Conspicuous Compassion

Conspicuous Compassion

Author: Patrick West

Publisher: Coronet Books

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13:

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"We live in an age of conspicuous compassion. We sport empathy ribbons, send flowers to recently deceased celebrities, weep in public over murdered children, apologize for historical misdemeanors, wear red noses for the starving, go on demonstrations to proclaim 'Drop the Debt' or 'Not in My Name.' We feel each other's pain. We desperately seek a common identity and new social bonds to replace those that have withered in the post-war era - the family, the church, the nation and neighborhood. Mourning sickness is a religion for the lonely crowd that no longer subscribes to orthodox churches. Its flowers and teddies are its rites, its collective minutes' silences its liturgy and mass. This book's thesis is that such displays of empathy do not change the world for the better: they do not help the poor, diseased, dispossessed or bereaved. Our culture of ostentatious caring is about projecting your ego, and informing others what a deeply caring individual you are. It is about feeling good, not doing good, and illustrates not how altruistic we have become, but how selfish. And, as Patrick West shows in this witty but incisive monograph, sometimes it can be cruel."


Book Synopsis Conspicuous Compassion by : Patrick West

Download or read book Conspicuous Compassion written by Patrick West and published by Coronet Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We live in an age of conspicuous compassion. We sport empathy ribbons, send flowers to recently deceased celebrities, weep in public over murdered children, apologize for historical misdemeanors, wear red noses for the starving, go on demonstrations to proclaim 'Drop the Debt' or 'Not in My Name.' We feel each other's pain. We desperately seek a common identity and new social bonds to replace those that have withered in the post-war era - the family, the church, the nation and neighborhood. Mourning sickness is a religion for the lonely crowd that no longer subscribes to orthodox churches. Its flowers and teddies are its rites, its collective minutes' silences its liturgy and mass. This book's thesis is that such displays of empathy do not change the world for the better: they do not help the poor, diseased, dispossessed or bereaved. Our culture of ostentatious caring is about projecting your ego, and informing others what a deeply caring individual you are. It is about feeling good, not doing good, and illustrates not how altruistic we have become, but how selfish. And, as Patrick West shows in this witty but incisive monograph, sometimes it can be cruel."


Acts of Conspicuous Compassion

Acts of Conspicuous Compassion

Author: Sheila C. Moeschen

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2013-06-24

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 0472118862

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Illuminates the relationship between performance and the American charity movement


Book Synopsis Acts of Conspicuous Compassion by : Sheila C. Moeschen

Download or read book Acts of Conspicuous Compassion written by Sheila C. Moeschen and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the relationship between performance and the American charity movement


Conspicuous Compassion

Conspicuous Compassion

Author: Patrick West

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 9781864320947

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Argues that public displays of empathy, such as the wearing of ribbons, is more about projecting one's ego, and not really about doing good.


Book Synopsis Conspicuous Compassion by : Patrick West

Download or read book Conspicuous Compassion written by Patrick West and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that public displays of empathy, such as the wearing of ribbons, is more about projecting one's ego, and not really about doing good.


Acts of Conspicuous Compassion

Acts of Conspicuous Compassion

Author: Sheila C Moeschen

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2013-06-24

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0472029274

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Charity has been a pervasive and influential concept in American culture, and has also served an important ideological purpose, helping people articulate their sense of individual and national identity. But what, exactly, compels our benevolence? In a social moment when countless worthy causes and deserving groups clamor for attention, it is worth examining how our culture generates the exchange of sympathy commonly experienced as “charity.” Acts of Conspicuous Compassion investigates the historical and continuing relationship between performance culture and the cultivation of charitable sentiment, exploring the distinctive practices that have evolved to make the plea for charity legible and compelling. From the work of 19th-century melodramas to the televised drama of transformation and redemption in reality TV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the book charts the sophisticated strategies that various charity movements have employed to make organized benevolence seem attractive, exciting, and seemingly uncomplicated. Sheila C. Moeschen sheds new light on the legacy and involvement of disabled people within charity—specifically, the articulation of performance culture as a vital theoretical framework for discussing issues of embodiment and identity, a framework that dislodges previously held notions of the disabled existing as passive “objects” of pity. This work gives rise to a more complicated and nuanced discussion of the participation of the disabled community in the charity industry, of the opportunities afforded by performance culture for disabled people to act as critical agents of charity, and of the new ethical and political issues that arise from employing performance methodology in a culture with increased appetites for voyeurism, display, and complex spectacle.


