Quote:
Originally Posted by iota
I'm not saying people don't have some interest in what concerns them, but rather wondering it if is really fair or possible to make a claim about a whole group of people that they can't be altruistic or if they claim that it is bad faith. That just seems wrong.
If we look at another group of people, the families of Sandy Hook, who have used their own tragedy to help others, what would be like to tell them they are in bad faith? It wouldn't just be any old statement, but rather quite insulting and even harmful. So maintaining that level of suspicion has consequences. I'm just trying to point to that and say I can't see how it is justifiable across the board.
|
I'm not characterizing anyone in all or nothing terms here. My point is simply that intention can change a positive attribute to a negative, and the reverse. Compassion can be positive or negative depending upon the intention of the person displaying compassion.
To use your example of the Sandy Hook families, I have no way of knowing what their intentions are. I can evaluate their actions, and those actions may have the result of helping others. Whether those actions are inspired by altruism or a self need to come to terms with their losses doesn't matter to me. Why would someone accuse them of bad faith or anything else? It's irrelevant. This isn't about "suspicion" it's about the recognition that peoples' motives are as individual as anything else which means they may be positive or negative, consciously or otherwise, independent of their actions.