{"id":424,"date":"2020-10-04T12:44:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-04T16:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=424"},"modified":"2020-10-04T12:44:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-04T16:44:08","slug":"the-fine-line-twixt-compassion-and-schadenfreude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=424","title":{"rendered":"The Fine Line ‘Twixt Compassion and Schadenfreude"},"content":{"rendered":"

No wave could sweep those upper decks \u2014 unthinkable!
\nNo storm could hurt that hull \u2014 the papers said so.
\nThe perfect ship at last \u2014 the first unsinkable,
\nProved in advance \u2014 had not the folders read so?<\/em>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tE.J. Pratt, The Titanic<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>Is hubris a crime? And, if indeed it is, what should the punishment be? Miss Stevenson, our severe and dedicated grade 11 English teacher, had, for more years than she would care to count (I\u2019m sure), been charged with the responsibility of sparking a flame in our none too literary hearts. Plowing through Pratt\u2019s epic poem, she\u2019d managed to tick more than a few boxes: Can Lit content and hooking her audience \u2014 at least this member of it.<\/p>\n

What mattered that her boats were but a third
\nOf full provision \u2014 caution was absurd:
\nThen let the ocean roll and the winds blow
\nWhile the risk at Lloyd’s remained a record low.
\n<\/em>
\nAnd more, through her efforts, she\u2019d warned us all \u2014 \u2018don\u2019t fly too close to the sun\u2019 \u2014 giving us a word that\u2019s resonated long since. <\/p>\n

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
\nYou don’t spit into the wind
\nYou don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
\nAnd you don’t mess around with . . . Covid<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>Hubris does, in fact, generally have some pretty dire consequences. The ship sinks and two-thirds of its occupants die. Icarus catches an updraft \u2014 just before he has a meltdown, finishing his days in the Mediterranean. Satan gets the consolation prize (that would be ruling in Hell in preference to the alternative). And Leroy (as in bad, bad Brown) and Jim both buy into some pretty serious battery. Swagger evidently doesn\u2019t impress the Goddess Nemesis. BS may baffle brains \u2014 but not a bipartisan virus. <\/p>\n

So what to do when the longed for, or so we thought, day of comeuppance finally arrives \u2014 in the most fitting of ways. The timing, the agent, the target so perfectly, so ironically delivered, selected, it had to be scripted. Life is just too random to have written this one. I\u2019ve spent, and in very good company, four years watching, tallying each distortion, misrepresentation, prevarication, insult, breach, crime and been as appalled as any when, yet again what looked like a slam dunk for the good guys would bounce around the rim, only to fall out of bounds. I\u2019ve read so many accounts, books detailing the abuse and disrespect for a system that should be treasured, not trashed, that, like countless others, I\u2019ve become desensitized to the next assault \u2014 left open-mouthed, disbelieving. <\/p>\n

Then. . . DJT tested positive.<\/p>\n

And the villain of the piece, as often happens, becomes a teacher \u2014 potentially. Not by dint of intellect or intention or merit or even accident. He\u2019s just sick. At risk of succumbing to a fate that, some, many would say he deserves, having fumbled, denied, mishandled, misinformed sufficient that 200,000 of his constituency have died. A fate that the courts, the rival politicians have been powerless to effect. <\/p>\n

Karen Armstrong, a UK author and teacher has written widely and wisely on the process of compassion<\/em>. Her 2010 book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life<\/em>, plots a course from selfishness to compassion, from alienation and divisiveness to shared humanity. In her \u2018charter\u2019, she underlines the wisdom of studying those we dislike \u2014 not to ferret out weaknesses, points of vulnerability to gain an advantage or to bring them down; but to learn about ourselves<\/em>, our values<\/em>. Not a new concept, but an elusive one. Compassion, extensively accepted as a \u2018wired in\u2019 part of us, is often \u2018trumped\u2019 by our older, reactive, tribal instincts \u2014 particularly in times of crisis, acute or protracted \u2014 as most of us would acknowledge, the last four years have represented. The latter entrench, divide; the former has the potential for growth, healing, unification. <\/p>\n

Cultivating compassion requires both intention and a shift in focus, perspective. In turn, the necessary precursor to these both is awareness, paying attention to water shed moments, the forks in the road where we are presented with a choice. There\u2019s something inherently satisfying about the moment when the \u2018evil doer\u2019 (to borrow a Bushian buzz word) is brought low \u2014 and so easy to reflexively get caught up in the emotional fist pump that we call schadenfreude<\/em>, pretty graphically defined as \u2018the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n

It remains a choice, a moment when we\u2019re given pause. I felt it. Evidently the \u2018truth tellers\u2019 of our world (aka, the late night comics) did too. As did political rivals. Whether this remains a sustained and sustainable teaching point is the larger question. Perhaps the largest one is \u2018will the teacher learn\u2019. Trump will likely survive. Will this figural moment be \u2018spun\u2019 to political advantage; or will it foster change, growth, gratitude. . . compassion in a man who has repeatedly shown he has none.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No wave could sweep those upper decks \u2014 unthinkable! No storm could hurt that hull \u2014 the papers said so. The perfect ship at last \u2014 the first unsinkable, Proved in advance \u2014 had not the folders read so? E.J. Pratt, The Titanic Is hubris a crime? And, if indeed it is, what should the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}