Contradictions at the Heart of Compassion

Abstract

I argue that compassion entails the experience of feelings that lie in tension with one another. Specifically, I argue that to be compassionate is to simultaneously identify with and feel separated from the regarded individual, and it is to feel empowered in being needed while also feeling powerless to prevent the other's suffering. Previous studies have typically only emphasized one side or the other of this complex dynamic, which has resulted in the phenomenon being cast in radically different directions: as an ethically valuable end to be sought in social relations and, conversely, as a means of affirming one's privilege in an asymmetrical relationship with another person.