Compassion is weakness, ruthlessness is power.
Why or why not?
Being compassionate implies power, the power to do well to someone else. Ruthlessness may be a means to power, but it is not in and of itself power.
The statement is trite at best, incoherent at worst.
Compassion is a form of empathy and has elements of restraint. “Of all the manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.”
Ruthlessness implies rapidity and viciousness. Often these are the signs of short-term force which seeks to impose itself quickly, before it is spent.
The truly powerful can be compassionate without weakening themselves. They can apply force in a slow, careful and calculated manner and still be assured of victory.
It depends on what you want your life to stand for. What kind of person you decide to be. I think there are times when a compassionate person can choose to be ruthless when dealing with an enemy, or in a business deal.
I don’t think ruthless has to mean dishonest and dishonorable, although ruthlessness can accompany those traits.
Play a few rounds of The Prisoner’s Dilemma and get back to me. My suggestion: try playing it for five rounds using various strategies. Set Albert up with The Brazen Rule each time.
So, no. I don’t agree. There’s a couple of aphorisms that I like:
“Evil always wins, because good is stupid.”
“Good always wins, because evil bickers with itself.”
Daniel
Machiavelli put it rather better.
“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
“From this arises an argument: whether it is better to be loved than feared. I reply that one should like to be both one and the other; but since it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.”
Il Principe.
I guess I’m missing the point, mainly because the PD says a crime you may or may not have committed. Wouldn’t a prisinor know whether he committed the crime or not. PSeaking for myself I that would greatly influence my choice.
It also isn’t clear to me whether Albert and I are equally guilty or not guilty.
Neither of the things mentioned should influence your choice. Remember: the point of the game isn’t to act ethically, but to minimize your time in prison.
In this game, if you behave in a “compassionate” manner, you do reasonably well, unless your partner is “ruthless,” in which case you’re totally screwed. If you behave in a ruthless manner, you do great, unless your partner is also ruthless, in which case you do reasonably poorly.
If both people behave compassionately, then they get a lot further than if both people behave ruthlessly. Therefore, compassionate behavior is one of the best winning strategies, inasmuch as it’s likely to convince others to behave compassionately oward you.
It’s consistent with the world-view of people who consider power (over other people) as an absolutely desirable thing to have, or as the absolutely desirable thing to have.
Power (over other people), in turn, unpacks to be a construct of coercion, necessarily internalized ideology, energy expenditure on behalf of enforcement, and energy expenditure on behalf of defending against coercion from other people responding in kind.
Weakness, similarly, unpacks as the absence of major energy expenditure on behalf of defense against coercion from other people.
So it’s damn nearly a tautology. And the unexamined problem is that power over other people ain’t what it’s cracked up to be in the first place.
I think nearly the exact opposite; as a rule is Compassion is power, ruthlessness is weakness. When protestors march in the streets of America or Spain or Britain, does the government kill them all ? No, because the governments there are strong; they do not fear mere protest. Tyrants are ruthless because tyranny is inherantly unstable; if they let up and let people organize, they will likely be overthrown. You can organize all you like, you aren’t likely to knock out the U.S. government.
Compassion is the mark of someone or something strong enough to not fear the object of compassion. Ruthlessness implies fear and desperation, the belief that you are so weak that given the smallest chance your enemies will overwhelm you.
I see your Schwartz is as big as mine!
I was trying to remember where that was from–thanks!
Of course, yet again we see that good DOES win, because Evil bickers. (Actually I don’t remember why good won in that case, but often it’s the bickering that brings evil down).
Daniel
“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”
–Tennessee Williams, El Camino Real