Assigning blame (philosophical explorations inspired by the main list)

[jenny_ravenclaw]

Luke eloquently wrote:
 
> Compassion.  The fact of the matter is that understanding someone  
else through their experiences is impossible--those experiences  will  
*never* be ours.  So we use empathy only as a means of goading our  
unwilling selves into compassion, but compassion is still the end  
goal, and even when empathy fails, compassion must still be striven  
for.>

and Cindy responded, thinking just like me:
  
> Although I agree that compassion is a laudable end-point, it isn't 
the only legitimate end-point.  At times and with sufficient 
justification, it is just fine to walk away and end the relationship.  
That is neither a display of empathy nor compassion.  Maybe it is an 
act of self-preservation, I don't know.  I should note that walking 
away is not mutually exclusive of forgiveness, in my opinion.  One can 
forgive, but decide that enough is enough, I think.  And one way of 
making that decision is to decide whether the other person was more to 
blame than you are.>

I'm glad this was brought to OT because blame is an interesting topic 
to me.  I very much agree with Cindy's final comments about 
compassion, because there are times when I just don't have it in me to 
feel for another person.  Should I really have compassion for the man 
who abuses his children?  Or for a rapist?  Or the men who flew the 
planes in the World Trade Center?  I don't feel less of a person 
because I have no compassion for those people.  I'm not saying I wish 
horrible and violent things on them because I don't, but my heart 
doesn't have room for them.  Sorry.

I may have more to say about this later, but I have some thinking to 
sort out first about blame and responsibility.

--jenny from ravenclaw ***************************