On Compassion

In Barbara Lazear Ascher's essay called "On Compassion" is about how she is looking around at people at a bus stop and she starts to point out the flaws in everyone that is there. In the opening sentence she talks about how sloppy this one man is by saying he has "his buttonless shirt, with one sleeve missing, hangs outside the waist of his baggy trousers." She also says that everyone at the bus stop is just daydreaming and not paying attention on what they are doing. As it goes along the owner of the French bread shop gives a man on the streets, a cup of coffee and a small bag of something either yesterday's bread or today's croissant.

It may be that these are the conditions that finally give birth to empathy, a deeper meaning than compassion. We cannot deny the existence of the helpless of their presence. When I read the last two paragraphs everything that she was talking about all came together and all mad sense. For the Greeks drama taught and reinforced the value of compassion.

A good example of compassion in this essay is when she sees the owner of the shop giving; my guess was a homeless man, a cup of coffee and a bag of food. This is impressive because many people will not stop to give even like five cents to a homeless person but this person took the time to get some food and a coffee for the homeless person in need of some help.