Compassion vs. Snark

[sarahmichigan]

A personality trait I have struggled with for a long time is self-righteousness.

Even when I manage to kick myself in the head about one issue, I find myself being rigid and judgemental in another. First, I was a self-righteous fundamentalist Christian. I've been a self-righteous pagan and feminist, and I'm pretty judgemental, now, about those I see as being fuzzy-headed New Agers or head-in-the-sand creationists. I probably skirt the edges of self-righteousness about Size Acceptance and Fat Activism issues as well.

I've been thinking, for a while now, about the ideas of Compassion and snarkiness. I posted a quote more than a year ago from the book "The Hours":

"These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody's little display of genius."

Don't get me wrong-- I love a good snark. I read dotpolysnark for a giggle quite often. I snark on people in other venues. I understand how fun it is to snark. But sometimes, I see people being snarked (or even downright attacked) who are somewhat socially clueless, but not malevolent. These people would drive you all over town if they found you broken down on the side of the road. They would let you cry on their shoulder when your dog dies. But they say clueless, offensive things sometimes, or do clueless, insensitive things occasionally, and get raked over the coals for it. You don't even have to be actively offensive or insensitive to get snarked, though. Often, people don't get any credit for being basically good at heart if they're not hip, up on the most recent cultural tag lines, and good spellers.

So, anyway, I struggle between the impulse to look down on other people with scorn and the feeling that I need to cultivate more compassion.

I certainly don't believe in some fuzzy, abstract idea that we should never judge people. I also think it's more than fine to point out places where people are not thinking or arguing clearly. I think it's fine to make fun of stupid ideas. I think perhaps the middle ground is to separate people from ideas. "I think that's a stupid idea, but that doesn't make you a lesser human being." It's hard to do, though. I mean, at what point does a person have enough stupid ideas, collectively, that you start to lose respect for them?

Perhaps I just need to start doing some of those Buddhist meditations on compassion and see what my subconcious decides it needs to tell me on how to balance discernment and criticism of bad ideas while still having compassion for flawed human beings (and myself).

Comments

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

This is an important topic to me. I tend to respond without compassion when I see harm being done, even unintentionally. Sometimes I think no one should be treated with a blanket policy of gentleness any more than they should be treated with a blanket policy that they are "iredeemably bad." But when A is rewarding B for doing something good (or for just not being bad at the moment), person C will often indignantly bring up the bad things B has done. When A is chewing out B, C will often remind A of the kind things B has done. I've been in the position of all three of these letters.

[davehogg.livejournal.com]

I probably skirt the edges of self-righteousness about Size Acceptance and Fat Activism issues as well.

To put it mildly. :)

I think the question becomes "does this person have stupid ideas because they are uninformed or do they have stupid ideas despite being having the intellect and knowledge to know better?"

In the first case, I think you should work to separate the person from the idea. For the latter group, I think it is less important.

[madrigalblue.livejournal.com]

"The Hours" is one of my favorite books. Being an unemployed college graduate amongst friends with lesser education that are doing much better in life has really shaken about my perspective on this topic.

To be honest, I read you for a while before I friended you. You write and look a lot like an ex-roommate of mine, and I had to question why I would want someone back in my life (even if it is only LJ-life here) that is similar to her. I'm always attracted to friends that have intellectual wit/sarcasm/snark because I can let my mind work with them. I'd say I prefer shows like Frasier or Just Shoot Me over the ever popular Sponge Bob Square Pants.

I think having a powerful mind and using it for snarkiness can be an intimidating thing. You have to walk this line between creative-smart-cliquey and intellectually rude/abrasively misunderstood. That said, I am pleased to learn you do a far better job than my ex-roommate, mainly because of your frequent use of tact (completely lost art) and your more realistic sensibilities. It may have to do with the fact that you've been several different places spiritually and intellectually.

It's good that you're aware of where you are and that you can pinpoint your struggle and summarize it in an entry this length.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

To put it mildly. :)

:P

I don't apologize for my strong stance on anti-dieting and size acceptance. There's so much propaganda, misinformation and hype about how dangerous being fat is that I feel absolutely no guilt about putting out countering information and being vocal about it.

