Robert Wright The evolution of compassion

But an abundance of pity alone will not help.

Poor oil rich Russia.

And the basic idea of kin selection is that, if an animal feels compassion for a close relative, and this compassion leads the animal to help the relative, then, in the end, the compassion actually winds up helping the genes underlying the compassion itself.

Indeed, Argentina's case is pathetic.

Compassion and human solidarity, which transcend state borders, will save the world.

This is not the same as compassion, but it's conducive to compassion. It opens the channels for compassion.

And what is fascinating is that compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear.

They are pathetic, deranged, and often have struggled with mental instability for much of their lives.

Unfortunately, compassion is not the only context in which religion motivates people.

Buddhism stresses compassion and mercy as much as Christianity does.

Blair ought to have known that politics is a pitiless business.

As President Bush said, in the midst of this tragedy we have also witnessed one of the greatest displays of compassion.

So, from a biologist's point of view, compassion is actually a gene's way of helping itself. OK.

Or we can take the much more difficult path of transformation, transcendence, compassion and love, but also accountability and justice.

Most of all, the Republican platform is devoid of compassion.

And if the Israeli authorities are so considerate and ready to donate meat, why don't they give it to the starving people in Gaza.

In an act of compassion, Anna set out to stop Nina from once again becoming an assassin, and to help her recover her memory loss.

Compassion, love, respect, appreciation and affection were also important for older persons he therefore urged that those values should be taught in schools, practised in the home and promoted in the media.

In 1998, the whole world, which was then enjoying a global boom, looked at Russia with sympathy.

Both activities, after all, are financed by investors looking for returns on their capital and motivated more by profit than compassion.

He might have done so to arouse pity and thus escape chiding for a recent quarrel with Daumer, who had come to believe that the boy had a tendency to lie.

And I think it's great that the leaders of the religions of the world are affirming compassion and the golden rule as fundamental principles that are integral to their faiths.

Karen Armstrong has told what I think is an iconic story of giving a speech in Holland and, after the fact, the word compassion was translated as pity.

Compassion in Dying, a right to die society and non medical NGO, participates in a consultative way in most of these cases.

In 15.8 per cent of responding countries, the media promote attitudes of pity and compassion or negative stereotypes, in addition to discounting the role, needs and even the existence of persons with disabilities.

In other words, Bo bore all the hallmarks of a gangster boss corrupt, ruthless towards his enemies, contemptuous of the law, and yet moralistic in his self presentation.

In response to years of mainstream media coverage showcasing the anguish of Syrians and portraying them as starving and needy people who want pity, the IamSyrian campaign aims to show the real mettle of Syrians.

In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.

And, from the bureaucrat's point of view, his or her salary might be pathetic, but it comes with a steady stream of facilitation payments.

In Al Falastiniya's post, I am Dier Yassin, she asserts that Deir Yassin is more than a death toll

But I'm also going to argue that once you understand the sense in which they are built into human nature, you realize that just affirming compassion, and affirming the golden rule, is really not enough.

Compensation awards to injured workers and their families are pitifully low and fail to give employers incentives to make their workplaces safe.

Leadership training in Google, for example, places a lot of emphasis on the inner qualities, such as self awareness, self mastery, empathy and compassion, because we believe that leadership begins with character.

Thus, another form of self sustainment can be sympathy offered by others (for example, someone might use the phrase oh, you poor thing to comfort the person in self pity).

(j) Realizes that States may decide to allow prolonged stay for compassionate or practical reasons and recognizes that such cases must be clearly distinguished from cases where there are international protection needs

(j) Realizes that States may decide to allow prolonged stay for compassionate or practical reasons and recognizes that such cases must be clearly distinguished from cases where there are international protection needs

And if you look at these qualities in the context of compassion, we find that the cognitive and affective components of compassion understanding people and empathizing with people inhibits, tones down, what I call the excessive self obsession that's in us, therefore creating the conditions for humility.

Yet even the United Nations appeal for 560 million to cover immediate funding of relief and recovery in the south remains woefully underfunded, with only 10 per cent pledged or contributed so far.

Further, it constitutes an essential component of the policy of State terrorism against Cuba which, silently, systematically, cumulatively, inhumanly and pitilessly, affects the population without distinction as to age, sex, race, religion or social position.

During the Great Depression, the head of the United States National Recovery Administration argued that employers were being forced to lay off workers as a result of the murderous doctrine of savage and wolfish competition, of dog eat dog and devil take the hindmost.

In Oregon, the patient decides independently of the physician where and when he or she wants to die, or even at all. Compassion in Dying, a right to die society and non medical NGO, participates in a consultative way in most of these cases.

That tide of reality what Alexander Solzhenitsyn once called the pitiless crowbar of events burst the closed bubble of Romney s campaign, its walls breached as decisively as those of lower Manhattan and Far Rockaway.

That Russians tolerate a government of ex KGB men, for whom lack of compassion and intolerance of dissent are the norm, reflects their exhaustion from the tumult of the last 20 years. Now the Kremlin seems to think that what is good for ordinary Russians is good for independent nations as well small and weak countries will be shown no mercy once Russia is given the tools to intimidate, isolate, and threaten them with the prospect of an energy blockade.

I think it's probably the case that, in the human evolutionary lineage, even before there were homo sapiens, feelings like compassion and love and sympathy had earned their way into the gene pool, and biologists have a pretty clear idea of how this first happened.