Hannah Arendt writes in The Origins of Totalitarianism:
According to bourgeois standards, those who are completely unlucky and unsuccessful are automatically barred from competition, which is the life of society. Good forunte is identified with honor, and bad luck with shame . . . The difference between pauper and criminal disappeaars, both stand outside society. The unsuccessful are robbed of the virtue that classical civilization left them: the unfortunate can no longer appeal to Christian charity. (page 141-142).
Jacob Segal
>This is sorta interesting except for Kaus's pathetic attempt to rationalize
>welfare reform, or as his team named it, "The Personal Responsibility and
>Work Opportunity Reconcilliation Act." Shouldn't he know that shredding the
>safety net hurts the father working 50 hours a week in a roundabout way?
>Conversely, "demogrants" would help bolster workers' bargaining power.
>Another example of a blindspot when it comes to class war, something that
>Doug had so eloquently refered to recently, no?
>-----------------------------------------
>
>New York Times Op-Ed 6/24/99
>
>Compassion, the Political Liability
>
> By MICKEY KAUS
>
> LOS ANGELES -- Has compassion
> become a Republican virtue? Seems
> like it.
>
> George W. Bush, in his Presidential
> campaign kickoff speech, positively
> wallowed in the stuff, not only
> calling for "compassionate
> conservatism" but also declaring his
> intention "to rally [the] armies of
> compassion," to show "mercy," to "take
> the side of charities and churches."
> Governor Bush's compassion play
> annoyed his competitors, softened his
> image, distanced him from the
> Republican Congress and was generally
> applauded in the press.
>
> This is great news for Democrats.
> Compassion is a miserable basis for
> American politics. It was a bad idea
> when liberals were selling it, and
> it's no less bad now that
> conservatives are embracing it. It has
> at least three defects.
>
> First, it's inegalitarian, carrying
> the condescending implication of
> charity, of inferiority and
> helplessness on the part of those on
> its receiving end. Governor Bush makes
> this explicit by citing as examples of
> compassion charities that run
> drug-treatment programs and "prison
> ministries." There is every indication
> that Governor Bush, like his father,
> really is animated by this philosophy
> of noblesse oblige.
>
> People should, of course, feel
> compassion for those who have fallen
> on hard times and can't help
> themselves. But the relation of
> charitable giver and recipient is not
> the relation of free and equal
> citizens. The demeaning aspect of
> charitable compassion is one reason
> pre-New Deal union officials talked of
> "rescuing" their members "from
> demoralization at the hands of
> sentimental almsgivers."
>
> On the left, an emphasis on compassion
> has been a sure sign of what the
> historian Sean Wilentz calls
> "shmiberalism" -- an ideology whose
> adherents "assume that the poor and
> powerless are the abject, pitiable
> victims of other people."
> Shmiberalism, he says, "appeals to
> people's compassion rather than to
> their interests."
>
> Second, the sentiment of compassion
> tends to override traditional, and
> sensible, moral distinctions that
> should govern policy. Mr. Bush's
> charities have compassion for a young
> father who works 50 hours a week yet
> gets paid only $14,000. But they also
> have compassion for an indolent drug
> addict or a prisoner.
>
> Compassion politics makes no
> distinction between these cases, which
> is why -- in the hands of Democrats,
> and not a few Republicans -- it has
> tended to promote generalized aid
> programs that shower cash (in the form
> of food stamps, welfare or the old
> holy grail of a guaranteed annual
> income) indiscriminately on the "less
> fortunate" and "disadvantaged."
>
> Obviously, though, the working father
> and the indolent drug addict are
> fundamentally different and should be
> treated differently. The worker is an
> upstanding citizen who doesn't deserve
> to be lumped in with crackheads.
> That's one reason we've just gone
> through a revolution in welfare policy
> that's explicitly designed to separate
> the deserving, working poor from those
> nonworkers on welfare (and to move as
> many people as possible from the
> latter category to the former).
>
> Third, because it appeals to
> essentially charitable impulses,
> compassion politics is fragile. If
> citizens believe the Government is
> engaged in a big United Way drive,
> they'll give generously when times are
> good. But they will stop giving when
> they feel pinched themselves.
>
> You didn't catch Franklin Roosevelt
> mooning on about compassion. Liberals
> fervently embraced compassion only in
> their senescent, comic-book phase, in
> the 1970's and 80's -- a period in
> which they were repudiated by the
> voters as impractical mush-heads.
>
> It was during this era that George
> McGovern proposed a "demogrant," which
> would have guaranteed $1,000 a year
> for workers and shirkers alike. Ted
> Kennedy said, "The work of compassion
> must continue." Mario Cuomo defined
> Democrats as those who "look beyond
> our own welfare" and "reach down to
> those at the bottom of the ladder and
> help them up, if only a rung or two."
> None of these men made it anywhere
> near the White House.
>
> Democrats came back into the nation's
> good graces only when they found a
> standard-bearer who implicitly
> abandoned compassion politics by
> promising to "end welfare as we know
> it" -- and who then, unaccountably,
> kept that promise.
>
> So it should be heartening for
> Democrats to hear Governor Bush flaunt
> his compassion as a "noble calling --
> the calling of a nation where the
> strong are just and the weak are
> valued."
>
> Could he have handed Democrats a
> clearer definition of social
> inequality? According to Governor
> Bush, there are some people (let's
> call them "the rich") who, like him,
> are "strong." Then there are other
> people (let's call them "the nonrich")
> who have the privilege of being
> "valued" by people like Mr. Bush. Take
> it away, James Carville!
>
> Certainly, attacking the snobbery
> within Governor Bush's compassion is a
> smarter Democratic tactic than trying
> to link him with harder-edged
> Congressional conservatives like
> Representative Tom DeLay of Texas. The
> voters will know that Mr. Bush isn't
> Tom DeLay.
>
> Which is why it was equally cheering
> to see Vice President Al Gore, in his
> campaign kickoff speech, react against
> Mr. Bush's preening virtue by scorning
> "the crumbs of compassion." Good line!
>
> Was it just rhetoric? Maybe. But Mr.
> Gore now has an incentive to find a
> new, noncompassionate vocabulary for
> his Government activism. For example,
> he can frame the reform of Government
> programs -- most obviously Social
> Security and Medicare -- as a
> strengthening of institutions created
> by proud, free working citizens for
> themselves, not gifted to the grateful
> masses by Bushian Brahmins. Something
> along the lines of: "Medicare is not
> charity, Mr. Bush. Neither is the
> minimum wage."
>
> So the Republicans now have
> compassion? They can keep it.
>
> Mickey Kaus, author of ``The End of
> Equality,'' is the editor of
> Kausfiles.com.