Where I am in danger of being self-righteous, I think, is not in combatting ideas but judging others for wanting to engage in weight loss. I know how dangerous it is mentally and physically to be a chronic and/or yo-yo dieter that I actually am acting more out of compassion and concern for people than out of scorn for them.

Trust me, I understand the wish to be smaller to avoid some of the social stigma; I just think people have really unrealistic ideas about how much you can re-shape your body long-term and how much effort it takes to maintain any signifant change in shape. I really want them to focus on being healthy at whatever size they're currently at and stop beating themselves up for not living up to a completely insane body ideal that's based much more on social norms than on the health evidence available.

In regard to the rest of your post, I have compassion for people who are still caught up in the dieting mentality who think they're 50 or 15 pounds away from Changing Their Lives Forever!!! I just am incredulous that people who have weight-loss dieted repeatedly and know other people who have failed over and over again to radically change their body size don't come to the same conclusion as me about why weight-loss dieting is the wrong focus (vs. focusing on living healthy and letting the scale settle wherever it ends up).

I think it's the same with not understanding how intelligent people haven't come to the same conclusions as me about the non-existence of god. I guess I'm just arrogant and think everyone should come to the same conclusions as me on ALL topicx after some deliberation. ;)

[davehogg.livejournal.com]

I don't apologize for my strong stance on anti-dieting and size acceptance.

Nor should you.

There's so much propaganda, misinformation and hype about how dangerous being fat is that I feel absolutely no guilt about putting out countering information and being vocal about it.

I know the feeling, although over different issues. The problem I've had to overcome in the past is becoming so strident that you aren't getting through to the people that need the information.

For example, I've agreed with you 100 percent about some of the articles you have criticized for being one-sided and only presenting the "anti-fat" part of the argument.

But even if a little of the information you present goes too far in the other direction, you can quickly lose your credibility with the people you are trying to convince. It's like the anti-war activists who started arguing that Saddam wasn't doing anything all that bad.

I think it's the same with not understanding how intelligent people haven't come to the same conclusions as me about the non-existence of god. I guess I'm just arrogant and think everyone should come to the same conclusions as me on ALL topicx after some deliberation. ;)

Well, that's true, of course. After all, I'm right about everything, and OKCupid does say you are the most compatible person with me in North America, so you must be pretty close to right on all topics. :)

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

I mean, at what point does a person have enough stupid ideas, collectively, that you start to lose respect for them?

Immediately; I don't see why there would be a threshold to *start*. On the other hand, just because a person has lost *some* respect, that doesn't mean that I don't respect them overall, and willingness to go out on a limb can be worth more than a few ideas that don't work out.

[texasjay.livejournal.com]

You are one of the most gentle souls I know, Sarah. I have never known you to attack the completely defenseless. You *have* challenged me to think outside the box on occasion, which I've appreciated. Hopefully, those that you've 'snarked' view it the same way.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Do you tend to look at a lot of things in life in a sort of cost/benefit analysis?

For instance: "This person has personality traits X, Y, and Z that I find annoying, but they also have these common interests and positive personality traits A, B, C, and D, so the good outweighs the bad with this friend."

or: "This person has kooky ideas that blow up in her face sometimes, but her wacky ideas turn into something bordering on genius enough that it's worth it to listen to her ideas most of the time."

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely.

[lefthand.livejournal.com]

Generally, I check purpose before I say anything. If what I have to say serves a valid and implementable purpose (giving suggests that can't or won't be used is not being helpful), I might go ahead and offer what I have to say. More often than not, I simply keep my mouth shut and smile. It makes me less enemies.

A friend of mine once told me that if someone could use your advise, chances are they would have already done so. The fact they haven't generally points to there being an impediment to doing so. Pointing out their failure will not make them happier and will not solve the problem.

I keep my advise for people I respect and advise boards. If someone really, really wants my help, they will ask for it directly.