Photography by Elke Vogelsang
I. Canine Compassion, Human Anger
In Luke 16:19-31, commonly known as the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, flexuous, slobbery canine tongues perform the politics of compassion. As Lazarus lay sick and dying at the gate of the rich man who “feasted sumptuously every day,” only “the dogs would come and lick his sores” (vv. 19, 21).
The dogs represent a “fugitive moment of compassion” in a parable that otherwise seems designed to normalize retributive anger and closely related feelings, like disgust and fear.1 The allure of retributive anger is greatly diminished in and through flappy tongues of compassion.
In Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice (2013), Martha Nussbaum identifies “the experience of compassion” as a point of connection between humans and animals, focusing her analysis of nonhuman animal compassion on elephants and dogs (142). She defines compassion as “a painful emotion directed at the serious suffering of another creature or creatures” (142).2
We know that dogs (and elephants) are capable of great acts of compassion. Describing the specific character of canine compassion promises to enrich our reading of Luke’s parable, renamed below as the Parable of (Un)Compassionate Tongues, by helping us better understand human compassion’s character.
As we will see, compassion is grounded in formative experiences of love and reciprocity. Initially, it is the stable love of our parents that enables us to transcend our original narcissism. We slowly learn to bring the experiences of others into our thoughts and to care about them. Following Donald Winnicott, Nussbaum argues that arts and culture constitute “potential space” for adults to play with compassion and learn to expand the sphere of their concern.
Original narcissism, or radical evil, is an ongoing challenge to our efforts to hone our attunement to the suffering of others. Nussbaum agrees with Kant: radical evil is an innate tendency. However, it is likely activated by the structure of human development. We are born fearful creatures, prone to feelings like anger at the world and the people in it for not behaving according to our expectations.3
The Greeks understood excessive anger, “obsessive, destructive, existing only to inflict pain and ill,” as a doglike emotion.4 Doglike is how Aeschylus describes the Furies, divine, feminine figures of retribution, in Oresteia.5 Nussbaum observes that “[t]he Greeks were far enough removed from fancy domesticated dog breeds and close enough to raw scenes of canine killing to associate dogs, consistently, with hideous disregard for the victim’s pain.”
Greek dogs would not be out of place in Luke’s parable. The politics of emotion that the Parable of (Un)Compassionate Tongues seems designed to evoke is that of retributive anger.
Defining anger in Aristotelian terms, Nussbaum argues that we experience anger when 1) we believe an object we care about has been meaningfully harmed and 2) we further believe that the harm done to the valued object has been “wrongfully inflicted.”6
Readers of Luke 16:19-31 surely care about Lazarus, and there is no doubt that the rich man’s failure to recognize Lazarus’s dire need for assistance is a form of wrongfully inflicted harm.
Readers of the parable are likely unconcerned about—or even pleased by—how the parable ends: the rich man is tormented in Hades. He is left with no hope of a different eternal outcome for his surviving family members.
Nussbaum persuasively argues that the desire for retribution is a defining characteristic of the experience of anger. She contends that retributive anger is normatively problematic for at least three reasons.7
Retribution is morally questionable because we often get angry over events of little consequence (e.g., someone you’ve met several times forgets your name or someone honks the horn at you in the elementary school carpool lane). Retributive anger is morally dubious because it may be inspired by something that is no one’s fault. Nussbaum points out that the “world is full of accidents.”8 Finally, punishing anger is politically unhelpful because it does not inspire efforts to ensure the wrongful act will not happen again.
Retributive anger is backward-facing, directed at punishing the wrongdoer rather than ensuring a more just outcome in the future (which may entail a future-directed form of punishment). The desire for (eternal) retribution that anger enflames distracts us from bettering our shared earthly existence by fostering emotions that can ground a spirited commitment to the core liberal value of equal dignity.
Readers of Luke 16:19-31 are liable to be led astray by its central theme: retribution. The brief appearance of the parable’s compassionate dogs challenges us to feel differently and to embrace a politics of emotion that celebrates and cherishes equal animal dignity: the politics of compassion. It is to the details of the parable that we now turn.