Book Synopsis Acts of Conspicuous Compassion by : Sheila C Moeschen

Download or read book Acts of Conspicuous Compassion written by Sheila C Moeschen and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charity has been a pervasive and influential concept in American culture, and has also served an important ideological purpose, helping people articulate their sense of individual and national identity. But what, exactly, compels our benevolence? In a social moment when countless worthy causes and deserving groups clamor for attention, it is worth examining how our culture generates the exchange of sympathy commonly experienced as “charity.” Acts of Conspicuous Compassion investigates the historical and continuing relationship between performance culture and the cultivation of charitable sentiment, exploring the distinctive practices that have evolved to make the plea for charity legible and compelling. From the work of 19th-century melodramas to the televised drama of transformation and redemption in reality TV’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the book charts the sophisticated strategies that various charity movements have employed to make organized benevolence seem attractive, exciting, and seemingly uncomplicated. Sheila C. Moeschen sheds new light on the legacy and involvement of disabled people within charity—specifically, the articulation of performance culture as a vital theoretical framework for discussing issues of embodiment and identity, a framework that dislodges previously held notions of the disabled existing as passive “objects” of pity. This work gives rise to a more complicated and nuanced discussion of the participation of the disabled community in the charity industry, of the opportunities afforded by performance culture for disabled people to act as critical agents of charity, and of the new ethical and political issues that arise from employing performance methodology in a culture with increased appetites for voyeurism, display, and complex spectacle.


Plagues of the Mind

Plagues of the Mind

Author: Bruce S. Thornton

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2014-05-13

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1497648939

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A stirring and sobering diagnosis of the challenges that confront anyone laboring to renew America’s tradition of ordered liberty. Classicist Bruce Thornton’s Plagues of the Mind is a forceful vindication of the West’s tradition of rational, critical inquiry—a legacy now largely jettisoned in favor of a host of new deities, environmentalism, feminism, primitivism, New Age, and the cult of the therapeutic among them.


Book Synopsis Plagues of the Mind by : Bruce S. Thornton

Download or read book Plagues of the Mind written by Bruce S. Thornton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stirring and sobering diagnosis of the challenges that confront anyone laboring to renew America’s tradition of ordered liberty. Classicist Bruce Thornton’s Plagues of the Mind is a forceful vindication of the West’s tradition of rational, critical inquiry—a legacy now largely jettisoned in favor of a host of new deities, environmentalism, feminism, primitivism, New Age, and the cult of the therapeutic among them.


Towards the Compassionate University

Towards the Compassionate University

Author: Kathryn Waddington

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-02-26

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 100033774X

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This book makes a significant contribution to the need for compassion in the 21st-century neoliberal university. Compassion is a process that involves (i) noticing that suffering is present in an organization; (ii) making meaning of suffering in a way that contributes to a desire to alleviate it; (iii) feeling empathic concern; and (iv) taking action. There is increasing recognition of the crucial role of compassion as a core concern in education, health and social care, and globally to ensure the future sustainability of humankind and the planet. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary, theoretical, and professional perspectives—including social sciences, modern Darwinism, intersectionality, higher education policy, and organization studies—the book addresses the key challenges facing 21st-century universities. For example, intersectionality and higher education, staff and student health and well-being, and responding to global challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic. The book is relevant to university leaders, policy makers, educators, researchers, university staff, and students aspiring to develop their own understanding of the role of compassion in professional life. It is an important marker of the compassion turn in higher education and what this means for contemporary academic leadership, followership, and pedagogical practice.


