The Genius of Compassion

Part of what excites me about the company I'll be working for is their belief, consonant with mine, that we are all utterly, radically, equal in worth. I think most Americans can sign on to the notion that a guy with two hands is not of substantively greater ontological standing, or possessed of significantly richer human dignity, than the guy next door who lost one of his in a boating accident. Where I think they stop acceding in large part is the point at which the argument includes individuals with little perceived 'productive' value. We have on the one hand an instinctive fear of anything different, which can certainly be overcome by rationality, personal experience, and openness. Unrelated to that, however, is a troubling enculturated rating scale of humanity particularly present in the United States with its historical emphasis on productivity and industriousness and the lionization of the self-made man. In this schema, someone who doesn't or can't earn as much as another is quite literally worth less than him. The problem arises when this purely financial equation is applied to other realms.

I know with deep certainty from my own experience that we all have our gifts and disabilities. The array is unique to the individual. We are thus all people-with-disabilities. Put in outdated terms, we are all in our own ways 'disabled persons,' 'retarded' relative to others in certain areas. Every genius has things he will never be competent at, just as every person with more limited intellectual abilities has areas in which he can excel. I think most people can calmly accept that a million-dollar football player could be great at running and tackling but less adept at theoretical cosmology, and that a person with ALS in a wheelchair might be stellar at the latter but wretched at the former. The point at which I think it becomes difficult is when the argument for equal inherent worth and dignity includes people who are limited in both physical and intellectual pursuits. We can see that Stephen Hawking is clearly earning his keep; so, too, is the running back whose physically punishing job will have health consequences for the rest of his life.

But I think that when we look at the gifts which we ourselves are most grateful to have, those that bring the most richness to our lives, they are seldom either grandiose or superficial ones, like having a knack for making millions, being able to run marathons, being a genius in one area, or having impeccable taste. The gifts we feel most grateful for, and which we tend to believe are in fact constitutive of our deeper selves, are the small, everyday ones, like tolerance, patience, sincerity, fairness, trustingness, and empathy. And those sorts of little yet profound gifts are present in every sort of person.

They are, moreover, productive - if, admittedly, not necessarily in a financial, or secular-Calvinist sort of way. People who are able to empathize readily with others produce a different atmosphere - in the home, at work, in friendships, and in the larger society. Those who are able to trust produce reciprocal trust in others, leading to honest communication and genuine communion. Anyone who can accept others as they are, without condescension, judgmentalism, or fear, stands a great chance at creating meaningful ties with others, which in turn can produce a better, fairer, kinder, more decent world. I don't think it takes a genius to see that.