II. The Parable of (Un)Compassionate Tongues
Luke 16:19-31 begins by contrasting the unnamed rich man’s excessive wealth with Lazarus’s extreme need. The rich man is “dressed in purple and fine linen,” and he feasts “sumptuously every day” (v. 19). He does not seem to notice poor Lazarus dying at his gate, dressed in sores and starving. Lazarus lusts after the food that falls from the rich man’s table (vv. 20-21).
The food falling from the table may explain why dogs are around the rich man’s home. They understand the pain of hunger and illness. Perhaps that is why the dogs notice Lazarus’s suffering and come and lick his sores (v. 21).
In their commentary on the Gospel of Luke, New Testament scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington III write, “Lazarus’s only companions are dogs, whose licking might have provided him both medicinal benefits and emotional comfort.”9
Lazarus dies without the companionship of his own species. We assume his death is due to complications caused by illness and starvation (v. 22).
We are not told if Lazarus is buried. We only know that the angels care for him after his death, carrying him away from the rich man’s gate and delivering him into Abraham’s embrace in Paradise (v. 22).
The rich man also dies. He is buried before appearing alone in Hades (vv. 22-23).
Looking out from Hades, the formerly rich man sees “Abraham far away with Lazarus at his side” (v. 23). “[T]ormented” by the flames of Hades and suffering from horrible thirst, the cursed man asks Abraham to have mercy on him and to send Lazarus to, in effect, lick him—to wet his dry tongue (v. 24).
The destitute man’s calm request for compassion is revealing.10 The formerly rich man recognizes Lazarus and knows him by name. A lack of familiarity with Lazarus cannot explain the poor man’s failure to notice him dying at his gate.
Though he is in Hades, the rich man behaves like a privileged man. He asks for the one he presumes is now Abraham’s servant, Lazarus, to come and serve him and quench his thirst.
In Hades, the rich man is “tormented,” “in agony,” horribly thirsty, “in flames.” Yet, he calmly and eloquently asks Abraham for relief (vv. 23-24). The formerly decadent man’s good-mannered request for Abraham to grant him relief conflicts with the terms of the text that indicate he is suffering extreme agony.
Abraham denies the rich man’s request for assistance. Abraham reasons that the formerly rich man hoarded “good things” in his earthly life and is receiving what he deserves in the afterlife: “evil things” (v. 25).
The fortunes of the rich man and Lazarus are reversed in the afterlife. Lazarus is “comforted,” and the rich man is “in agony” (v. 25).
Even if one wanted to offer compassion to the thirsty man, Abraham points out the impassable chasm between them (v. 26). Levine and Witherington III comment that “[t]here is no shuttle service from Hades to heaven.”11
Realizing his fate is sealed, the cursed man advocates for his surviving brothers. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers about eternal torment (vv. 27-30).
Again, Abraham denies the formerly privileged man’s request for relief. His brothers have Moses (i.e., the Torah) and the Prophets. “If they do not listen to [them], neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (v. 31).
III. Compassion Is for The Dogs.
The parable concludes just as it began: with a destitute man seeking relief from his suffering with no hope of receiving it. In the formerly rich man’s case, we exclaim, “Justice prevails!”
The rationale for our uncompassionate response to the previously rich man’s suffering is clarified if we name him Brian Thompson, the recently murdered CEO of UnitedHealthcare. As the CEO of a healthcare company that routinely denied claims, Thompson represents serious harm to the values and people we cherish—and harm inflicted wrongfully.
Compassion must be for the dogs. How else are we to explain the widespread online celebration of and thirsty reaction to Thompson’s murderer? Compassion for Thompson and his family: denied.
I don’t read Abraham’s refusal to offer compassion to the penniless man as a normative statement about either Jewish theology or the afterlife. However, his refusal to help the suffering man does raise a question for us to consider: Do we want a(n after)life wherein some (i.e., “the evil”) suffer without the possibility of even a crumb of relief?
I don’t believe we want such a(n after)life. If I am right, considering a few more questions is worth our time.
What is compassion? What impedes it? What does it promise? The tongues of the parable’s dogs are unexpected guides to understanding human-animal compassion and its political promise.
