One way to look at how compassion manifests organizationally is to punctuate compassionate action into five groups with common characteristics. These five "easy pieces" generally fall into faith-based, institutional, professional secular, individual, and aspirational threads.
— Ari Cowan
Compassion is the basis of all morality.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
Following on the heels of the growth of environmental action and organizational social responsibility, the idea of compassion has entered the awareness, lexicon, and consideration of organizations. For the most part, this development is in its early stages and, like the beginnings of similar social developments, it is fraught with a plague of confusion, misinformation, superficiality, sound bites, fashionable pronouncements, accessorizing, and insipid romanticism. This comes with the territory.
But there is an emerging insistence of going beyond the superficial to fully embrace the demands of compassion — courage, discipline, emotional commitment, a profound change of heart, and a willingness to get one's hands dirty.
One way to look at the range of compassion efforts and their impact is to break compassion efforts into five threads — five pieces of the whole that punctuate the application continuum in a way that's easy to understand.
1. The Faith-Based Thread
Those in the faith-based thread make coming to the aid of suffering sentient beings a part of their religious practice, guided by scripture and inspired by the examples of compassionate religious figures. This is one of the earliest organizational forms overtly engaging compassion as a value and practice. The groups in this thread created hospitals, religious-based relief organizations (e.g., Catholic Relief Services, AIM for Seva, American Friends Service, Islamic Relief Worldwide), orphanages, etc. The lives of Thomas Merton, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi, Badshaw Kahn, Martin Luther King, and others are a testament to this commitment. Those expressing compassion through this thread often feel called to their work.
2. The Institutional Thread
The institutional, action-based thread is a more recent development, getting solid traction beginning in the 19th Century. Those pursuing compassion in this thread are involved in public service, refugee relief, public health, counseling, ending human trafficking, and other direct efforts throughout the world. This thread includes Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), Compassion Focused Therapy, the International Rescue Committee, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and Save the Children. This thread also includes hospices, some hospitals and long-term care facilities, food banks, and similar service organizations The people and organizations in this thread dive deep into human suffering and passionately work to relieve it.
3. The Professional Secular Thread
The professional secular thread brings research, education, information, advocacy, and advisory assistance together to build a foundation for creating understanding, practical applications, and core compassion applications for people and the social systems in which they gather to work, learn, and worship. This thread includes the CompassionLab, CCARE, Compassion and Empathy in Society, and the International Center for Compassionate Organizations. The goals of these groups include understanding the nature, scope, and depth of suffering, developing evidence-based responses to ending that distress, and providing the understanding, methods, and tools for eradicating suffering. They are often noted for their thoroughness, discipline, commitment, professionalism, and unwavering willingness to explore the full scope of the promise of compassion.
4. The Personal Thread
Those in the personal thread are made up of individuals cultivating compassion personally and taking responsibility to relieve suffering wherever they find it. Compassionate people have been around for centuries and they've often brought great good to the world. Their cultivation of compassion as a value and practice has often been met with resistance, somethings at the cost of their lives. They are among us today — ministering to those who are lost, unwanted, beaten-down, disenfranchised, suffering life's vicissitudes, or preparing for death.
5. The Aspirant Thread
The aspirant thread brings people together to get involved in conversations about compassion, affirm declarations and proclamations, leverage social networks to share information (articles, videos, etc.), hold vigils, create group social events (dinners to talk about compassion, contests and games, etc.), contribute to clothing drives, and volunteer at Thanksgiving or Christmas to serve holiday meals to the homeless or do similar service.
There have been some criticism of those pursuing this thread including the observation that aspirants don't actually get their hands dirty with the suffering of others. And some use compassion in a way, as author Herman Melville noted in Bartleby the Scrivener, to:"...cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval."
However, I think it's important to recognize that, for many people, this is the starting point for their compassion efforts and, as they mature, they can go beyond this gateway to do the difficult work compassion demands. My introduction to compassion as a public issue came via my association with such an organization. My short time with that group helped me understand the challenges, concerns, politics, seductive glamour, public interest, and other elements that set me on the course I now pursue. I'm most grateful for the experience this group provided to me.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Center for Compassionate Organizations.
Ari Cowan is the Executive Director at the The International Center for Compassionate Organizations in Louisville, Kentucky USA
Copyright © 2014 by Ari Cowan • Published with permission
