Universal Compassion by Natalia Ginzburg Reading Natalia

¶ … Universal Compassion" by Natalia Ginzburg Reading Natalia Ginzburg's essay "Universal Compassion," I felt her dismay. In today's society the victimizer always has an excuse for his actions. It seems as if no one wants to accept responsibility for his or her actions. Everyone is a victim. Personally, I am weary of the lack of personal accountability that is rampant in the world today. It's almost as if from infancy we learn to blame our errors on someone else.

For example, my eight-year-old daughter Jazmine, can give me a million reasons why her homework is not complete. As I listen patiently, I visualize the adult she could become and I inevitably become furious. The scenario, which I see in my mind's eye, is bleak. I see an extraordinarily beautiful woman letting go of life's great prospects escape her because she's too busy making excuses.

As I reel myself back to the present I ask, "whose homework is it?" She acknowledges that it is her homework and I inquire, "so whose responsibility is it?" And with that, she looks at me like an eight-year-old who is sure of the fact that her Mother was put on this earth solely to annoy her. And as her annoying Mother I constantly try to reinforce the value I find to be one of the most important: take responsibility for your actions.

This account is precisely the kind of dilemma Ginzburg discusses in her essay, which is determining who among us are the 'victims' and 'oppressors' in a particular situation or event. Ginzburg provides her readers with various solutions to the problem presented in her essay, and also offers her insights on the possibilities why determining right from wrong and the truth from falsity can be, if not entirely impossible, a difficult task.

Ginzburg raises various points in her essay, and two of these are the following: (1) determining the proper and appropriate way to know the truth from the false, right from wrong, and, ultimately, the victim from the oppressor and (2) universal compassion is the best way or method to determine the dichotomies in life because, as Ginzburg says, in universal compassion, there is no "fear of error." I have both agreed and disagreed on Ginzburg's discussion of universal compassion as the ultimate indicator of what can be termed as 'right decisions and choices' in life, which can be achieved if there is less room of 'fear of error.' These agreeable and disagreeable points will be discussed thoroughly in the following texts of this paper.

One of the main points Ginzburg addresses in her essay is that compassion is not "a real will to improve the world or ourselves." Sadly, I must agree with the author, because this is what is happening in our world today. Compassion is defines as "distress together with a desire to alleviate." This means that compassion aims to positively empathize with an individual going through suffering; this means empathy must come from within a person to help another one.

Compassion also means cooperation and being together in times of need or suffering. Unfortunately, what the world is witnessing today is not compassion for the 'victims' in life but relief. This relief stems from the fact that misery or suffering is happening to someone else and not us. In general we have become so busy trying to get by, busy trying to get ahead, busy trying to keep up with the Joneses that we have lost the ability to truly empathize with each other.

Instead of trying to go along life with the rest of the people dear to our lives, we spend our days making sure that we are ahead and still going through the track we have chosen to live. Thus, with so much preoccupation for our own welfare and development, we have lost the true way of compassion.

Although Ginzburg brilliantly points out the true meaning of compassion by negating its essence to humankind (by stating it as not "a real will to improve the world or ourselves"), there are also other main points in her essay which I do not agree with. One of these points is when she stated that ".. It is foolish to use our customary yardstick of good and evil. We're ashamed to use such a crude domestic tool." I believe that simplicity is sometimes the wisest choice.

By subsisting to simplicity, we avoid the things that might make a problem or situation more complicated, making it impossible for us to comprehend the true essence of the problem at hand. Complexity only gives rise to lack of comprehension, leading to irresolution in determining what is the right or wrong choice/decision or who is the victim or oppressor in a particular situation or problem.

Therefore, simplicity in looking at a problem or dilemma is still the best way to determine and make the right decisions we have to make in our lives. Ginzburg also writes, as an extension to her claim that the dichotomy of choosing between good and evil is ineffective, that "[p]erhaps there is some secret way.. so that.