IV. Human and Canine Compassion
In Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice (2013), Nussbaum turns to animal studies to identify the kinds of emotions that can aid nations aspiring to justice in “motivating good policies and rendering them stable” (137). She identifies “the experience of compassion” as a point of connection between humans and animals, focusing her analysis of nonhuman animal compassion on elephants and dogs (142). In my reading of Nussbaum’s work below, I focus on canine compassion.
Nussbaum defines compassion as “a painful emotion directed at the serious suffering of another creature or creatures” (142). For humans, compassion entails four thoughts, the first three of which are included in the philosophical tradition.
First, “there is a thought of seriousness” (142).12 We feel compassion when we judge someone else’s suffering as significant rather than as, for example, a form of discomfort or an inconvenience.
Second, there “is the thought of nonfault” (143). Generally, nonfault means that we feel compassion when we determine that someone is not entirely to blame for their suffering. In more complicated circumstances, we typically feel compassion for someone’s suffering caused by the least blameworthy aspects of their situation.
Third, there “is the thought of similar possibilities” (144). We typically feel compassion for someone like us: someone “who has possibilities in life that are similar” (144). Nussbaum argues that this thought is included in the philosophical tradition of compassion but is not conceptually necessary.
We can feel compassion for others even if we do not see “their predicament as like one that we would experience” (144). Nussbaum emphasizes the significance of this thought for “preventing or undoing denial of our own animal nature; its absence is thus a grave danger” (144).
Finally, Nussbaum adds a fourth thought to the three traditional ones above: “the eudaimonistic thought” (144). We feel compassion for the suffering of someone we consider “among the important parts” of our lives.
Nussbaum is not referring to “egoism.” She means that “the things that occasion a strong emotional response in us are things that correspond to what we have invested with importance in our thoughts, implicit or explicit, about what is important in life, our conception of flourishing” (145).
Lazarus must have mattered to the dogs of Luke’s parable because they respond to his suffering compassionately. It is now well established that animals are aware of suffering, “and they notice it very keenly” (147).
However, animals do not think of suffering in terms of blame. Like young children sometimes do, animals focus “on suffering without asking who is to blame” (147). Animals notice suffering but do not perceive fault—at least not to a significant degree. Thus, Nussbaum focuses her analysis of animal compassion on seriousness, similar possibilities, and eudaimonistic thought.
Animal compassion takes many forms, just as human compassion—some simple and some complex. The most complex form of compassion entails perspective-taking: “behavior that shows concern for what the other creature is suffering” (149). Perspective-taking also takes more or less complex forms.
Dogs do not typically pass the mirror test, so their understanding of another’s suffering is likely muddled. Their perspective-taking is a simple one.
To better define the perspective-taking of dogs, consider the following case:
George Pitcher and Ed Cone are watching TV one night in their Princeton home: a documentary about a little boy in England with a congenital heart ailment. [The boy dies]. Pitcher, sitting on the floor, found his eyes filled with tears. Instantly, their two dogs, Lupa and Remus, rushed to him, almost pushing him over, and licked his eyes and cheeks with plaintive whimpers (150).13
The dogs notice Pitcher’s suffering, which looks serious to them. However, they cannot know whether his suffering is, in fact, severe. Nussbaum observes that if Pitcher’s tears were due to having to pay “a just amount of tax,” the dogs would still comfort him (151).
Pitcher’s dogs do not consider who is to blame for his suffering. In his own book about dogs, “Pitcher . . . suggests that the judgment of fault is usually a defect, and animals are better off morally because they lack it” (152).14
With Nussbaum, we are rightly skeptical of the claim that determining fault is generally a moral defect. Dogs are storied for loving humans who cruelly mistreat them.
Moreover, determining fault can help women and minority groups identify reasons to assert their equal dignity (152-153). Yet, “we can certainly observe that humans often find fault erroneously, hastily, and on the basis of bad social norms. . . . To that extent, looking to animals for guidance would seem the right thing to do” (153).
Lupa and Remus may have some awareness of similar possibilities. Before coming into the care of Pitcher and Cone, Lupa and Remus had been abused. Even the sight of a stick terrorized them. Therefore, they may imagine “such bad events as future possibilities for themselves” (155).
