Abstract
This chapter considers the conditions that may prevent emotional involvement. Particularly sad or prosperous circumstances may not produce compassion because the power of those conditions makes it problematic for individuals to imagine alternatives. Because authors of neorealist works, such as Millu’s Il fumo di Birkenau (Smoke over Birkenau) and Levi’s Se questo è un uomo (Survival in Auschwitz), often propose situations in which the circumstances of individuals’ lives are made brutally sad, this explanation is noteworthy. This chapter explores whether such extreme conditions can create compassion and whether those reactions can modify the ways individuals relate to each another.
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- 1.
In “Emotions and Choice,” Robert C. Solomon highlights the rational components of emotions: “Emotions are defined primarily by their constitutive judgments, given structure by judgments, distinguished as particular emotions (anger, love, envy, etc.) as judgments, and related to other beliefs, judgments, and our knowledge of the world, in a ‘formal’ way through judgments” (274).
- 2.
Porter analyzes the importance of compassionate behavior in politics, linking it to the condition of the weak people in society. “Compassionate politics is both possible and necessary to responding emotionally and practically to the need for human security, which for many women and other vulnerable groups means simply feeling ‘safe’” (990).
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Milli Konewko, S. (2016). Occurrences of Compassion. In: Neorealism and the "New" Italy. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52416-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52416-4_8
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54132-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-52416-4
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