Synthesis Essay
jessxuu
11144.docx
XU4
Sample Essay
Synthesis of “On Compassion” and “On Being a Cripple”
We tend to think of ourselves as caring people who are in tune with the way we should treat each other. When we see charity groups helping those in need, we smile to ourselves and sing along to “What a Wonderful World,” proud of the fact that we are “making the world a better place.” Unbeknownst to us, we are actually cowering in fear from anything that is unpleasant or out of our standard of acceptable, rather than facing the issue head on. In “On Compassion,” Barbara Ascher addresses such an issue: homelessness. Through her detailed descriptions of homeless peoples’ experiences, she takes note of how they are treated by the rest of the population. People appear to care for them through monetary donations, complementary food, or temporary housing. However, Ascher questions their motives. She questions whether they do such acts of kindness out of love, fear, or a desire to get the homeless out of their way. Furthermore, she challenges us to take a look at what the presence of the homeless are teaching us: instead of pushing them out of the way, we need to see their misfortunes in order to learn to truly have compassion on our fellow humans. On the flip side of the coin, in “On Being a Cripple,” Nancy Mairs describes her life as someone who is on the receiving end of this societal tendency. As someone with MS, she takes the reader through her journey of forming her identity, caught between others’ expectations and her own insecurities. The pressure to be beautiful, active, and perfect has invoked deep self-hatred, since her limp and clumsiness disqualify her from society’s ideal. However, unlike those around her, she has embraced her crippledness by acknowledging the disadvantages it carries, while accepting it and blossoming in her new identity.
Both homelessness and crippledness are treated inappropriately in Ascher’s and Mairs’ essays, be it through pretentious acts of kindness or incorrect labels. This exposes the way we treat subjects that are uncomfortable, problematic, or unacceptable by our standards. In an attempt to protect ourselves from things that are unpleasant, we avoid and falsely care for people with adversity, stifling our ability to truly care for others.
The reason we distance ourselves from adversity is because we feel threatened by it. This is what causes the dysfunctional reactions to adversity in both essays. Ascher gives a scene in which a homeless man approaches a mother and her child. It is obvious that the mother is uneasy with the man’s presence. After a long pause of tension, the mother finally hands the man some money, and briskly walks away. Ascher asks “Was it fear or compassion that motivated the gift?” (Ascher 47). Mairs recognizes a similar fear in her doctors. After acknowledging how much MS patients hate doctors for not having a cure, she points out that doctors hate meeting with MS patients for the same reason (Mairs 255). In describing her incurable disease, she says “I am not diminished by it, and they are. When I push myself up from my seat in the waiting room and stumble toward them, I incarnate the limitation of their powers” (Mairs 256). The doctors feel like they are the real victim, not she. We do the same thing as both the doctor and the mother in these two essays. Many of us, like the mother, view the homeless as an untouchable, problematic, and dangerous people group. Since they don’t fit our American ideal of a career-driven and wealthy homeowner, they are alien to us. They are unfamiliar, uncivilized, and unknown in our eyes. This is what makes us scared and overwhelmed, if only subconsciously. Since homelessness and incurable diseases seem too big of a problem for us to solve, they daunt us. Like the doctors, we feel belittled by that which we think we cannot fix. We are afraid of what limits us; yet fear imposes the biggest limit. It puts a barrier between us and the subject at hand. The mother put as much distance as possible between her and the homeless man. She, like the doctors, is more focused on protecting herself from the problem, than on meeting the needs of those in her path. If this barrier remains, if we shy away from any problem we face, nothing will be solved.
We handle people that are unpleasant by avoiding them altogether, at the expense of those people and society as a whole. Homelessness and crippledness are uncomfortable topics to address. The mayor of New York address the problem of homelessness by transferring the homeless from the streets to the city’s hospital (Ascher 48). Although at first glance this may seem like a noble deed, Ascher points out that it was really a successful attempt to get “the troublesome presence [...] removed from the awareness of the electorate” (Ascher 48). Instead of addressing the root of homelessness, the city simply moved the problem out of the way. Mairs says that society does this with anything that it doesn’t like. She expresses her frustration with the many inaccurate labels others give her. This is because “Society is no readier to accept crippledness than to accept death, war, sex, sweat, or wrinkles” (Mairs 245). We don’t like to think about things that are sad, painful, awkward, gross, or shameful. Our expectations for perfection are so high that no one is able to fit them. We expect everyone to be happy, wealthy, and outwardly flawless. When someone like Mairs doesn’t meet our standards, we avoid their condition altogether. This is why the city council got the homeless out of the way- they didn’t want to see the problem every time they walked down the street. They accomplished their goal- the homeless will not be seen if they live off the streets. But the problem of homelessness will not be solved. When we avoid the very issues that are problematic, it hurts those involved. People like Mairs feel like their identity is being washed over, and the homeless feel like a nuisance that is pushed out of the way. Avoiding problems means we avoid people. And if we keep avoiding people who don’t fit our ideal, we will become an isolated society, unable to form a community. This is not functional, and it is not humane.