Pitcher’s dogs respond compassionately to his suffering because they understand it, and he matters to them. However, Nussbaum notes that animal eudaimonistic thought is inflexible and narrow.
Animal compassion is directed at members of their own species or familiar group members. Noticing the tears of a stranger, Lupa and Remus will not show them compassion.
Dogs are capable of moving acts of compassion. The character of their dog-specific compassion promises to enrich our interpretation of Luke’s parable and potentially gift us with compassionate tongues.
V. Speaking in Compassionate Tongues
“[T]he dogs would come and lick his sores” (v. 21). They notice Lazarus’s suffering, and while the dogs cannot determine its actual seriousness, Lazarus’s pain seems grave to them.
The dogs know what it is like to experience illness and hunger. Cleaning and soothing Lazarus’s sores with their kind tongues, the dogs demonstrate that they perceive Lazarus’s suffering as a possibility for them.
Like many other animal behaviors, dogs licking a sick man’s sores may inspire disgust in us human animals. Lazarus’s body would likely repel readers if they encountered him outside their front doors.
Disgust is a powerful feeling that often impedes the politics of compassion. That is why, at least for one badass, holy bitch, “licking” sores is an important spiritual exercise.15
In The Spiritual Dialogue (1522), it is reported that Catherine of Genoa is led by the Spirit to ill people “with foul-smelling sores, the stench of which was so great that it was hard to stay close to them” (131).
She is commanded to put the sores in her mouth. “She put them in her mouth, and so many times she was freed from natural repugnance; but since the smell continued to give her nausea she rubbed her nose with the pus until she freed herself of that revulsion” (131).
“Licking” sores and similar practices, such as eating lice, are physical means to a specific spiritual end: Catherine wants to annihilate “Human Frailty,” which is, for her, connected to the “animal body, without reason, power, will, or memory” (125).
Catherine overcomes “Human Frailty” by overcoming its tendency to feel disgust for what is bodily. This is an essential spiritual goal for Catherine because disgust for what is bodily prevents her from becoming an animal body, a non-willing vessel of the Spirit.
The author asserts that Catherine’s actions are “loathesome” and “contrary to human nature” (131). However, “in forcing herself to obey the Spirit, Catherine was heartened in her resolve to help the desperately sick” (131).
Catherine rightly notices that human disdain for the animal body, its secretions, smells, sounds, etc., impedes the politics of compassion. However, Catherine’s spirituality is normatively problematic—and for reasons that go well beyond its underlying metaphysics.
Catherine’s “loathesome” practices are unreasonable because we are rightly concerned about the potentially adverse health outcomes associated with ingesting materials such as pus and feces.
Moreover, compassion does not require us to eat the pus from the sores of the ill or the lice from the heads of the poor. While Catherine’s desire to overcome disgust to help the severely sick and poor is admirable, it is clear that they are merely means to Catherine’s spiritual end: ceasing to exist as a will-full individual.
Finally, we know that animals are not mindless vessels of instinct. Most animals are sentient: they understand themselves, the world around them, and what is good (and bad) for their specific lives.16
Significantly, animals do not have to unlearn disgust for what is animal, namely the body. Only human animals learn to loathe the animal body and participate in the evil politics of projective disgust, defining some humans—such as women, Black men, Jews, and gay men—as wild animals and treating them as such, as what is outside the sphere of equal dignity.17
The parable’s dogs do not have to repent of disgust to lick the sores that cover Lazarus’s body. His sores do not disgust them. By licking his sores, they embody a dog-specific form of compassion that respects Lazarus as an end.
The rich man’s failure to recognize Lazarus’s suffering and offer a compassionate response is also dog-like. As his behavior in Hades amply attests, the rich man does not consider Lazarus a pack member.
Like the dogs, the rich man will not think of offering compassion to someone not in his family group. Unlike the dogs, the rich man can learn to expand his circle of concern to include all animals.
Yet, the rich man is all too human. Abraham expresses a theological view the rich man likely finds agreeable: Lazarus is to blame for his condition.
