Chögyam Trungpa coined the phrase “idiot compassion”; meaning, any compassionate act that enables the bad behavior of another. Like giving an addict money for food — when it will unlikely be used for those purposes. While the intention may be “compassionate”, the outcome will do little good for the well-being of the person.
The general tendency is to give people what they want because we can't bear to see them suffer. Moreover, we do feel good about ourselves when we do it, and it helps deflect some of our own internal suffering. But this isn’t true compassion, or agape. There are mixed motivations involved, along with a lack of logic to see if the intentions are truly good.
These days everyone talks about compassion (along with tolerance) as though it’s the only virtue(s) that matter. But virtues always need to be balanced with other virtues, so they can be enacted in a way that is appropriate to the given circumstances.
Compassion also tends to work better in the microcosm than on the macrocosm. This is why political acts of compassion are so difficult. For example, if we opened our borders to everyone, would this eventually undermine the whole of a nation to benefit a few? The relationship between political ideals and cultural outcomes in a big, diverse society isn’t linear, therefore often leading to unintended consequences.
(It should also be noted that compassion for the masses is often too abstract to be relatable. Recall Mother Teresa’s comment: “If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” That's why human interest stories of the individual always move people more than state-sponsored statistics.)
But our idiot compassion has a bigger consideration beyond the fact we can’t always trust our feelings: we also need to trust in something Higher.
William Wildblood makes the astute point on his blog:
“When you no longer have the idea of God as the centrally organising fact of existence you have to replace it with something else. Today that something else is the abstract notion of humanity, and humanity, abstractly considered, is regarded as just one thing with no distinctions within it allowed. It is seen in purely material terms and so everything is equal. There is no better or worse except insofar as better corresponds to this idea and worse is what goes against it. Compassion is defined as treating all humans and their cultural achievements in the same way, and anything that resists this tyranny (which is what it is) becomes branded as hateful.”A poster then followed up with this comment:
“As a young man I read Flannery O'Connor's comment that in the absence of faith, we rule by compassion, "...and compassion leads to the gas chamber." It puzzled me then and it was some years before I began to appreciate the crucial truth of the statement. By Faith, I think O'Connor meant trust in God and His Providence; by compassion, I think she meant the sentimentality that views suffering as absolutely undesirable and irredeemable. In a materialist view, suffering has no value and should be eliminated at any cost. ...But as suffering can be salutary, and as hierarchy is God's creation and, therefore, the condition of our existence, the leveling and numbness is doomed to failure and, ironically, will cause even more suffering.”When compassion is conceived only materialistically and with no ordering principle, we are prone to cause enduring spiritual harm. Dr. Feelgood may help with some of the symptoms, but never find a cure.