An illusion seeing something that isn’t real and not realizing it’s not real. Delusion is when the audience not only knows they are being tricked, they convince themselves it’s actually magic. Often the payoff in delusion is that feeling of being in on a ‘secret’ or in the ‘superior’ group. All the following tricks and tools of corruption and deception work on our fears of status – of being insignificant and isolated. Most of these delusions appeal to us by making us feel superior or part of a special crowd.
All these illusions and delusions offer us excuses…and there are true excuses. But sometimes we choose to fall back on an excuse in an attempt not to try, so we won’t have the uncomfortableness of failing. The more we use excuses, the more unhappy we become and the more we seek to escape life rather than embrace it with all its highs and lows, good and bad, and beauty and adversity.
“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”
― Eric Hoffer
The Compassion Distraction
“Compassion”—or “empathy,” or even “kindness”—is routinely used not just as a virtue, but it also conveys to us the ultimate badge of honor.
Unfortunately, compassion has seriously been hijacked by exploiters, hypocrites, and half-wits (who perhaps aren’t so stupid after all). Compassion has been hijacked by exploiters who seek to work on our fears of illness, poverty, isolation. Not too long ago, helping the less fortunate was something we did out of the kindness of our hearts. We didn’t advertise it. We didn’t seek recognition.
Today people proudly wear stickers that say “I donated today!” and businesses hang paper stars with the names of people who have donated.
I call it “The Compassion Distraction” because it’s no longer about doing things out of the goodness of your heart, it’s about doing things to SHOW off or because you’ve been unknowingly guilted into doing it. Compassion distraction is also used to alleviate the guilt of the guilty; it keeps reality at bay.
A great quote that has great meaning: Envy assails the noblest: the winds howl around the highest peaks – Ovid.
What that quote means is that those with power, or fame, or anyone at the “top” often find that they are disliked, simply because they have reached the top – so those who are envious will often ‘howl.’ – Envy is one of the of the 9 Tools of Massive Distraction but it’s also an important reasoning behind the Compassion Distraction of Today.
Often, at the forefront of fundraising or awareness campaigns (many of which are simple business organizations operating using a “non-profit” as a fake/front group for large corporations who then use celebrities to deliver their “Save the…Insert Trendy Disease or Cause Here” message.
Celebrities often agree to be the spokesperson because – as the quote tells us – celebrities, for all their fans, have a lot of haters too.
So when the celebrity says, “Look, I want to help starving kids in third world countries!” They are often trying to deflect the jealousy people feel toward them as if saying; “See, don’t hate me for what I have, I help the less fortunate!”
In reality though…if they really wanted to help the less fortunate, they would. Almost every donation or telethon or song or documentary they do…all tax write-offs. They have no skin in the game, though they give the illusion they do.
There are a few exceptions – a few celebrities who live their creed.
It’s easier to donate a few thousands to charity and give the illusion of being self-sacrificing than to base self-respect on actual personal actions.
The Compassion Distraction reminds me of religious people who attend church, lead youth groups, donate every week, yet they cheat on their spouse, have road rage, and kick their dogs.
It's easy to give the appearance of ‘caring’. But you know and your conscious knows when you are being dishonorable, phony, fake. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Well, you may be able to for a-while, but not for very long.
Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile. Take politics – the media frames the political parties like this: Democrats are compassionate, they help the underprivileged. Republicans only care about money and want to create wealth.
I can’t begin to tell you the countless Democrats I know who resemble the quote when refigured;
“Being a Democrat doesn’t make you any more compassionate than going to an airport makes you a plane.”
The trick is to move the curtain of compassion they hide behind and look at their actions. A person who truly believes wealth is ‘evil’ would not be driving around in a Mercedes.
People who say one thing and do another spend their lives running from the truth; they hide it and escape themselves by using drugs/sex/food – whatever vice they can in order to numb their knowledge they aren’t true.