Illness, poverty, and suffering are associated with “evil things.” As Nussbaum argues, the “capacity to think about fault and choice is . . . a necessary part of moral life. And yet, it can go badly astray. . . . [I]t is very convenient to blame the poor for their poverty and to refuse compassion on that account” (158).18
The dogs cannot consider blame in their response to Lazarus’s suffering. His suffering is serious to them, and his life matters to them. He is one of their own.
The dogs also know what it is like to experience illness and hunger. So, they extend compassion to Lazarus. They speak compassion in flappy, drooly tongues.
VI. The Afterlives of (Un)Compassionate Tongues
During his earthly life, Lazarus is treated like a dog. The dogs recognize him as one of their own and lick his wounds.
I think Lazarus represents their sal(i)v(a)ific compassion in Paradise. However, the fact that he does not use his tongue troubles my reading of Lazarus as a tongue of compassion.
Several years ago, a New Testament scholar noticed I was reading Luke’s Parable of (Un)Compassionate Tongues on a long flight from San Diego. It was the lectionary text for the upcoming Sunday, and I was trying out a sermonic version of this essay.
The Scholar asked me what I thought about the parable. I shared that I had problems with the politics of retributive anger I read in the story. The Scholar expressed surprise. As a gay Black man, he read Abraham as Lazarus’s advocate, as his tongue. The Scholar argued that, in and through Abraham, Lazarus is liberated from his earthly oppressor.
I agree with the Scholar: Lazarus does not require compassion in the afterlife. However, what is the justification for withholding it from the formerly rich man? There is only one morally normative reason for denying him compassion: we do not believe his situation requires it.
As we discovered earlier, the formerly rich man’s composed request for relief undercuts the idea that he is experiencing extreme agony in Hades. However, we are told that he is “being tormented” in Hades (v. 23). We also know that he wishes to warn his family to avoid a similar fate (vv. 27-31).
Even so, the man does not seem to know he is suffering. Nussbaum writes, “If we think . . . that a person is unaware of a predicament that is really bad . . . , then we will have compassion for that person even if the person doesn’t think [their] situation is bad” (143). We have reason to believe that his suffering is bad.
We are not explicitly told why the rich man did not recognize Lazarus’s suffering and offer assistance. Furthermore, we cannot underestimate the power of bad theology and destructive social norms to deform one’s sensitivity to the suffering of others.
There is a degree of moral ambiguity in the parable. I do not conclude that the cursed man is entirely to blame for his suffering.
Like power, wealth is not one thing, nor is it simply a monetary reality, something we can locate neatly, like in a bank account. Generosity is often difficult for anyone who has worked hard to possess anything potentially beneficial to the common good.
The formerly rich man’s suffering is certainly a possibility for us. If it were not, the parable itself would not be necessary.
The formerly rich man, Brian Thompson, does not matter to everyone. He failed during his earthly life to respond compassionately to the suffering of others. He is an object of social disgust.
The horrible irony is that if we fail to offer compassion to the formerly rich man, we become like the earthly rich man and complicit in undermining the basis of any thriving liberal society: commitment to equal dignity.
Advocates of dignity like Gandhi, King, and Mandela understood the threat posed by punishing anger to the value of equal dignity. They rejected the politics of retributive anger.19
Of course, we can reject their examples and deny compassion to the formerly rich man. If we do so, let us admit that rigorous moral reasoning does not support that choice. But what of the fact that neither Lazarus nor Abraham offers the cursed man compassion?
Suffering outside the gates of plenty and blessing, the previously content man asks Abraham to have mercy on him. Abraham argues that he is not a source of salvation.
He did not save the ill and starving Lazarus. He cannot save the formerly rich man from his suffering in Hades. According to Abraham, salvation is found in the Torah and the Prophets.
The parable itself is an interpretation of the Law of Moses and the Prophets. From it, we learn two lessons. The first lesson is that compassion is the morally correct animal response to the legitimate suffering of others. The dogs embody this lesson.
The second lesson we learn is that it is right to trust one’s fellow animals to respond compassionately to legitimate suffering. The Greek of Luke’s parable suggests that Lazarus was placed at the rich man’s gate—he did not just wander there himself.
