Francis Berger
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Shades of Pity

12/6/2019

17 Comments

 
​Pity is loaded, many-sided word. On one hand, it is as clear as sunlight. On the other hand, it is as obscure as a veil of mist wafting in fog. I used the word in a comment the other day where I mentioned I could not help but pity Greta Thunberg. This elicited an excellent response from Dr. Charlton who had the following to say regarding pity:

There is a sense in which I feel sorry for almost everybody, including the servants of evil and the demonically possessed. That's fine, so long as we are not paralysed by it into avoiding difficult but necessary choices.

But this is just one of those abstract pseudo emotions that we have been trained into by the mass media - like the way we have instant opinions on everything; or that infinite universal abstract altruism that people have so glibly expressed since the middle 1960s.


In his comment, Dr. Charlton highlights the problems inherent in pity, which evil often employs as a manipulative tool. Nearly every stupid evil I can think of that has come to pass in the past four or five decades relied heavily on appealing to pity – in this sense, on compassion. If properly applied under the right circumstances, compassion is a virtue. Nevertheless, if it is improperly applied in the wrong circumstances, it can rank among the worst and most harmful of missteps. Perhaps it even ranks as a sin.

Evil relishes using the virtue of compassion against us. Evil often asks us to open our hearts, to become more lenient, generous, understanding, and accommodating. It offers a display of suffering, misfortune, or injustice and asks us sympathize and commiserate with it. This is an emotionally manipulative appeal to our sense of goodness and benevolence. At the very least, evil demands we be kind and understanding toward it; evil wants use to be nice. But niceness, like pity, is not a virtue. Nonetheless, evil brands as cruel those who refuse to partake in this coerced emotional outpouring.

I have seen this kind of pity referred to as benevolent pity. On its own, I'm sure there is a time and place for it, but it has been grossly exploited in our modern world, to the point of utter absurdity. And an inherent danger lurks in this kind of pity; it leaves one vulnerable to attack and harm, as this short clip from Star Trek The Next Generation demonstrates. In the scene, Guinan confronts Picard about his decision to allow a member of the Borg on board the Enterprise for "humanitarian reasons" :
​So, was this the kind of pity I was referring to when I remarked that I couldn´t help but pity Greta Thunberg? No, not in the slightest. If I harbored this sort of pity for her, I would not have published a post in which I indirectly pointed out that she might very well become the face of a totalitarian one-world government.
​
No, I didn’t mean that kind of pity. Perhaps the pity I feel for Greta Thunberg is of a more contemptuous kind? To a certain point, yes. Pity is basically an expression of sorrow. Benevolent pity is a tender sorrow that sympathizes with the suffering of another. Contemptuous pity is derisive sorrow that scorns the evil or stupidity of another. On the milder side, it is a taunt, a sneer, or a scoff leveled at an adversary or an enemy. A good example of this kind contemptuous pity is a rather memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable movie – Rocky III: 
​Does this encapsulate the pity I feel for Greta Thunberg and her evil global climate crisis handlers? Do I pity them as fools? In a sense, yes, but perhaps there is more to it than that.

Perhaps my contemptuous pity is of the darker variety – the kind that scorns and despises. The kind that looks down upon. The kind that considers the other unworthy and despicable. Yes, my pity for St. Greta and her climate crisis posse undoubtedly contains traces of this.

But in the end, my pity for Greta Thunberg originates from a much deeper place. It is difficult for me to express what this feeling of pity is and where it stems from. I don’t feel sorry, instead I feel sorrow. Not a sympathetic sorrow; nor a scornful sorrow, but a deep, subtle, and objective sorrow – probably the same kind Dr. Charlton touches upon in his comment above. It is not a pseudo emotion, and it is not certainly not altruistic.
​
St.Greta is convinced she is on the side of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, but she isn’t. And, yes, I feel sorrow for anyone and everyone who chooses to walk down the dark path. Nevertheless, I remain vigilant, and I do not let this pity cloud my judgement because when all is said and done, nothing Greta Thunberg and the Establishment are striving for via the manufactured climate crisis is remotely Truthful, Beautiful, or Good. 
17 Comments
Bookslinger
12/7/2019 01:01:15

Pity/compassion can lead to margin creep. The margin between what is acceptable and unacceptable.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120420204152/http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005244.html

The article goes into the problems of out of wedlock births, welfare-ism, and no-fault divorce in the US, and then compares those with homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

If you remove the barriers (stigma, taboo) to something, you get more of it. That is human nature.

--
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

― Alexander Pope
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/94296-vice-is-a-monster-of-so-frightful-mien-as-to

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 07:13:28

@ Books - Good point. There are extremely few conventional/traditional taboos remaining, so I"m not exactly sure how many margins there are left to creep.

However, new margins have been creeping in for decades - and they tend to be the exact inversions of the former taboos. All a direct result of our big-hearted compassion for evil.

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William James Tychonievich link
12/7/2019 09:54:06

I was going to mention Pope, too, prefacing it with “There are a few lines of Pope that Mormons love to quote.” True to form, a Mormon beat me to it!

