The Pitfalls of “Love and Kindness”: On the Challenges to Compassion/Pity as a Political Emotion

Abstract

Martha Nussbaum’s political theory of compassion offers an extensive and compelling study of the potential of employing compassionate emotions in the political realm to further social justice and societal “love”. In this article, two pitfalls of Nussbaum’s affirming theory of a politics of compassion are highlighted: the problem of a dual-level hierarchisation and the “magic” of feeling compassion that potentially removes the subject of compassion from reality. I will argue that Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on pity provide substantial challenges to a democratic theory of compassion in this respect. Following these theoretical reflections, I will turn to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 US-American presidential election campaign, to her video ads “Love and Kindness” in particular, in order to provide fitting illustrations from current realpolitik for these specific pitfalls of the political employment of compassionate emotions.

The Map to the Heart: An Analysis of Political Affectivity in Turkey

“…Here we identified considerations that set these emotions apart, and others that connect them, as they form rich affective experiences. Evidence that emotions matter abounds, in recent studies that examine UK's Brexit, Trump's reactionary America, anti-globalization and anti-elite populist narratives, challenges of European integration, the gained support of far right, extreme and radical movements and parties, energy and climate change debates, the drivers and consequences of international crises of migration, the emotional economy of austerity politics, the internal functioning of international institutions (see Capelos & Katsanidou, 2018;Salmela & von Scheve, 2017;and in this issue Koschut, 2018;Palm, 2018;Sanchez Salgado, 2018;Skonieczny, 2018;Weber, 2018).…”

The unproductiveness of political conflict in education: A Nussbaumian alternative to agonistic citizenship education

“…Nussbaum's approach has been challenged for its excessive optimism considering the nature of political action (e.g. Srinivasan, 2017), for its bifurcation of emotions into 'positive' and 'negative' (Weber, 2018) and for the alleged top-down quality of her normative visions (e.g. Weber, 2018).…”

“…Srinivasan, 2017), for its bifurcation of emotions into 'positive' and 'negative' (Weber, 2018) and for the alleged top-down quality of her normative visions (e.g. Weber, 2018). Moreover, the desirability of eradicating negative emotions (especially anger) from politics has been questioned from the perspective of minority struggles (e.g.…”

Gender, Populism and Jacinda Ardern

“…The connection between politics and emotions is not new; however, it has garnered considerable scholarly interest in recent years (Fording & Schram, 2017;Johnson, 2020;Valentino, Oceno & Wayne, 2018). Most accept that Trump's populist provocations during the 2016 presidential election campaign took emotionality to a new level, with his aggressive anti-immigrant stance and his appeals to 'American' workers whose interests, he argued, were served best through protectionism (Weber, 2018). Much like populist-right leaders in Europe, Trump successfully tapped into the insecurities, fears and anger of a large group of voters.…”