Lazarus’s friends/neighbors trusted the rich man to recognize Lazarus’s pain and hoped he would use his resources to relieve it. While the dogs gave Lazarus what his friends/neighbors trusted the rich man to, they were nonetheless correct in placing their faith in him to act compassionately.
There is a third lesson for us to recognize. Luke’s Jesus emphasizes it after sharing the parable: people can and do change (17:1-10).
Luke 16:19-31 emphasizes the importance of change but does so in a way that tends to evoke fear and encourage disgust and retributive anger. The parable is for a specific group of readers, like the ungenerous wealthy. They had better change their ways before it’s too late.
Change is not possible in the afterlife. Eternal punishment is a delicious thought—at least when the objects of it are one’s enemies, or “those people,” or the one percent.
The problem: retributive anger does not improve our lives; it worsens our lives by creating the conditions for afterlives of violence. Moreover, fear and disgust do not make people good; they make people tyrants.
Nonetheless, the Parable of (Un)Compassionate Tongues does not entertain offering compassion to the suffering man in Hades. The parable does hint at the possibility of a change in the afterlife’s policy toward those suffering in Hades.
The formerly rich man is likely shocked by Abraham’s refusal to help him or his family. His belief in a theological outlook that privileges the privileged is shaken.
The shock of Abraham’s lack of compassion for his suffering can become a persuasive reason for the poor man to seek compassion elsewhere. This elsewhere is Lazarus.
The formerly rich man can wet his dry tongue by directly addressing Lazarus: “Brother Lazarus, ask our Father Abraham to have mercy on me.” In this way, the destitute man affirms that he, like Lazarus, depends on his fellow animals to recognize his suffering and offer compassion.
Lazarus understands what it is like to suffer alone without hope of relief. His initial silence is likely motivated by an unwillingness to humiliate the man who did not recognize his earthly suffering and whose suffering is not adequately addressed by Abraham.
If that is true, when the formerly rich man asks Lazarus to help him, Lazarus will likely break his silence and offer assistance, asking Abraham to create a way for the man to travel from Hades to Paradise.
Abraham, recognizing the formerly rich man’s change of heart and Lazarus’s willingness to offer the man compassion, will likely extend compassion to the formerly rich man.
Significantly, compassion need not overlook the tormented man’s past behavior or its role in causing his present suffering—but it will neither hold him to that lousy behavior forever nor deny aid due to the thought of fault.
Abraham’s compassion can look like a future-oriented pathway between Hades and Paradise that encourages and fosters education in the value of equal dignity.
Clearly, my interpretation of the afterlife exceeds the limits of the text alone. My argument does not rely on it. The lesson is the same: “The advice to humans is not to wait for external intervention from the heavens: instead, we must arrange to have mercy on, and to love, one another.”20
Licked by the textual tongue of the parable, I have remained stubbornly hopeful and committed to reading Luke 16:19-31 in the spirit of the floppy, comforting tongues of the dogs. However, while trying to hold onto compassion and the value of equal dignity, I have neglected to directly acknowledge a profound loss.
VII. Radical Evil and The Politics of Compassion
We have lost Lazarus. We rightly feel both grief and Transition-Anger at the tragic loss of a friend.
Transition-Anger is Nussbaum’s term for future-oriented anger or “protest without payback.”21 It acknowledges our outrage at injustice and powerlessness to return Lazarus from the dead.
Transition-anger motivates us to do what we can to ensure others do not suffer the same fate as Lazarus. We can peacefully protest public blindness to the suffering of the poor. We can work with our neighbors to foster a spirit of reciprocity in our communities. We can organize to elect and donate to officials committed to creating caring governmental agencies.
The work of mourning is another difficult task we can do together.22 Mourning the loss of Lazarus, we internalize our shared mortality.
Accepting the reality of death, we potentially undo our anthropodenial: the rejection of our animal condition. To flourish, we must trust and rely on others. Our grief can enable a common effort to celebrate and embody respect for equal dignity.
The work of mourning and Transition-Anger are compassionate responses to animal suffering. They are grounded in love and generosity, in the experience of animal vulnerability. However, the experience of vulnerability is also the fertile soil from which radical evil grows.
