Compassion Privilege: Rethinking Kindness Helps Us Be Kinder

This post is published in three parts. Please click on the links for Part 1 and Part 2.

The Red Flags of Contempt and Shame

When we judge others for not being compassionate enough, we’re engaging in the very sort of thinking and behavior that we’re condemning. In other words, if we believe that we are morally superior to others because we have greater access to our compassion than they do, rather than appreciate the gift that our compassion is, we belittle those who haven’t been given it—and in so doing, we feed the same attitude that causes many of the problems in our world that result from a lack of compassion.

Indeed, whenever we feel contempt, which is the emotion that results from having placed ourselves in a position of moral superiority, it’s a sign that we’ve lost connection with our compassion. Contempt is not the same as healthy anger, which can motivate us to take positive action to rectify injustice. Contempt is a red flag, alerting us to the fact that we’ve bought into the myth of a hierarchy of moral worth—the belief that some individuals are more worthy of being treated with respect than others. This myth lies at the foundation of all harms to dignity and all acts and forms of abuse and oppression—toward other humans, animals, the environment, and even ourselves. Feeling morally superior to others is, ironically, an indication that we’re not morally superior; this feeling reflects the fact that we’re out of alignment with the most foundational of our core moral values, our compassion.

The flipside of contempt is shame, the feeling of being morally inferior, of being less worthy than others of being treated with respect. Like contempt, shame stems from believing in a hierarchy of moral worth. We typically feel shame when we’re on the receiving end of another person’s contempt, when we feel our dignity is harmed. When we’re in such a position, we feel unsafe in the other person’s presence, so we naturally disconnect from them as a form of self-protection. This is why shaming an individual in an attempt to get them to feel and act with compassion tends to backfire; shame is a painful and debilitating emotion that people are understandingly defensive against feeling, and being in a state of shame makes it less likely that someone will be able to access their compassion.

Of course, it makes sense that those of us who are awake to, and concerned about, suffering in the world would feel deep frustration and exasperation and even moral outrage at the widespread apathy and narcissism that enable such suffering. Our feelings are legitimate and appropriate. But these feelings can get in the way of our ability to actually change the problem, and they are, at least in part, the result of an inaccurate understanding of what it means to have compassion.

Watering the Seeds of Compassion

What can we do to cultivate more compassion in others without losing access to our own compassion in the process?

• First, remember that your ability to access your compassion is a privilege, not a virtue that sets you apart from and above others. As long as your compassion privilege remains unexamined—outside of your awareness—you’ll be less able to promote compassion effectively.

• Also, try to notice when you’re in a place of contempt or shame. These emotions are indications that you’ve bought into the destructive myth that drives uncompassionate thinking and behaving. And they are data points, alerting you to the fact that you’ve lost connection with your empathy (for others or yourself), which is the antidote to both contempt and shame and which helps you stay connected with your compassion. It’s impossible to look down on or up at someone if you’re looking at the world through their eyes. Of course, there are times when it’s not healthy to empathize with others, such as when you feel unsafe with someone, particularly when you’re on the lower end of a power differential (e.g., when you’re in a relationship with a person who engages in disrespectful and controlling behaviors).
• Appreciate that practicing compassion toward those who don’t doesn’t mean that you don’t hold them accountable for their problematic attitudes and behaviors or that you coddle them to protect them from what may be healthy and necessary discomfort. It simply means not harming their dignity in the process. Practicing compassion and holding people to account are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are both necessary undertakings if we wish to cultivate a more relational world—a world in which we relate in a way that reflects integrity, honors dignity, and fosters a sense of security and connection; a world that is more compassionate.
• Instead of assuming that someone who doesn’t act kindly is not a “compassionate person,” ask what might be getting in the way of their ability to access their compassion, and try to help reduce those obstacles. Part of this process is creating an environment in which the individual feels more secure and connected. To create this environment, you need to be in a place of compassion yourself; other people feel more secure and connected with us when they trust us to feel and practice compassion toward them.

Staying connected with your compassion in the face of its absence in others can be quite challenging. Just remember that, like most things in life, practicing compassion is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. It’s not that we’re either connected with our compassion or not; it’s a matter of how connected with our compassion we are able to be at any given moment—and, perhaps most importantly, how we relate to our compassion.

When we relate to our compassion in a healthy way, we are not perfectionistic about it. We appreciate that nurturing compassion, in others and ourselves, is a process. This is my favorite Buddhist saying: “We all have within us the seeds of greed, hatred, and desire, as well as the seeds of love, compassion, and empathy. Our job is just to water the right seeds.”