Proust Questionnaire (Part 1 - Compassion)

Forgive me if this is a little rambling and self-indulgent (what's new, amIright?!), but it's 4 in the morning, I can't sleep, and I felt a burning need to write something. Without further ado:

Oh Proust, you old cad.

I recently bumped into the famous Proust questionnaire online, in which the renowned author famously answered some questions about his thoughts and beliefs. I got bogged down in the first question: "Your favourite virtue"? After a little introspection, I came up with two joint favorites; compassion and truth. Here, I'm going to write about compassion.

In my own incredibly biased opinion, compassion for others is possibly one of the best and underrated traits that we can possibly exhibit as a species. The willingness to help others without the expectation of personal gain is a remarkable thing, when you stop and think about it. Though other animals might care for their kin, we are perhaps unique in that we have the cognitive capacity to reason and act out of a logical basis to show compassion and care to those outside our immediate kin group.

To be sure, there is often a deficit of compassion amongst humans too; from actions as large as genocide to those as small as turning our gaze away from someone in need, compassion and empathy are often lacking where they are needed the most. Nonetheless, the relative success of our species is built on mutual cooperation and the formation of social structures, none of which are possible without at least a modicum of compassion for others. All human achievement and accomplishment depend on it.

Though some people might believe they are self-reliant pioneers (in a literal or symbolic sense) without need of a compassionate society, I'd argue that such an egocentric perspective stymies the potential of human possibility, and that together we are more than the some of our parts. I truly believe that the best societies and cultures in the world are not those which allow people to accrue as much as they possibly can at the expense of the less gifted or less able (though for selfish reasons this culture proliferates the most). Instead, better societies are those in which everybody works collectively for the good of others, and our compassion for the least advantaged amongst us keeps our avaricious greed in check.

I did a Google image search of the word 'compassion' and plonked in this image to break up the text here.

We are at our best when we are at our most compassionate. I do not necessarily believe that we should all subscribe to selflessness, however. Though they are similar traits, the notion of selflessness implies that we act only in the interests of others and do not tend to ourselves at all. Compassion, however, is an understanding that we are a part of a greater whole, that we have a stake in the health of society, and that through careful consideration of others we effectively raise ourselves to achieve our collective potential.

One of the reasons I'm so drawn to huge cities is because they're a concrete example (literally) of human interdependence and social cohesion.

 What it essentially comes down to is utilitarianism versus objectivism; the collective good and the happiness of many, weighed against the sole happiness of the independent individual.

I would argue that while the latter might appeal to our vanity and pride, it is only through compassionate utilitarianism that we can guarantee our progress as a society and a species.