In Political Emotions, Nussbaum argues that radical evil is rooted in “our bodily helplessness” and “our cognitive sophistication.” It is radical because it is “rooted in the very structure of human development” (190). It is evil because it is the intentional, active thwarting of equal dignity.
Following Kant, Nussbaum concedes that radical evil is likely an innate tendency. Thus, it is independent of social circumstances, like poverty or wealth.
Moreover, although radical evil is supported by some aspects of our “animal heritage,” it is a tendency unique to human animals. It is likely activated by the structure of human development (167).
The infant is a creature of anxiety. “Their helplessness produces an intense anxiety that is not mitigated by trust in the world or its people” (173). They attempt to overcome helplessness through control, “making other people [their slaves]” (173).
The way out of original narcissism is love and reciprocity. Initially, their parents’ love encourages the infant to “trust in an uncertain world and the people in it” (176). The stable, reliable love of parents creates a pathway for the infant’s eros, “its . . . outward-moving curiosity” (176).
In and through play, the infant explores the world and hones its developing concern for others. The infant learns to offer love to others.
I return to play below. For now, we recognize that original narcissism is incurable; it is an intractable feature of our interpersonal and political lives.
Original narcissism is the ground of possibility for retributive anger and the closely related politics of disgust and fear. The ongoing experience of bodily helplessness/vulnerability can cause us to become tyrants again.
Feeling out of control, we are tempted to blame and punish others, project our animal condition onto specific groups of people, like women and minorities, and distrust people who do not obey dominant cultural expectations.
Nussbaum argues that the ongoing experience of loving relationships and playfulness in arts and culture immunizes us against the persistence of viral narcissism.
The arts and culture constitute, to use Donald Winnicott’s term, “potential space,” space outside of our interpersonal relationships to try “roles and options . . . without real-life stress” (181).
Summarizing Winnicott, Nussbaum writes, “In adult life . . . the infant’s experience of trust, reciprocity, and creativity finds a wide range of outlets, in culture and the arts, that deepen and renew the experience of transcending narcissism” (181).
In Luke’s literary tale of the (Un)Compassionate Tongues, the dogs evoke a spirit of loving generosity. The memory of their wiggly tongues potentially helps us remember formative experiences of love and care that can continue to ground our faith in a politics of compassion.
As I write this essay, I remember my childhood friend, Keppa, a Boston Terrier. My grandmother, Lorraine, convinced me to choose Keppa from the litter because she was the runt. Keppa loved me, but she loved my grandmother far more than me or anyone else.
Keppa made us aware of her connection to my grandma in many ways. For example, when she was let out of my house early every morning to relieve herself, she would run next door to my grandparents’ home. Refusing to return to me when I called her, she spent her day with my grandmother, eventually moving in with my grandparents when I moved away to college.
I was home when Keppa died. I remember that my grandfather cried. It was the first and only time I witnessed him express sadness. I was in my early twenties.
I carried Keppa in my arms to her final resting place. My grandmother could not bear to be present for her burial.
Remembering Keppa—and how could I forget the licks I received right after she had eaten a dead fish taken from a nearby irrigation canal—I remember my loving grandparents, especially my grandmother.
Like Keppa, I received a lot of care from my grandmother. I also went to her house almost every morning for breakfast and conversation before school.
I continue to remember Keppa and my grandmother, Lorraine. Every December, I hang ornaments on the Christmas tree in their memories. During this time of year, Lorraine and Keppa are again side by side.
Nussbaum argues that nations aspiring to justice must tap into these formative interpersonal experiences of love and generosity because they ground a spirited concern for others, including serious animal suffering and the associated value of equal dignity, that can stabilize the politics of compassion (177).
Given the constant pull of original narcissism in public life, a resilient collective commitment to compassion would be no small achievement.
There is no guarantee that readers of Luke 16:19-31 will be inspired by the squiggly, compassionate tongues of the dogs to remember formative experiences of love and reciprocity that can ground a stable commitment to a politics of compassion. The parable’s politics of retributive anger is the text’s more evident and satisfying theme.
But if compassionate canine tongues manage to wet our dry tongues, I think we will agree that the politics of compassion is for the dogs. It is for every animal.
NOTES:
