Two people holding hands. Image by U3190523, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Thomas Plante (@ThomasPlante) is the Augustin Cardinal Bea, SJ University Professor, professor of psychology and, by courtesy, religious studies at Santa Clara University and an emeritus adjunct professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He has been a scholar of the Markkula Center for over 25 years. Views are his own.
The world, and our country, seems to be going to hell in a handbasket as the old saying from the French Revolution goes. It seems that those in power and influence, including our government leaders, act only on self-interest or in ethical terms, egoism, and appear to lack compassion or concern for most anyone outside of their immediate highly privileged circle. Some have referred to this state of affairs as, “cruelty is the point,” as people seem unabashed and even boastful of this way of being in the world. Unfortunately, in the current ethical battle between egoism and the common good, it seems like the common good is a serious underdog.
I often tell my students that each morning when they wake up they should remind themselves that they are a Santa Clara Bronco and thus a person of competence, conscience, compassion, and community…the SCU four C’s. Perhaps it is the SCU version of the famous daily Jewish prayer, the Shema (i.e., “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”). The students typically smile while some may roll their eyes, but the message that I’m trying to convey is clear. We need daily reminders of who we are, what we represent, and who we want to be in the world. What virtues, values, and ethical principles organize and center us and inform us in how we go about our daily activities? And here at Santa Clara, we expect to form our students to be people who embrace these four virtues easily remembered and constantly reiterated so that the SCU four C’s are imbedded into their very being, not only while they are on campus but throughout their lifespan forevermore.
Sadly, our government, culture, and society at the moment seems to have deviated far from our beloved Santa Clara four C’s and appear to have gravitated to very different values that also, coincidentally, begin with the letter C. These might include careless, cruelty, and corruption. Tragically, it appears that the four C’s that we embrace are just not on the radar screen for so many people in positions of power and influence right now. This was well highlighted in the recent provocative and sometimes shocking best-selling book about Facebook, entitled Careless People. It seems that many believe that the SCU four C’s are for chumps. The mantra in society now appears to be more aligned with get whatever you can get for yourself and forget about everyone else. Yet, I beg to differ. For the purpose of this brief reflection, let’s focus on just one of the 4 C’s: compassion.
Most people would likely want to live in a world where compassion is the norm. They want to live in a community and society where we help those in need, work to lessen the suffering and struggles for those who find themselves, for whatever reason, in trouble. We all likely can remember a time or times when we appreciated the compassion of others when we really needed it. How do we create such a culture and world where compassion is the norm and not the exception, as compassion seems to be becoming a relic of the past?
While there are no easy solutions or simple answers, we do have some quality research evidence that suggests that we actually can help to move the needle in people towards more compassion. In fact, we have conducted a variety of research studies here at Santa Clara that have demonstrated that compassion can be nurtured and enhanced through various elements of our Jesuit inspired core curriculum and education. For example, we found in one study that participating in Ignatian Center immersion trips to both domestic and international locations can increase students’ embracement of compassion as well as improves their stress management skills and vocational identities and directions. Another longitudinal study of SCU students over the course of their college career found that attending religious services, participating in community-based learning experiences, attending diversity themed workshops, and feeling valued as a member of the university community also moved the compassion needle in a positive direction. In our current compassion study, we are conducting a randomized trial to determine if people could be primed towards more compassion by viewing a video clip about the Good Samaritan parable (from the Gospel of Luke) versus exposure to a video clip about how to make more money in Silicon Valley. The important theme in all of these and our other ethical-based compassion studies is finding evidence-based strategies that can encourage compassionate thinking and behavior. Of course, translating these research findings on a college campus into relevant applied implications that can help society at large is a much more overwhelming and challenging task and certainly a heavy lift indeed. Yet, we have to begin somewhere.
Our Santa Clara four C’s are critically important and perhaps embracing these virtues might not only be encouraged but might even help to save our troubled world. Those of us who believe that compassion matters must find ways to encourage these values wherever we find ourselves working and living. We also need to support each other in doing so. We need to be compassion evangelists to create a world that is more humane, just, and compassionate. After all, given how things are going in society, it might be our only hope of survival in the long run preventing us from going to hell in a very large handbasket that accommodates all of us.