I care - but I'm not Mother Teresa.
What do I mean by this?
I mean that, for me, there is nothing remotely uplifting about looking after someone who is in need of care and I'm not about to sacrifice myself entirely to this tiring and depressing task in the mistaken belief that by so doing I demonstrate Christian virtue.
For unlike Mother T - a woman once described by Christopher Hitchens as a corrupt Albanian dwarf who exploited the poor and dying as extras in her own obscene morality play - I don't confuse or conflate excremental reality with transcendental fantasy.
Indeed, I agree with Hitchens that it's deeply offensive to fetishize pain and poverty and develop a voracious appetite for human wretchedness; to literally feed off shit and gain personal salvation via the suffering of others.
We have to demoralize our idea of sympathy; i.e. free it from ideal notions of pity and charity which transport us to the foot of the Cross.
And, ultimately, all it takes to do the right thing is a little politeness of the heart or what Nietzsche terms benevolence; kindness, kisses and kuddlz have played a far greater role in building a libidinal culture of compassion or phallic tenderness, than those more celebrated values preached by the Good.
We have to demoralize our idea of sympathy; i.e. free it from ideal notions of pity and charity which transport us to the foot of the Cross.
And, ultimately, all it takes to do the right thing is a little politeness of the heart or what Nietzsche terms benevolence; kindness, kisses and kuddlz have played a far greater role in building a libidinal culture of compassion or phallic tenderness, than those more celebrated values preached by the Good.
