I don’t know whether you’re being playful, defeatist, or misreading me. :-)
My point is that it is possible to come close to having his level of compassion: that the difference is apparently to a surprisingly large degree more environmental than genetic.
Are you claiming that communicating this point is hopeless?
I think it is worse than hopeless on multiple fronts.
First problem:
Let’s take another good quality: Honesty. People who volunteer, “I always tell the truth,” generally lie more than the average population, and should be distrusted. (Yes, yes, Sam Harris. But the skew is the wrong way.) “I am awesome at good life quality,” generally fails if your audience has had, well, significant social experience.
So you want to demonstrate this claim by word and deed, and not explicitly make the claim in most cases. Here, I understand the reason for making it, and the parts where you say you want good things to happen to people are fine. (I have on LW said something like, “I have a reputation for principled honesty, says me,” in arguing that game tactics were not dishonest and should not apply to out-of-game reputation.) But the MLK thing is way-too-much, like “I never lie,” is way-too-much.
Second problem:
As others have said, the comparison is political and inapt. You couldn’t find anyone less iconic? Penn Jillette? Someone?
And MLK is known for his actions and risks and willingness to engage in non-violence. I read somewhere that ethnic struggles sometimes end badly. In a world where the FBI was trying to get him to kill himself, he stood for peace. Under those circumstance, his treatment of other humans was generally very good. That’s not a test you’ve gone through.
Third problem:
The confidence of the statement is way, way out of line with where it should be. You have some idea of MLK’s love and compassion for other people, but not all of it. Maybe MLK thought, “Screw all those people in government; hope they die screaming. But I think that war leads to more losses for black people, so despite my burning hatred, I’m putting on a better public face.” (I admit this is unlikely.) He certainly had some personal bad qualities. Maybe you love people more than MLK. (This also seems unlikely, but stay with me.)
We cannot measure love and compassion in kilograms. We also do not know what people are like all the time. I realize that we can put people into general buckets, but I’d caution this sort of precision for others and yourself to a point where you can call people equivalent by this measure. And if we could measure it, there are no infinite values.
Fourth problem:
As infinite love for all humans is not possible… well, it’s not even a good idea. You shouldn’t have compassion and love for all people. The guy who just loves stabbing toddlers needs to be housed away from toddlers even though we’re ruining his life, which was so happy in those delightful toddler-stabbing days. And if you’re using your love and compassion on that guy, well, maybe there are other people who can get some o’ that with better effect.
Because love and compassion isn’t really a meaningful construct if it’s just some internal view of society with no outward effects. Love and compassion is mostly meaningful only in what’s done (like, say, leading life-risking marches against injustices.)
No worries; just say that you’ve “begun to develop” the same capacity, after establishing (as I believe you’ve already done with clarity) that you believe that the whole human race can attain the fullness for which you are also striving.
Unless you really did mean “developed,” as in, you’ve already developed it.
In which case, that’s an extraordinary claim. People will tend to assign it low probability and (seeking an alternate explanation) attribute your claim to it as plausibly resulting from an inflated sense of your own accomplishment, i.e. pride and arrogance, unless you provide extraordinary evidence that you speak truly.
If you really think you’ve already achieved MLK or Ghandi-esque compassion, based on what you’re describing, I wonder if an apter comparison might be the Greek Stoics, a lack of negative reaction resulting from not perceiving an authentic attack, rather than by superhuman dominance of your negative emotions, and a superabundance of positive emotions.
Your description of not feeling insulted because people are only responding naturally to a misunderstanding of you is familiar to me, as is the accompanying lack of offense stemming therefrom.
I don’t doubt you might really have no offense at all in this area, and if it is only in this area that you believe to have Gandhi-esque powers, just clarify that you aren’t referring to mastery of every manifestation of love, only this particular one, and that for you it has come by not perceiving an offense, rather than by overcoming your offense.
What I mean is “what I’ve developed recently is in the same general direction of what they had”, not “my affective disposition is identical with that of MLK’s.” I don’t have strong views how exactly how close the similarity is, I just know that I’m much further in that direction than I was before.
I don’t personally know that MLK had this specific quality. I’ve made explicit what you have implied, that he did. Even if he did have it, I don’t think you could reduce his general capacity for love to this one idea, hence “part of.”
But to avoid apparent arrogance, perhaps the first sentence of the second-to-last paragraph might be written like so.
“This perspective I’m developing is part of what gave Martin Luther King the capacity to feel universal love and compassion.”
How would you differentiate between someone who (1) has shifted in the direction of MLK via compassion, or someone who has (2) reached his level of compassion?