Book Synopsis Towards the Compassionate University by : Kathryn Waddington

Download or read book Towards the Compassionate University written by Kathryn Waddington and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-02-26 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes a significant contribution to the need for compassion in the 21st-century neoliberal university. Compassion is a process that involves (i) noticing that suffering is present in an organization; (ii) making meaning of suffering in a way that contributes to a desire to alleviate it; (iii) feeling empathic concern; and (iv) taking action. There is increasing recognition of the crucial role of compassion as a core concern in education, health and social care, and globally to ensure the future sustainability of humankind and the planet. Drawing upon a wide range of interdisciplinary, theoretical, and professional perspectives—including social sciences, modern Darwinism, intersectionality, higher education policy, and organization studies—the book addresses the key challenges facing 21st-century universities. For example, intersectionality and higher education, staff and student health and well-being, and responding to global challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic. The book is relevant to university leaders, policy makers, educators, researchers, university staff, and students aspiring to develop their own understanding of the role of compassion in professional life. It is an important marker of the compassion turn in higher education and what this means for contemporary academic leadership, followership, and pedagogical practice.


The Pity Party

The Pity Party

Author: William Voegeli

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2014-11-04

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0062289314

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When liberals don't have reason, authority, or the American people on their side, they turn to the one thing they never run out of: Pity. For decades, conservatives have chafed at being called "heartless" and "uncaring" by liberals who maintain that our essential choice as a nation is between the politics of kindness and the politics of cruelty. In The Pity Party, political scientist William Voegeli turns the tables on this argument, making the case that "compassion" is neither the essence of personal virtue nor the ultimate purpose of government. Over the years, liberals have built a remarkable edifice of government programs that are justified by appeals to compassion: Head Start, immigration reform, gun control, affirmative action, and entitlements, to name only some. As Voegeli amply demonstrates, the liberals who promote these massive programs are weirdly indifferent as to whether they succeed. Instead, when the problems they are intended to solve fail to disappear, liberals double down, calling for yet more programs and ever greater expenditures in the name of "compassion." Meanwhile, conservatives who challenge the effectiveness of these programs are slandered as "heartless right-wingers." Yet rather than challenge this tendentious liberal argument, the many conservatives it intimidates feel it necessary to insist that they really do "care." However, liberal compassion's good intentions consistently fail to translate into good results. Voegeli walks the reader through a plethora of programs that have become battlefields between conservatives fighting for more efficiency and liberals fighting for more budget-busting federal programs to address an ever-expanding catalog of social ills. Along the way, he explains the underpinnings of the liberal philosophy that reinforce this misapplied ideal and shows why today's self-described compassionate liberals are ultimately unfit to govern.


Book Synopsis The Pity Party by : William Voegeli

Download or read book The Pity Party written by William Voegeli and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When liberals don't have reason, authority, or the American people on their side, they turn to the one thing they never run out of: Pity. For decades, conservatives have chafed at being called "heartless" and "uncaring" by liberals who maintain that our essential choice as a nation is between the politics of kindness and the politics of cruelty. In The Pity Party, political scientist William Voegeli turns the tables on this argument, making the case that "compassion" is neither the essence of personal virtue nor the ultimate purpose of government. Over the years, liberals have built a remarkable edifice of government programs that are justified by appeals to compassion: Head Start, immigration reform, gun control, affirmative action, and entitlements, to name only some. As Voegeli amply demonstrates, the liberals who promote these massive programs are weirdly indifferent as to whether they succeed. Instead, when the problems they are intended to solve fail to disappear, liberals double down, calling for yet more programs and ever greater expenditures in the name of "compassion." Meanwhile, conservatives who challenge the effectiveness of these programs are slandered as "heartless right-wingers." Yet rather than challenge this tendentious liberal argument, the many conservatives it intimidates feel it necessary to insist that they really do "care." However, liberal compassion's good intentions consistently fail to translate into good results. Voegeli walks the reader through a plethora of programs that have become battlefields between conservatives fighting for more efficiency and liberals fighting for more budget-busting federal programs to address an ever-expanding catalog of social ills. Along the way, he explains the underpinnings of the liberal philosophy that reinforce this misapplied ideal and shows why today's self-described compassionate liberals are ultimately unfit to govern.


The Tragedy of American Compassion

The Tragedy of American Compassion

Author: Marvin Olasky

Publisher: Regnery Publishing

Published: 1994-02-01

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780895267252

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This is a book of hope at a time when just about everyone but Marvin Olasky has lost hope. The topic is poverty and the underclass. The profound truth that Marvin Olasky forces us to confront is that the problems of the underclass are not caused by poverty. Some of them are exacerbated by poverty, but we know that they need not be caused by poverty, for poverty has been the condition of the vast majority of human communities since the dawn of history, and they have for the most part been communities of stable families, nurtured children, and low crime. It is wrong to think that writing checks will end the problems of the underclass, or even reduce them. - Preface.


