Dueling Definitions of Compassion

In the U.S. Capitol 30 years ago, on March 23, 1995, Rep. Glenn Poshard (D., Illinois) advocated for more federal spending for the poor and homeless. He said spending hundreds of billions on governmental poverty-fighting was not “wild-eyed liberalism [based on building] systems that end up manipulating and controlling the poor, more than liberating them.” Instead, the expenditures were biblical, because “if there is one thing evident in the Scriptures, it is that God gives priority to the poor.”

Poshard criticized conservative policy analysts by quoting Jesus “from the Sermon on the Mount. Time and again he says, ‘blessed are the poor.…When I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked you clothed me.…When you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'” Poshard concluded, “The least, the poorest, those who are at the bottom-most rung of the ladder — these are the ones to whom God gives the priority” (Congressional Record, H3713).

Republicans pushed back. Hayworth of Arizona rejected Poshard’s biblical application: “Christ said when you do this to ‘the least of these’…He did not say when government does this for the least of these.” Norwood of Georgia complained that Washington gods were pushing out dads who no longer felt their work was essential and now had a license to be irresponsible: “I am deeply concerned about the fathers of the one in three babies born out of wedlock” (H3716).

Chabot of Ohio said Democrats, by not requiring the poor or homeless to work, had decided to “write off entire generations and consign them forever to desperate and unproductive lives.” Republicans attempted to flip the Democratic charge that “mean-spirited” Republicans were “lacking compassion.” Rep. Jon Christensen (R., Nebraska) said Democratic defenders of “a system that does not work” were the ones “lacking in compassion.”

Both parties agreed that “compassion” is a good thing, but disagreed on how to define it. I go far enough back in this debate to remember Senator Ted Kennedy in 1985 equating compassion with federal spending and insisting, “the work of compassion must continue.” I recall supporters of corrupt televangelist Jim Bakker labeling him “a compassionate preacher,” and fans of baseballer Steve Garvey, discussing his proclivity for informal bigamy or trigamy (I lost count), demanding compassion regarding his passions.

Because the word “compassion” was so often misused, some conservatives scorned it and became part of what Nietzsche called the “hidden desire to belittle.” It would have been better for conservatives to see how thousands of words in the ABC bill or the XYZ appeal arose out of mis-defining one. My little contribution in 1989 was to turn to the two books on my desk at home: the Bible and the Oxford English Dictionary — God’s Word and man’s words.

Turning initially to the babble, I was struck by the first definition of compassion offered by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED): “Compassion: Suffering together with another, participation in suffering.” The emphasis, as you can see from just looking at the word — “com,” with, and “passion,” from the Latin pati, to suffer — is on personal involvement with the needy, suffering with them, not just giving to them. The OED also includes a second definition of “compassion:” “The feeling, or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it.”

I pointed out a world of policy differences between those two definitions: One emphasizes action, the other is a “feeling” that does not require personal involvement except perhaps a willingness to send a check, yours or someone else’s. The first definition has a longer history. In the 1834 edition of the American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster defined compassion as, “A suffering with another; painful sympathy.” A century later, Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language defined compassion as “a suffering with another: hence sympathy.” Interesting: Once the sympathy had to be “painful.” Later, the “pain” was gone, and living was easier.

By 1995, a new Webster’s International defines compassion as an “understanding of misery or suffering and the concomitant desire to promote its alleviation.” In 150 years, we went from painful sympathy, to sympathy, to understanding and desiring. If the older definition, “suffering with,” came to mind whenever we thought of compassion, we would laugh at how the New York Times reported on a “compassionate observer.” Compassion classically means participation, not observation.

I’ll write next Friday on how these different definitions translate into dueling policy alternatives regarding compassion.