When you see a “Kids with cancer” jar in front of a cashier or worse, when a cashier asks you if you’d like to ‘donate to help bring happiness to a family with cancer.” It defuses questioning, obscures the reality of where that money is REALLY going, and prejudges YOU. Who can be against aid to the less fortunate? If you don’t put money in the “compassion” cup or if you tell the cashier “No, not today, thank you.”
You might leave feeling just a bit ashamed. And, guess what, this is the PLAN. I worked in retail and our company hounded customers to donate to St. Jude. Our managers got a bonus if we raised a-lot of money for St. Judes (check out the salary the St. Jude’s CEO’s are making) . The cashiers were told to phrase the question like this: “Would you like to help a child suffering with cancer?”
Well, what is a customer supposed to say to that?
NO?
Then he/she will look like a heartless fool!
If someone left a big donation (over 5 bucks) we were supposed to ring a bell and all the other cashiers would clap and say thank you.So – what do we have here? Appealing not only to our status (Wow, that person is awesome!) but also we look good in the eyes of others and we, temporarily, feel we served humanity. Then we reason to ourselves that flipping off the guy driving slow in front of us is okay because we donated to the cancer jar (so we can’t be all that bad).
Non-profits, awareness groups (save the lizard, save the short tail cats, save the weeds!), use the compassion distraction by seeking out and then rectifying “suffering situations,” thereby transforming compassion into a group of people who have a mission not for minimizing misery but rather, maximizing the bank account and the outward appearance of righteousness of those running/involved in the organizations.
Clifford Orwin, a political scientist who has examined the subject painstakingly, and believes our quick inclination to be distressed by others’ suffering confirms the ancient Greek philosophers’ belief that nature intended for human beings to be friends. But compassion is neither all-important nor supremely important in life and, especially, in politics. It would be nice to have government officials who feel our pain rather than ones who act like supreme rulers and pretend to comprehend . We should care less about politicians pretend compassion and more about politicians respect for us; for our rights to accomplish individual dreams; our personal ability and responsibility, and to feel and heal our own pains without their interference. Phony Compassion is killing the very idea of the foundations of America: Personal happiness achieved after personal accomplishment and personal struggle.
“Doing good is often harder than do-gooders realize, but doing good is also more about the doing and the doer than it is about the good. Too often we treat gestures as the equivalent of deeds, and intentions as substitutes for personal actions and accomplishments.”
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer
This quote is so true. It’s been mentioned in previous chapters but it is so true. And it was written many, many years ago.
If we look at civil rights – it was a grand cause, a just cause. And it absolutely did make a difference. In 2008 we elected the first black president. Though certainly in politics, many black and women held positions long before Barack Obama.
But as I write this in 2015 – the modern civil rights movement that began in 1955 has been hijacked by “leaders” in America, certain celebrities, who would have us believe that there is still great oppression of blacks in American. It went from a movement, to a business (for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and the Obama’s), and now, it is a racket, stirring up anger and division and pitting groups against each other.
This is creating anger and violence instead of creative optimistic solutions.
Social Awareness T-shirts: Again, another trendy yet tribal “belonging” signal: I CARE!! I’m with the times! But the majority of us don’t realize that we are actually being exploited by corporations who run under the guise of these social campaigns – and the exploiters are using our deep need for belonging and status, working on our emotions (right sided brain) to buy pink things in support of breast cancer (yet heart disease is the number one killer of women!). And the CEO of the Susan Komen foundation in 2011 made almost a million dollars according to her tax records. Wow. Think of the money that could be going for research instead of a ridiculous salary for a position that is basically showing up to fundraisers and making champagne toasts!
I very rarely donate money to anything unless I know for a fact that the CEO isn’t living the high life – that they are actually spending the money on the cause they say they are (okay, I never donate to anything except my local SPCA and also I buy a poppy from the Vets on Veterans Day). Everything else, I either offer to donate my time, some Tweets or Facebook posts, or donate an actual item (toys, clothes, food).
