anger is life energy. it has tremendous creative, transformative power. But not when used for revenge or making people wrong.
I like this quote from Gandhi:
"The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is. Love is the subtlest force in the world."
Yes, then...
Listen, learn, and be there. See how your wisdom responds. If you see that a person or action is causing oppression, why not then act?
My oft not-as-well said posts are trying to lead us in the direction of what to do with compassion after it sits within us, and yet we know that compassion is not enough.
For that man in the photo, perhaps we have a conversation with him and try to alleviate his confusion in a manner that is acceptable to him. Perhaps we find a reporter and try and get an interview explaining our compassionate views, our understanding of the events, and our encouragement to move in a direction away from bigotry.
From my point of view, understanding where a person comes from is rather easy. Just ask yourself what you would have to believe or think in order to say those things or hold those signs. You are capable of everything. Right now, it would not make sense to you, but who would you have to be to believe the things you do not believe now?
It is a very useful practice, and I do believe what Ethan said, that everyone deserves compassion. Wholeheartedly. But I do think the world needs me to compassionately help that man see things a little more clearly too. And that means I do something about it.
Compassion with Yourself first
Lawerence,
I have this same battle with myself and my feelings towards pedophilia. I've always had such "easy to come by" compassion/tolerance for people regardless of their actions, but with this group, all understanding and tolerance quickly diseminates.
Recently, I had to check myself because these feelings were clouding my judgement in a particular situation. What I found, to help center and refocus me, was first tolerance towards myself and these emotions I have. I think its important to first acknowledge why you feel like this and be "ok" with it as being what it is...Plus, we all know how an emotion can grow when we are trying to fight it or fueling it with further frustration and anger.
Doing this has helped leave some space to actually put some effort into cultivating compassion...at this point I remind myself that having compassion for someone doesnt mean you have to accept all that is horrible about them...to me, its about understanding we are different and each have had our own experiences in life that have led us to where we are. It may not create a truly open and loving feeling within me for this particular group of people, but it helps to remove the potential distructive emotions that stem from the loss of compassion for someone. Does it erase the frustration and sadness towards these particular people? No. But its not as strong and its not as damaging as it is when it first started. And thats the key, slowly but steadily, you'll get to a point where you can be proactive in dealing effectively with bigotry while still maintaining compassion.
This has really helped with checking my emotions. Its increased the awareness of when and how these emotions come up and when I'm reacting to them.
Good luck! :)
Of course..
We all wake up in the morning with a head full of conditioned responses to deal with. "Bigots" presumably have a heinous set of them, and I believe that it's likely that it causes them great pain.
Causes and conditions. I tend to believe that it's a pretty small group that starts their day by saying "Today I shall be Evil!" There are roots, be they physical, emotional, whatever, that create what and who they are, and who we are.
Middle age has been all about questioning the ideas that have been shoved at me during my formative years. I have found myself being much more accepting of a wider variety of beliefs than ever before. If a dullard like me can open his eyes....:-)
The causes of happiness
We wish for all beings to have happiness and the causes of happiness--and we hear that the only real cause of happiness is to be rid of ignorance. So my compassion for people like Phelps is wishing that they would overcome their delusions and find the real causes of happiness.
Easy to say, but hard to do when they're shouting and waving their signs.
Attention
Attention is the most basic form of love. Being able to hear the bigotry, and listen deeply to it without judging those spewing it IS an act of compassion. Writing a blog post contemplating it IS an act of compassion.
Anger can show us where we feel injustice, but our action has to come from a place of non-aggression. We might not know exactly how to share our feelings until later down the road. Working with our anger right now might be the most compassionate thing to do.
Thanks for this thoughtful post.
Yes.
Everyone deserves compassion. Period.
However, that doesn't mean we don't use every nonviolent means in our toolkit to disempower bigotry.