I think we can safely posit that no one enters the physiological state of adulthood in a state of full psychological awareness and maturity. We all carry scars with us. We are all limited, often in ways we can’t see. How many people do you know who are absolutely relaxed, confident, empathetic, joyful, and able to become utterly absorbed in the creative expression of energy without neglecting their chosen responsibilities? Looking at that list, I can’t think of one person. Most of the people we consider successful are in fact simply compulsive with respect to work and/or competitiveness. Many outwardly decent people are still walking wounded, with anxieties and depressions, and cognitive distortions they simply deal with as best they can.
Given this postulate, let me offer two solutions:
1) Heal yourself by thinking about helping others.
2) Heal yourself by focusing on yourself, then teach others how to do the same.
Now, in a world which values compassion without wisdom–they are not the same thing, even in the Buddhist tradition, which gives both roughly equal weight in my reading–the first is the easiest path by far. You avoid dealing with your own wounds, and if you focus your task on outward things–like, say, “income inequality”–you can even avoid dealing with the wounds of others. You can live a purely abstract life, devoid entirely of honest self reflection, and still view yourself as a good person.
But if you live without wisdom–if you have not chosen to cultivate your own capacity for understanding and useful empathy–how can you know if you are not in fact hurting people rather than helping them? If you need to help people you say: “let me carry that bag for you. It looks heavy.” But that person was able to carry that bag, and now that you are carrying it they become weaker, and eventually are not able to.
You say “you don’t have to be responsible for your actions. I will make sure you are forgiven no matter what you do.” First, this may not be true. But secondly, how are people supposed to develop self respect and the happiness that comes with it if they are not only not asked to be responsible, but explicitly told it is unnecessary for them?
How can anyone be confident that they are helping others build themselves, when they have not built their own personalities, developed their own wisdom?
Socialism is built on the lie that individual happiness can depend on anything other than individual self respect.
And I want to be clear that the do-gooder robots themselves cannot build self respect either, not honest, healthy self respect, because they are not in fact helping people, at least most of the time.
Here is something I wonder: if gay marriage is made mandatory in all States, but our nation enters into a decade long Depression because the leftists running the government want us to, to engineer a complete take-over, does this not hurt gay people too? Will it not hurt blacks too?
Somewhere a sense of proportion was lost. Somewhere the understanding that every push has a cascading effect, and every pull. Unintended consequences are the rule, not the exception, especially in social systems.
We live in a world where a new issue can be introduced every year, then taken off the shelf in favor of a new issue. The chief Propagandists may already have the next push planned–with some iteration of degraded feminism the likeliest leading candidate. Very smart people, at allegedly elite schools, NEVER stop to think these things through. If gay marriage is the thing, then they are outraged. But if nobody points out to them that you can’t avoid disaster borrowing a trillion dollars a year forever, they don’t come to that conclusion themselves.
They are no longer cognitive sovereign human beings. They are Outer-Directed, as I think David Riesman put it. Outer Directed means that only a few people who remain inner directed run the whole show. There is no creative exchange of diverse ideas. There is no thinking at a base level of principle. There is no soul-level discussion about the nature of life, human purpose, and how best to alleviate the problems of humanity, at least not in any way which could lead to implementable policies.
Liberalism is built on Inner Direction. This is the place where the conscience still exists. This is the place where the ability to be response-able is still valued.
Socialism is built on Other Direction, on conformity. It does not recognize the inner conscience. The only moral manifestations that matter are purely material.
I could have said all this better, and one day will, but I am tired.