Our acts of kindness to those who are suffering are often a facade. Both Mairs and Asher see through the seemingly kind gestures they observe, revealing the true intentions of the do-gooders. In Mair’s case, she describes how one might expect her husband to divorce her, her kids to never want to be seen with her, and her family to treat her like an outcast. She then juxtaposes this to how her family actually treats her. They help with chores that she is unable to do, they unashamedly introduce her to friends, and they make any accommodations necessary to make life easier for her. However she fears that the people around her are “professing fondness while silently putting up with me because of the way I am” (Mairs 251). Are these acts that resemblance kindness actually just false tolerance? Ascher asks the same question. When she watches the owner of a cafe repeatedly give a homeless man free food and coffee, she asks “what compels this woman to feed this man? Pity? Care? Compassion? Or does she simply want to rid her shop of his troublesome presence?” (Ascher 47). In both scenarios, the act of kindness itself is not questioned; helping around the house and providing food are very practical ways to help someone. Whether these acts are genuine is what is being questioned. We may look like we are acting out of deep care while we are actually barely tolerating them. Were it not for Mair’s crippledness, would people treat her with the same kindness? Or is it just because she is crippled, that they feel obligated to be nice? It is degrading to the receiver to be helped merely because they are different. Similarly, why would the shop owner continue feeding the man, when most shop owners don’t want a smelly homeless person in their presence? (Ascher 47). She only gives free food to the homeless, no one else. Perhaps it is all in the interest of the giver, not the receiver. Indeed, we often help people in need for selfish reasons. When we help those in need, there are usually others watching and we don’t want to appear heartless. Perhaps this is why the shop owner gave away free food to the man in need: she didn’t want to look like the heartless other owners who shewed him away (Ascher 47). Like the shop owner, we do the good deed so that others admire our benevolent heart and approve our actions. We want validation from others so that we ourselves feel like we are good people. In reality, we are merely phenomenal actors. Our facade of kindness hides our self-righteousness and vanity. Although the people we help are still being aided, they may not be receiving the help that they actually need. Since it is all in an attempt to boost our own ego, they don’t really matter; we do. This is not true kindness.
In order to truly love others, we must embrace the reality of their suffering. Mairs learns to do this for herself. While others sugar-coat her disability with vague labels, she fully embraces the disadvantages and even recognizes the gifts of having MS (Mairs 245). She wants them to do the same. “Perhaps I want them to wince. I want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely” (Mairs 245). She wants people to feel the discomfort of her condition and be forced to embrace it like she has done (Mairs 245). Ascher, like Mairs, recognizes the necessity of facing adversity for what it is. People complain about the discomforts of living in an impoverished and congested city, wishing they could escape from it. Yet Ascher argues that we need these discomforts in order to learn how to be compassionate (Ascher 48). “Compassion [...] is learned by having adversity at our windows, coming through the gates of our yards, the walls of our towns, adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to identify and empathize with it” (Ascher 48). Both authors see the necessity of coming face to face with others’ suffering in a way that we cannot avoid it. When we are forced to see adversity at its full value, we begin to experience the pain for ourselves. This enables us to embody their identity, and therefore know what they need. They are no longer alien to us- we are one of them. In doing this, we are bridging the gap between them and us. We cannot afford to keep avoiding, keep pretending. Compassion is needed and it takes a willingness to feel others’ pain for ourselves. We must be willing to humble ourselves to see others’ pain in honesty and vulnerability. It will be uncomfortable, it will be inconvenient, but it will be worth it.
Just as we put a mask over others’ suffering and identity, we hide behind our own veil. Pretending is our biggest habit. We quickly wipe the tears off our cheeks when someone asks us if we’re okay. They can’t know that we’ve been broken. Neither can we. Perhaps we are scared of our own adversity. Perhaps we avoid our own problems for the same reason we avoid others’. We don’t like to admit that we can’t fix our own shortcomings, so we try to cover them up. Little do we know, we are crippling ourselves from freedom. It is only when we admit we are broken, that we can be healed.