Book Synopsis The Tragedy of American Compassion by : Marvin Olasky

Download or read book The Tragedy of American Compassion written by Marvin Olasky and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 1994-02-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book of hope at a time when just about everyone but Marvin Olasky has lost hope. The topic is poverty and the underclass. The profound truth that Marvin Olasky forces us to confront is that the problems of the underclass are not caused by poverty. Some of them are exacerbated by poverty, but we know that they need not be caused by poverty, for poverty has been the condition of the vast majority of human communities since the dawn of history, and they have for the most part been communities of stable families, nurtured children, and low crime. It is wrong to think that writing checks will end the problems of the underclass, or even reduce them. - Preface.


Economics Unmasked

Economics Unmasked

Author: Manfred Max-Neef

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-08-30

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0857840320

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An inspiring outline of a new economics system, where justice, human dignity, compassion and reverence for life are the guiding values. The economic system under which we live not only forces the great majority of humankind to live their lives in indignity and poverty but also threatens all forms of life on Earth. Economics Unmasked presents a cogent critique of the dominant economic system, showing that the theoretical constructions of mainstream economics work mainly to bring about injustice. The merciless onslaught on the global ecosystem of recent decades, brought about by the massive increase in the production of goods and the consequent depletion of nature's reserves, is not a chance property of the economic system. It is a direct result of neoliberal economic thinking, which recognizes value only in material things. The growth obsession is not a mistaken conception that mainstream economists can unlearn, it is inherent in their view of life. But a socio-economic system based on the growth obsession can never be sustainable. This book outlines the foundations of a new economics, where we are not ruled by greed and injustice. Contrary to the absurd assumption of mainstream economists that economics is a value-free science, a new economics must make its values explicit.


Book Synopsis Economics Unmasked by : Manfred Max-Neef

Download or read book Economics Unmasked written by Manfred Max-Neef and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring outline of a new economics system, where justice, human dignity, compassion and reverence for life are the guiding values. The economic system under which we live not only forces the great majority of humankind to live their lives in indignity and poverty but also threatens all forms of life on Earth. Economics Unmasked presents a cogent critique of the dominant economic system, showing that the theoretical constructions of mainstream economics work mainly to bring about injustice. The merciless onslaught on the global ecosystem of recent decades, brought about by the massive increase in the production of goods and the consequent depletion of nature's reserves, is not a chance property of the economic system. It is a direct result of neoliberal economic thinking, which recognizes value only in material things. The growth obsession is not a mistaken conception that mainstream economists can unlearn, it is inherent in their view of life. But a socio-economic system based on the growth obsession can never be sustainable. This book outlines the foundations of a new economics, where we are not ruled by greed and injustice. Contrary to the absurd assumption of mainstream economists that economics is a value-free science, a new economics must make its values explicit.


The Noughties

The Noughties

Author: Brenda Power

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd

Published: 2010-03-03

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1848890478

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A decade of easy living or a decade of broken dreams? Brenda Power chronicles the defining issues of the Noughties, covering a breadth of social, political and public interest issues. Her comments are frequently controversial and generate huge responses, such as her 2009 article on gay marriage. She tackles difficult and divisive subjects without fear or favour. Her views on the rapid changes in Irish society during the boom years are a fascinating commentary on the values and practices of that extraordinary period in Irish history. These snap-shots highlight issues that shaped our lives in Ireland in recent years.


Book Synopsis The Noughties by : Brenda Power

Download or read book The Noughties written by Brenda Power and published by Gill & Macmillan Ltd. This book was released on 2010-03-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A decade of easy living or a decade of broken dreams? Brenda Power chronicles the defining issues of the Noughties, covering a breadth of social, political and public interest issues. Her comments are frequently controversial and generate huge responses, such as her 2009 article on gay marriage. She tackles difficult and divisive subjects without fear or favour. Her views on the rapid changes in Irish society during the boom years are a fascinating commentary on the values and practices of that extraordinary period in Irish history. These snap-shots highlight issues that shaped our lives in Ireland in recent years.