Thucydides: An Analysis Of Empathy And Compassion

Since empathy and compassion is a balance point, then to have a balance, there must be the opposite. If our city doesn't have a level of fear, then what keeps empathy and compassion from tipping over the scale and possibly creating a backlash? Similar to what Thucydides says: "the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must," but, the strong do what they can because that is a sort of harmony. Even if people try to be as compassionate and empathic as possible, there will always be those who suffer because of it. There are good intentions and good actions that create bad situations depending on what group we look at. Compassion and empathy is good, but it can't overpower hostility. And, do we want the scale to tip over? As Milton …show more content…
Maybe I'm being narrow-minded, but how do we feed all these people without causing another group to suffer if we lack the resources? The simplest way would be send them off to war and have them duke it out under the guise that they're fighting for the country, which in a way, they actually are. I think even Socrates advocated selective breeding.. The weak is culled and the strong remains. Only those who meet requirements have the right to life. What other ways could we be fair and compassionate to the population? Or do we just look at one certain group, for example, Canadians, and let everyone else suffer? Is that compassion? Encompassing everyone into the sphere is really difficult and if you or anyone has a plausible, viable AND agreeable solution, I think that would be a major game …show more content…
I'm contradicting my own argument again, but I'm sure people have a level of intelligence and when they tried to think of a solution and couldn't come up with one despite their intelligence, they gave up. If they can't figure it out, why would anyone else have figured it out? We've been trained on teamwork all our lives, and we have been disappointed over and over again. How do we keep optimism and work as a team after having our trust broken over and over again? Lower expectations? Yes, collective action has historically made differences, but there was a lot less people back then and the problems keep growing. In a way, Socrates said that there should be a limit in Kallipolis for it to work properly, so that theory can transfer to working as a team. It's a lot harder now than before to act collectively because of the influx of people. By no means should we just stop trying altogether because collective action will likely be the solution, but maybe there's a way to make it easier to create a