The Politics of Compassion

Last week, 'The Australian' ran an op-ed piece by senior La Trobe historian John Hirst, in which Hirst claimed that while compassion was all very well for churches and saints, it was precisely the wrong sort of quality we should want in our politicians. Compassion, he argued, is well-meaning, but altogether too trusting and naive. Public policy, on the other hand, needs to be somewhat more hard-headed. In defending his ideas, Hirst said that if compassion was used as a measuring-stick by politicians, then single mothers (for example) would have have no incentive to get off welfare, and would continue to chase after any 'passing blokes to father their next child.'

I decided to respond to Hirst's article, with the following:

"I MAY be hopelessly un-Machiavellian but, unlike John Hirst, I for one believe that compassion can and should be integral to effective public policy ("An unaffordable luxury”, Opinion, 31/1).

Quite aside from the utterly distasteful suggestions that single mothers are merely prowling around for “passing blokes” to father their next child, or that compassion is the sole preserve of “doctors’ wives and the Uniting Church”, I take issue with the notion that compassion is an “extravagance” that politicians cannot afford.

Such a view assumes that the quality of compassion is naive and wishy-washy. On the contrary, the truly compassionate person will resolutely stand up against oppression, tyranny and discrimination wherever they are to be found, and by whatever name they are being justified. Oh for more politicians who will do that!" (Letters, 'The Australian', 2 February 2007).

It seems to me highly appropriate that the hard-headedness of compassion become newsworthy, in the same week that we celebrated the birthdays of two remarkable people: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran theologian and martyr, 1906-1945) and Rosa Parks (civil rights activist, 1913-2005). Both Bonhoeffer and Parks were committed Christians, who lived and died resolutely in their faith - and both of them exemplified the tough and uncompromising nature of compassion.

Theirs, not Hirst's, is the message we need to heed and articulate in our own day.

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted, to announce liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour’ (Is.61).