Dalrymple: Sympathy Deformed

To sympathize with those who are less fortunate is honorable and decent. A man able to commiserate only with himself would surely be neither admirable nor attractive. But every virtue can become deformed by excess, insincerity, or loose thinking into an opposing vice. Sympathy, when excessive, moves toward sentimental condescension and eventually disdain; when insincere, it becomes unctuously hypocritical; and when associated with loose thinking, it is a bad guide to policy and frequently has disastrous results. It is possible, of course, to combine all three errors.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_otbie-sympathy.html

Posted under: Politics, Liberty and Freedom
Posted on: Sunday, June 20, 2010 4:34 PM
« The Big Picture: Scenes from the Gulf of Mexico | Home | Watch out for the envy police »
Share this post: email it, bookmark It, digg It, kick It

Comments

No comments posted yet.

Post your comment




(this will save your form settings for the next time you comment)

Please add 4 and 2 and type the answer here:

The umbrella in particular is remembered as the symbol of the nineteenth century’s disturbing obsession with individualism. In Bellamy’s utopia, umbrellas have been replaced with retractable canopies so that everyone is protected from the rain equally.
“In the nineteenth century,” explains a character, “when it rained, the people of Boston put up three hundred thousand umbrellas over as many heads, and in the twentieth century they put up one umbrella over all the heads.”