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 19:20:41

Wm - I am surprised to see so many Mormons quoting the Pope. My impression was that Mormonism does not acknowledge the papacy.

(Yes, this is my lame attempt at a joke. All kidding aside, I am quite fond of Pope. His 'and universal darkness buries All' line that ends the Dunciad ranks among my favorite.)

Reply
William James Tychonievich link
12/7/2019 20:31:18

Ha! That reminds me of a story my father (who grew up Catholic) used to tell about a Protestant classmate of his who maintained that his own denomination, not the Catholic Church, was the original church of Christ. "After all," he said, "they didn't call him John the Catholic!"

I enjoy Pope from time to time, too, though I consider him more of a virtuoso than a deeply inspired poet. There's no doubt that he's quotable, though -- second only to Shakespeare in that regard, I believe.

Bookslinger
12/7/2019 15:54:07

A corollary to the friction between the shades of pity is the aphorism: Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Catholic Theologian Peter Kreeft (pronounced "crayft") develops this under the section "Who is the enemy?" in his talks/writings on the Culture Wars.

I have his book "How to Win the Culture War", which is available used on Amazon for about $1 or $2 plus shipping.

Parts of the book are on his web site:

http://peterkreeft.com/topics-more/how-to-win.htm

and

http://peterkreeft.com/topics-more/culture-war_transcription.htm

It's the second section "Who is the enemy ?" or "Knowing the enemy".

The third section "How to win" is the most provocative; his answer is "become saints."

And, given who the real enemy is, his answer makes perfect sense.

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 19:22:17

I really need to take a look at that book, Bookslinger.

Reply
William James Tychonievich link
12/8/2019 07:02:42

Books, it turns out I’ve been mentally mispronouncing Kreeft’s name all these years! Thanks for setting me straight. I engaged with some of Kreeft’s apologetic work back when I was trying to give classical theology a fair shake, but I haven’t read his culture war book. Frankly, the notion that Christians may yet “win the culture war” (now better termed a culture massacre) strikes me as almost delusional. Kreeft is no fool, though, so perhaps he’s playing a very long game indeed. (After all, look around and ask yourself who’s really won the original Kulturkampf!)

Reply
Sean fowler link
12/7/2019 18:13:48

Very good post. Untempered virtues don’t more harm than good.
There is a great scene from the silence of the lambs that captures the evil of a victim culture that prays upon good heartedness. Where the transsexual, psycho killer pretends to be lame, struggling to load an item of furniture onto a van and he repays her kind assistance by abducting and imprisoning her, with the intent of murdering and skinning the good lady.
It’s hard to imagine a greater evil than one that would use virtue as a weapon to destroy goodness.

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 19:31:20

@ Sean - Thanks. I remember that chilling scene. And it is a good example of evil using virtue as a weapon to destroy goodness.

Nevertheless, the abducted girl did not know the tranny was a serial killer when she stopped to help him/her. She had no prior knowledge of the psycho's evil. We, on the other hand, are given plenty of warning. Evil is constantly tipping its hand to us.

Reply
Sean Fowler link
12/8/2019 03:28:31

Or did she on some level know that she was in the presence of evil. Wouldn’t her intuition have been screaming at her, sensing serious danger? What forced her to ignore the peril?
And yes evil give us fair warning. It’s becoming less subtle. Showing it’s hand. Seems to be in a dreadful hurry these days.
How can people fail to see thunberg as a wicked, resentful manipulative brat?
It should be obvious. The girls a real live horror show. What prevents the deluded from knowing evil when it is staring them right in the face.
As much as there is a place for pity, tolerance, compassion and all the rest of it....... it would appear that to perceive things as they are, such virtues need to be tempered with a certain ruthlessness and a great deal of courage.
Evil needs to be confronted and I think that people fear that confrontation and the unpleasant feelings that it awakens within them. Many prefer to look away. Untempered virtues are the virtues of cowards.

William Wildblood link
12/7/2019 20:36:54

Excellent post, Francis. You might see pity not allied to truth as no more than sentimentality, often self-indulgent..

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 21:25:06

Pity not allied to truth . . .

That's it exactly. Well put, William.

Reply
Serhei
12/7/2019 21:03:03

All this talk of Pity and no one brought up Lord of the Rings? for shame!

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 21:20:48

I am as stunned about that as you are, Serhei.

Reply
Francis Berger
12/7/2019 21:19:46

@ Wm - John the Catholic - now that's a good one! I agree with your assessment of Pope - he does possess the qualities of a virtuoso rather than a deeply-inspired poet. But man, could he craft memorable lines.

Reply
Francis Berger
12/8/2019 07:58:06

@ Sean Fowler - "It should be obvious." Yes, that's it exactly. Bruce Charlton, William Wildblood, and others have been screaming this from the rooftops for years - that things have essentially 'come to a point.'

'As much as there is a place for pity, tolerance, compassion and all the rest of it....... it would appear that to perceive things as they are, such virtues need to be tempered with a certain ruthlessness and a great deal of courage.
Evil needs to be confronted and I think that people fear that confrontation and the unpleasant feelings that it awakens within them. Many prefer to look away. Untempered virtues are the virtues of cowards.'

Well put. I couldn't agree more.

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