Shortage of Compassion
Icy conditions were not frequent this year, but on one such occasion I witnessed what I considered a quite typical street scene here. A somewhat overweight woman walking a dozen or so feet ahead of me slipped and fell heavily, dropping a large bulging shopping bag. I walked to where she lay groaning, trying to reach for scattered packages of food. Fortunately, she was not hurt. I helped her to her feet and with her bag, and the woman slowly went on her way.
As always in such cases, I was amazed to see people walk past her as she lay on the sidewalk, several dozen of them, young, old, well and poorly dressed, with heavy shopping bags and empty-handed. Some were in a hurry, others just strolling, yet none stopped to help the woman or just ask if she was all right. In fact, none even turned to look at her, perhaps afraid that the good instinct would make him or her offer help and show compassion. Most perhaps thought she could have a broken leg or something; better let her alone, otherwise you will have to call the ambulance and wait for it.
Unfortunately, such seemingly innocent cruelty is not a chance occurrence. Evidence is found in children playing in the yard, by a daycare center or school. Boys and girls chase each other like a small herd of sparrows, climbing slides on the playground. There is much noise and laughter, then suddenly one falls and cries out in pain, hurting a leg or landing on his or her stomach, then lies on the ground for some time crying. More often than not the others ignore their erstwhile playmate. They just keep playing, running around, even jumping over the prone one, maybe writhing with pain. Why? Simply because they do not feel any compassion.
And not only children. Do you often see a boy aged 6-10 rise from his seat in a packed bus, streetcar, or subway and offer it to his mother standing holding heavy shopping bags? Or take his heavy school bag from the granny hurrying with him to or from school? There are many families where children, even teenagers, do not even know whether their mother feels bad; they never notice that their parents are tired or ill, they just fail to see the expression on their faces. Likewise, they never offer help, lending a hand with household chores. These children know nothing about compassion. Of course, they are not to blame. Feeling sorry for others in trouble, being prepared to help, even to the detriment of one’s comfort, is like a fragile hothouse flower that takes patient and constant care literally from the cradle.
Raising children, molding an individual, building a family — all this is generally regarded as one’s private business. Is it really? Parents seldom think of how they are raising their children. Are they doing it poorly or very bad? Because their children could grow up to be bad citizens. They do not bother to consider the fact that current politicians, members of the government, and oligarchs were also small weak children who got sick, becoming completely helpless and dependent on their parents’ loving care, and that their parents did not teach them to feel compassion for complete strangers that might be in trouble, even people they never saw and would never see. The human soul cannot remain bereft of feeling and the vacuum, once it appears, is always filled with things other than compassion — scorn or simple indifference. For example, a bureaucrat or banker receives money to be paid as pensions. It is a large sum and one is tempted to feather one’s own nest. For a person knowing neither compassion nor mercy, even toward one’s mother, it is simply a question of finding the smartest way to pocket the money. What about all those aging and starving people expecting their pensions? Forget about them! Just walk on by or even jump over their bodies like those children running past or hopping over one lying on the ground and crying after a painful fall.
The fewer sentiments a modern Ukrainian businessman or politician feels, the broader the horizons that open up for him. Have you ever seen a politician show compassion for his toppled colleague and rival? It is also true, however, that we can find a host of actors (among them quite a few well-known names) at our theater of political burlesque that actually deserve pity. Is it not a tragedy to look into the abyss separating a public figure’s political ambitions and his personal talent? Or when another distinguished figure plays the proverbial king with no clothes, but in this case also without any proper education, erudition, outlook, without even common sense, run on the slippery road, risking at any moment to loose his balance and fall among the indifferent passersby who will eagerly watch his desperate efforts to get to his feet without offering help.
In fact, there are no signs of mercy or pity in our political life, and not only with regard to rivals (war is hell), but also with regard to one’s supporters. Just look at all those elderly people driven out of their homes and onto the street in winter by merciful yet masterful verbiage, crowding that tent city at a time when Kyiv is gripped by a flu epidemic. Why? Because for politicians the end always justifies the means, however ruthless, no matter how many innocent people have to suffer.