I don’t know whether you’re being playful, defeatist, or misreading me. :-)
My point is that it is possible to come close to having his level of compassion: that the difference is apparently to a surprisingly large degree more environmental than genetic.
Are you claiming that communicating this point is hopeless?
I think it is worse than hopeless on multiple fronts.
First problem:
Let’s take another good quality: Honesty. People who volunteer, “I always tell the truth,” generally lie more than the average population, and should be distrusted. (Yes, yes, Sam Harris. But the skew is the wrong way.) “I am awesome at good life quality,” generally fails if your audience has had, well, significant social experience.
So you want to demonstrate this claim by word and deed, and not explicitly make the claim in most cases. Here, I understand the reason for making it, and the parts where you say you want good things to happen to people are fine. (I have on LW said something like, “I have a reputation for principled honesty, says me,” in arguing that game tactics were not dishonest and should not apply to out-of-game reputation.) But the MLK thing is way-too-much, like “I never lie,” is way-too-much.
Second problem:
As others have said, the comparison is political and inapt. You couldn’t find anyone less iconic? Penn Jillette? Someone?
And MLK is known for his actions and risks and willingness to engage in non-violence. I read somewhere that ethnic struggles sometimes end badly. In a world where the FBI was trying to get him to kill himself, he stood for peace. Under those circumstance, his treatment of other humans was generally very good. That’s not a test you’ve gone through.
Third problem:
The confidence of the statement is way, way out of line with where it should be. You have some idea of MLK’s love and compassion for other people, but not all of it. Maybe MLK thought, “Screw all those people in government; hope they die screaming. But I think that war leads to more losses for black people, so despite my burning hatred, I’m putting on a better public face.” (I admit this is unlikely.) He certainly had some personal bad qualities. Maybe you love people more than MLK. (This also seems unlikely, but stay with me.)
We cannot measure love and compassion in kilograms. We also do not know what people are like all the time. I realize that we can put people into general buckets, but I’d caution this sort of precision for others and yourself to a point where you can call people equivalent by this measure. And if we could measure it, there are no infinite values.
Fourth problem:
As infinite love for all humans is not possible… well, it’s not even a good idea. You shouldn’t have compassion and love for all people. The guy who just loves stabbing toddlers needs to be housed away from toddlers even though we’re ruining his life, which was so happy in those delightful toddler-stabbing days. And if you’re using your love and compassion on that guy, well, maybe there are other people who can get some o’ that with better effect.
Because love and compassion isn’t really a meaningful construct if it’s just some internal view of society with no outward effects. Love and compassion is mostly meaningful only in what’s done (like, say, leading life-risking marches against injustices.)
OK, that’s it. Hope it helps.
No worries; just say that you’ve “begun to develop” the same capacity, after establishing (as I believe you’ve already done with clarity) that you believe that the whole human race can attain the fullness for which you are also striving.
Unless you really did mean “developed,” as in, you’ve already developed it. In which case, that’s an extraordinary claim. People will tend to assign it low probability and (seeking an alternate explanation) attribute your claim to it as plausibly resulting from an inflated sense of your own accomplishment, i.e. pride and arrogance, unless you provide extraordinary evidence that you speak truly.
If you really think you’ve already achieved MLK or Ghandi-esque compassion, based on what you’re describing, I wonder if an apter comparison might be the Greek Stoics, a lack of negative reaction resulting from not perceiving an authentic attack, rather than by superhuman dominance of your negative emotions, and a superabundance of positive emotions.
Your description of not feeling insulted because people are only responding naturally to a misunderstanding of you is familiar to me, as is the accompanying lack of offense stemming therefrom. I don’t doubt you might really have no offense at all in this area, and if it is only in this area that you believe to have Gandhi-esque powers, just clarify that you aren’t referring to mastery of every manifestation of love, only this particular one, and that for you it has come by not perceiving an offense, rather than by overcoming your offense.
Thanks, this is fine.
What I mean is “what I’ve developed recently is in the same general direction of what they had”, not “my affective disposition is identical with that of MLK’s.” I don’t have strong views how exactly how close the similarity is, I just know that I’m much further in that direction than I was before.
I don’t personally know that MLK had this specific quality. I’ve made explicit what you have implied, that he did. Even if he did have it, I don’t think you could reduce his general capacity for love to this one idea, hence “part of.” But to avoid apparent arrogance, perhaps the first sentence of the second-to-last paragraph might be written like so.
“This perspective I’m developing is part of what gave Martin Luther King the capacity to feel universal love and compassion.”
Thanks.
I misread you.
How would you differentiate between someone who (1) has shifted in the direction of MLK via compassion, or someone who has (2) reached his level of compassion?