The second of two reflections inspired by Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
In my previous essay, The Greatest Ruffian: Donald Trump and the Human Capacity for Sympathy, I explored Adam Smith's observation that even people who violate society's moral expectations are not entirely without the capacity for compassion. Now I want to turn that observation around, away from Donald Trump and toward ourselves, because there is a question I find harder and harder to ignore: if we believe compassion is a virtue, why do we so often withhold it from the people we believe deserve it least? And a more uncomfortable one follows it. What does our willingness, or unwillingness, to extend compassion toward Donald Trump reveal about our own character?
The man who divides us
Few people in American life today provoke reactions as intense as Donald Trump does. For some, his name stands for courage, patriotism, resistance to entrenched political interests, and a willingness to challenge institutions they believe have failed them. For others, it stands for arrogance, dishonesty, cruelty and a threat to democratic principles. These aren't minor disagreements about tax rates or regulation. They are profoundly different readings of the same human being.
What fascinates me is how easily those readings become moral judgments about everyone associated with him. Support Trump, and some will assume you lack compassion. Oppose him, and others will assume you lack patriotism. Express uncertainty, and both sides may accuse you of cowardice or ignorance. Somewhere along the way, we let our judgments of a political figure become judgments of one another's humanity, and I wonder what Adam Smith would make of that.
Sympathy is not approval
In the opening chapter of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith writes:
"The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it."
He means sympathy, the human capacity to be moved by the circumstances and suffering of others. His larger argument matters even more here. We don't experience another person's circumstances directly. We imagine what it might be like to stand where they stand, so our sympathy depends, at least in part, on our willingness to make that imaginative effort. And the effort gets considerably harder when we dislike the person involved.
Suppose Donald Trump is publicly humiliated. Some people will feel satisfaction. Others will feel indignation. Still others may feel sympathy for him while believing the criticism or consequences he faces are deserved. That third response interests me, because it draws a distinction we often overlook. We can believe someone deserves accountability without taking pleasure in his suffering. We can oppose a person's conduct without wishing him personal misery, and we can believe a leader has used poor judgment while recognizing that he remains a human being capable of fear, disappointment, grief, affection and pain. Compassion doesn't require us to give up discernment. It requires us to remember the humanity of the person we're discerning.
What we cannot see
I have never had a private conversation with Donald Trump. I don't know what he thinks about when he's alone, and I don't know the full measure of his private regrets, fears, insecurities or the burdens he carries. I know his public statements, his political record, and the accounts of people who have dealt with him. Those are legitimate sources for judging his conduct and his fitness for leadership, but they aren't a complete window into his inner life, and we should be careful about pretending they are.
I can imagine that a person under relentless public scrutiny might face pressures most of us can't comprehend. I can also recognize that Trump has actively contributed to the confrontational political climate around him. Both can be true, and neither entitles me to claim knowledge of his private emotional life. Understanding the pressures someone may face is different from inventing explanations for his behavior. If I want to understand Trump as a human being, I have to begin by admitting how much I don't know.
The difficulty of loving our enemies
As a Christian, I can't approach this question without considering the teachings of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 5:44, He says:
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."
That is an extraordinarily demanding standard. Christ didn't say to love only those whose beliefs we share, or to extend compassion only to those whose conduct we approve, and He didn't suggest that kindness should depend on whether it's returned. I believe these teachings apply to our political adversaries as surely as to anyone else.
For those who despise Donald Trump, that may mean recognizing his humanity even while vigorously opposing his policies and conduct. For those of us who support him, it means something just as important: we have to extend the same humanity to his opponents. We can't sincerely claim to follow Christ's teachings while reserving compassion for people who share our political allegiance, and we can't use our political convictions as an excuse to indulge in contempt.
The temptation to feel righteous
There is something deeply satisfying about believing we hold the moral high ground. I know, because I've felt it. For much of my life, I was quick to judge behavior that conflicted with my understanding of right and wrong. What I often failed to see was that I was judging others by standards I was struggling to meet myself. I was painfully aware of my own shortcomings, yet I sometimes found it easier to see another person's faults than to understand the circumstances that contributed to them.
There's a peculiar danger in that way of thinking. We can become so convinced our position is right that we start treating our certainty as evidence of our virtue. But being right about something doesn't mean we're behaving righteously. We can defend a just cause with cruelty. We can expose real wrongdoing while taking improper pleasure in another person's humiliation, speak the truth with the deliberate aim of causing pain, and mistake the satisfaction of defeating an opponent for the satisfaction of doing something good. That distinction has come to matter more and more to me. I want to be a man whose convictions are strong, and I also want to be a man whose convictions make him more compassionate, not less.
The other side of the mirror
I support Donald Trump politically. That's no secret, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. But my support doesn't oblige me to defend everything he says or does, and it shouldn't stop me from listening seriously to people who oppose him. If I want others to understand why I support Trump, I ought first to make a sincere effort to understand why they don't.
Perhaps someone has been personally affected by a policy I support. Perhaps they've seen behavior that conflicts with their idea of moral leadership, or their concerns come from experiences I've never had, or they know something I've overlooked. Or perhaps, after considering their view, I'll remain convinced their conclusions are mistaken. That's entirely possible. But at least I'll have listened, and I may learn something important about the human experience behind their convictions.
