11.14.08

Beware of celebrities peddling ‘compasssion’

Posted in religion, The Axial Age at 4:43 pm by nemo

This article was previously cited today, from the Dawkins site.
Atheism/Agnosticism Plus Compassion Equals Humanism
by Greg M. Epstein, On Faith
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/greg_m_epstein/2008/11/atheismagnosticism_the_golden.html

Karen Armstrong, a religious thinker I can admire and support, has begun a project called the “Charter for Compassion.” The aim of the project, as far as I can tell while observing it in its initial stages, is to promote the golden rule. The golden rule appears in every religion, as Armstrong points out. But if I might summarize it in my own purely secular and Humanistic language, its message is that the very first thing we must do in order to be good people is learn to look inside ourselves, understand what we love and hate, and use this information when deciding how to treat others.

Charter For Compassion

Civil society organizations trying to promote ‘compassion’ and/or the Golden Rule for ecumenical reasons are a little bit beyond reach, who can argue with that, but I am allowed nonetheless some sideline commentary for an at first counterintuitive critique of such. The reason is a personal distrust of Karen Armstrong and her tactics of deceit and VIP propaganda.
Her book The Great Transformation did immense harm to the archaeological site of the so-called Axial Age. Appearing in the wake of the first edition of World History And The Eonic Effect this book, without any acknowledgment stripped the Axial Age of its macrohistorical/evolutionary significance, and proceed to do a revolting sausage job on the religious manifestation of that mysterious period. Along with a downplaying of the Axial Greek phenomenon. The result was to make the Axial Age, among other things, safe for an age of Darwinists and Darwin mania. How compassionate.
Armstrong is a completely deceptive and brazen pretender who was ignorant enough to sausage up monotheism and Buddhism, one source, if not the source, in one great stream of the compassion theme. It is a complex Buddhist chord that will rise and bite you because it doesn’t mean what you think.
I am currently debriefing the Gurdjieff phenomenon, where compassion went in reverse. These people became so infuriated by false politician’s compassion they decided to conspire to promote hate instead of love.
Beware of sugar doses of compassion propaganda.
By such tactics, wishing to avoid monotheistic fanaticism, they gladly pick up the Buddhist version, thinking it harmless.
Further her books on Islam finessed the Axial Age periodization to somehow half-include the genesis of Islam. Whatever Islam is, it doesn’t need Axial Backup, although it is true that its absence (along with Christianity and post-Axial Age Judaism) from the Axial interval is food for thought, and demands proponents of ‘revelation’ themes to consider their ground.
This atrocious book seems to have served a supply and demand function: secularists who are terrified of really looking at the implications of the Axial Age and want a treatment that says ‘here’s the Axial Age’ for people who don’t want to see anything, or look at the connection of the Axial Age issue to themes of evolution, macro-historical dynamics, and much else.

Such a person has an obvious social PR strategy promoting ‘compassion’: there is an obvious tactic in taking compassion out of its context and turning it into a piece of PR pseudo-religion, since it is an obvious way to get many people of all religions to agree on something. Fair enough, but it won’t work in the end, because people with shit on their hands will corrupt the idea to the point that it will become meaningless. We will end by losing the compassion concept to politicians, and be forced to do something else after these religious politicos and whores like Armstrong finish their celebrity religion substitutes.
Those who begin to peddle compassion should consider some small sacrifices to see how committed they are to the idea:
a paradigm shift beyond the deliberate promotion of the pseudo-science of Darwinism in order to induce economic selfishness and all-around ethicall neutral viciousness.
a second look at the issue of compassion latent in the leftist revolutionism of Marxism (pro and con, of course). Compassion comes cheap. It you are that compassionate you can do something about it.
Short of a socialist revolution, you could agitate for a compassionate pay rise for working stiffs (5 cents a hour, let’s say). We can be sure that would be too much compassion for the backers behind the likes of mouthpieces like Armstrong.
Compassion and jihad are a well-placed dyad in Islam. To what extent will compassion produce or justify violence in those who claim one meaning to the term ‘jihad’ as opposed to others, with another definition?
…

There’s more.
But the question of religion can’t be solved by cheap disguises put on the Axial Age, ignorant pilfering from Buddhism (a truly ferocious religion), or the cheap shot attacks on secular rationality by Armstrong and New Age promoters.

Mountain out of a mole hill? Maybe so, maybe no. But a civil society gesture promoting compassion is hard to critique, so with a wave of the hand\….
At least confront the issue of the Axial Age head on. You can’t reduce it to a Buddhist sausage.

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