Barbara Lazear Ascher's 'On Compassion'

The short story" On Compassion" by Barbara Lazear appeared after her book " Playing After Dark (1986)". This short story argues that people are not born with compassion. Throughout the book Lazear gave examples to determine if the situation was out of compassion or fear. The author also, gives information about the Greeks and she states how it can be a possibilities the Greeks had compassion within a society to teach people to have sympathy for people suffering. Although, other's may voice their opinion to being born with compassion, I initiate to include evidence from the text to prove that compassion needs to be taught to people and there is no possible way that they are born with compassion.

Full-time writer Barbara Lazear Ascher’s 1988 essay “On Compassion” conveys her perspective about interactions between people of different social classes to reveal her opinion on the reasons for compassion and where compassion should come from. Ascher’s purpose is to have her audience question the ways that compassion can be shown and to challenge society’s fear of “raw humanity”(11). She adopts a warm but clinical tone in order to prompt her audience, the literate and the intellectually curious, to question the motives behind compassion. Ascher begins her essay by invoking the primal fear of when anyone or anything unfamiliar approaches.

A strong urge for a spirit of donation to the poor was exceeding imposed, he even took it privately to donate. Yet these private efforts were not sufficient to alleviate the amplitude of poverty in the

To Kill A Mockingbird : Looking Beyond To have compassion is to have the ability to look beyond yourself and be keenly aware of the world around you. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the protagonists undoubtedly display compassion for others through the many life-altering experiences, ultimately developing the minds of the characters and the way they act, feel and comprehend situations. It is conspicuous that Arthur Radley typifies compassion when he takes care of both Jem and Scout in specific situations in the novel, which increasingly uncovers the main message; Miss Maudie continuously shows compassion toward people looked down upon by other individuals and the society. Moreover, Atticus demonstrates compassion throughout the novel

“Was it fear or compassion that motivated the gift?”(Pg. 47) Ascher wonders why the mother gave the homeless man a dollar even if he did not ask for it. She also wonders why the French waitress gave the homeless man a coffee and a paper bag of food. “…Twice I have wondered, what compels this woman to feed this man?

Compassion does make impacts on other people, everyday for example in history. When Abraham Lincoln stopped slavery. The slaves were freed, they were no longer owned. Second act of compassion helped my family still be whole. My aunt saved my cousin Luke from drowning.

My argument that addresses Peter Singer’s, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, raises many points that successfully show’s the flaws in Peter Singers argument on how people should forego a purchase they don’t necessarily need, and donate that money to someone or something

She tries to cite facts of her experience as a witness when she was in a French bread shop and a man walked in the shop and the owner of the shop gives the man a cup of coffee and bread from leftovers and walks away without a word. Then the author uses the same rhetorical element Logos of asking herself “what compels this woman to feed this man? Pity? Care? Compassion?

Sometimes all the pain in the world can seem unbearably, especially if you are able to sympathize with those in pain. At the same time this compassion is what makes us human and unique. Our empathy is what makes a better tomorrow, and therefor the message of compassion should always be spread. This is one of the main messages in J. K. Rowling’s speech at Harvard University, back in 2008.

In Barbara Lazear Ascher’s essay titled “On Compassion” Ascher considers the concept of compassion by utilizing her own encounters with the homeless as a vehicle to make her argument. In her argument, she interprets compassion as an abstract concept, and portrays empathy as a building block to compassion; making the argument that to be a more tolerant society one must first learn empathy in order to demonstrate true compassion. When analyzing Ascher’s rhetoric, her style, diction and rhetorical devices reveal a skeptical tone and serve a greater purpose in appealing to the reader’s sense of ethos and pathos. Namely, Ascher’s use of first-person narrative and word choice like “we” appeals to the reader’s sense of ethos, which eventually builds

(196), the questions at the end of the phrase allow the readers some mystery as to the contents of the bag and the amount of generosity in the shop owner. At the culmination of the essay, Ascher asks “could it be that the homeless, like those ancients, are reminding us of our common humanity?” (197). Ascher is implying

She begins by talking about her college experience of how her own professors and fellow students believed and “always portrayed the poor as shiftless, mindless, lazy, dishonest, and unworthy” (Paragraph 5). This experience shocked her because she never grew up materialistic. She brings up the fact that she is the person with the strong and good values that she has today because she grew up in a poor family. In culture, the poor are always being stereotyped.

So it appears that utilizing moral arguments, provocative thought investigations, lighting up cases, and contextual analyses of magnanimous giving; author demonstrates that our present reaction to world poverty is deficient as well as ethically faulty. Singer battles that we have to change our perspectives of what is included in carrying on with a moral life. To help us have

Being able to decide for ourselves what we are compassionate about shows who we really are. When we are compassionate about something, our actions follow right along with it. As mentioned in the text, “Compassion is the root no less of justice than of loving-kindness; but it is more clearly evidenced in the latter than in the former” (Schopenhauer,

In accordance with Singer’s argument, after buying the necessities needed to survive, the superfluous money should be contributed to charity, in view of the fact that charitable donations are a direct reflection of one’s values and perspectives. As John F Kennedy Jr. said, “it is easy for rich people just to write a check for charity; however, showing up and spending time with those in need was harder, but more important.” JFK’s statement shows how charitable donations are a direct reflection of ones values and perspectives by pronouncing the issue of just writing a check for exhibition to the public, it needs to come from deep in the heart and soul. Some say, if a person does not donate all unnecessary money to charity, does that reflect badly