The same works in reverse. Someone who opposes Trump might find that a supporter is moved not by hatred or ignorance but by concerns about economic security, constitutional government, religious liberty, immigration or the future of the country. Those concerns don't automatically justify every policy proposed in answer to them, but understanding them makes real disagreement possible. We can't expect others to recognize the humanity behind our convictions while refusing to recognize the humanity behind theirs.
The emotional cost of demanding understanding
This subject has become personal for me in a way I wouldn't have expected even a few years ago. I'm beginning to see how often I've come to disagreements with an almost desperate desire to be understood. When someone misread my intentions or failed to see what seemed obvious to me, I sometimes felt compelled to keep explaining until they finally understood. I believed I was seeking clarity, but I was also making myself emotionally dependent on something I couldn't control, which was another person's willingness to understand me. When that understanding didn't come, I felt frustration, disappointment and sometimes considerable pain.
I'm only now beginning to find another way. What if I stopped making my peace depend on whether someone understood me, and made understanding them my first priority instead? Not to surrender my position or win their approval, but simply because their experiences, beliefs and perceptions are worth understanding. I'm finding that I don't have to convince someone of my sincerity in order to be sincere. I don't have to win their agreement to keep my convictions, and I don't have to win an argument to keep my dignity. That realization is changing the way I want to engage with the world.
Compassion is not moral equivalence
There's a real danger in discussions like this one. In wanting to understand everyone, we can accidentally suggest that every position is equally defensible or every action equally forgivable. I don't believe that. Some actions cause profound harm, some arguments are dishonest, and some policies have consequences that deserve vigorous opposition. Understanding the motives behind such conduct doesn't erase responsibility for it, and recognizing the humanity of a political leader doesn't require us to ignore the power he holds or the consequences of his decisions.
A president is accountable for his public conduct, and citizens have every right to criticize, investigate, oppose and challenge it. Compassion doesn't diminish those rights, but it can shape how we use them. There's a difference between demanding accountability and seeking revenge, between criticizing someone's decisions and celebrating his suffering, and between opposing a leader and dehumanizing everyone who supports him. Those distinctions are worth keeping no matter which party holds power.
The test of our principles
I've come to believe that a moral principle shows its strength most clearly when applying it becomes uncomfortable. It's easy to champion free speech when we agree with the speaker, to defend fairness when the outcome favors us, and to show compassion toward people we admire. Our principles are tested when the speaker offends us, when fairness benefits someone we dislike, and when compassion asks us to acknowledge the humanity of someone whose conduct we find reprehensible.
If I believe every human being has inherent worth, I can't make an exception for political opponents. If I believe people deserve to be heard, I can't reserve that courtesy for those who agree with me. And if I believe compassion is a Christian virtue, I can't treat it as a reward handed out according to political loyalty. These standards apply to how I treat Trump's critics, and they apply to how those critics treat Trump. But the only conduct I can directly govern is my own, and perhaps that is where meaningful change has to begin.
What this means for Real Prosperity
Real Prosperity began with the conviction that ethical conduct and meaningful prosperity should strengthen each other rather than undermine each other. The more I explore that idea, the more I see that it reaches far beyond economics. A prosperous society needs more than successful businesses and sound public policy. It needs people who can live together despite profound disagreements, citizens who can tell criticism from contempt, leaders who recognize the human consequences of their decisions, and communities where understanding isn't mistaken for surrender.
I don't picture Real Prosperity as a place where everyone is expected to agree with me. Quite the opposite. I want to understand why people see the world differently, examine the experiences that shape their convictions, and find where my own understanding may be incomplete, and I want to do it without abandoning the principles that give my life meaning. That may prove harder than I imagine, but I believe it's worth attempting.
The man I want to become
I'm at a stage of life where I'm discovering something that might seem obvious to others: knowing the kind of man I want to be isn't the same as knowing how to become him. For years I've held strong convictions about truth, morality, responsibility and faith. Those convictions remain. What's changing is my understanding of how I ought to carry them. I want to listen more carefully and judge less hastily. I want to understand before insisting on being understood, to recognize the humanity of people whose actions I oppose, and to extend to others the same patience and mercy I hope they'll extend to me.
Donald Trump is a useful subject for this examination precisely because he stirs such powerful emotions. But in the end, this essay isn't about whether Trump deserves our compassion. It's about whether compassion remains one of our principles when extending it gets difficult. Adam Smith believed the capacity for sympathy exists even in those whose conduct we condemn, and Christ taught us to love even our enemies. I'm more and more convinced that both point toward an important truth: compassion isn't something we owe only to those who have earned our approval. It's something we choose to practice because of the people we hope to become.
I may never persuade everyone to understand my convictions, and I may never understand every person whose beliefs differ from mine. But I can make the effort, and perhaps in doing so I'll become a little more like the man I've always wanted to be. That, too, is a form of prosperity.
This is the second essay in a two-part reflection on Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Donald Trump and the human capacity for sympathy. The first is The Greatest Ruffian.