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Strangers, Aliens, and Other People: A Call to Compassion [1]

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Date: 2025-09-19

Public life, in all its messy, unwashed glory, is the fate of every poor soul who dares to walk outside. One cannot so much as shuffle to the gas station for a $6 energy drink without running into strangers — those terrifying humans who are not you. Occasionally, one of them mistakes you for someone famous (Phil Jackson, if you’re lucky; Guy Fieri, if you’re cursed), and for one fleeting second you bask in the illusion that strangers might actually be tolerable. But don’t be fooled. For every moment of mistaken celebrity, there are approximately 43,000 encounters with people whose very existence in “your” public space makes you question whether leaving the house was ever a good idea.

Sociologists politely call these differences “identity demographics.” Regular people just call them “reasons to clutch your purse tighter.” Age, class, language, religion, race, gender — each a neat little badge that says, “Hello, I am Other. Please distrust me accordingly.” And lest you think you yourself are above such petty categorization, remember: you too are someone else’s “alien.” (Though, frankly, it would be far more convenient if everyone else were the alien, and we alone remained the default setting of humanity.)

In sum: public life is just a massive episode of Survivor, except no one gets voted off the island, and compassion is the immunity idol nobody really wants to carry around because it clashes with their self-interest.

Christianity’s Radical Idea: Be Nice (Even When You Don’t Want To)

The Christian tradition, never one to shy away from the bold and impractical, insists that we should love our neighbor and, just to spice things up, love our enemy too. Yes, that’s right: love the people who cut you off in traffic, stole your parking space, or voted for the other party. Jesus didn’t stop there—he even threw in “do good to those who hate you,” which really feels like trolling.

Of course, this is easy enough to say in a sermon, but try practicing it in real life. You’ll soon discover that loving your neighbor is roughly as enjoyable as flossing with barbed wire. Loving your enemy? That’s like flossing your enemy’s teeth for them while they criticize your technique.

Yet, Christianity insists. Which raises a rather fascinating paradox: the faith that once birthed inquisitions, holy wars, and televangelists with suspiciously golden toilet seats continues to preach compassion as if it were an accessible hobby like birdwatching.

Faith in Public: The Awkward Marriage

We’re often told that faith is a “private matter,” like nose-picking or voting for a third-party candidate. But in reality, faith lives in public whether it wants to or not. It leaks out in protests, yard signs, Chick-fil-A cups, and occasionally in a 12-foot animatronic nativity scene with a fog machine.

Public life, meanwhile, is already an overcrowded marketplace of egos and grievances. Toss faith into the mix, and suddenly you’ve got competing truth claims battling it out like professional wrestlers in the civic ring. The public becomes less a “company of strangers” and more a family Thanksgiving where everyone has too much wine and someone brings up politics before dessert.

Still, the premise is noble: faith in public is supposed to mean living ethically, considering the well-being of others, and upholding the “common good.” Unfortunately, the “common good” is difficult to define in a society where one person’s good is universal healthcare and another’s is the freedom to die uninsured while clutching a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

Compassion vs. Politics: A Cage Match for the Ages

Our political leaders, who swore solemn oaths to serve all citizens, now serve the noble cause of demonizing half of them for sport. Nothing unites a divided people quite like being told who the real enemy is. Xenophobia, jingoism, and billionaire tax cuts have become the holy trinity of modern governance. It’s democracy’s version of “compassion”: you get yours, I get mine, and the common good is politely asked to leave the room.

Politicians thrive on antagonism. Why? Because compassion doesn’t sell. Compassion doesn’t fill campaign coffers, doesn’t generate rage clicks, and doesn’t trend on X (formerly Twitter, now just a digital therapy session for angry billionaires). Hatred, however, is America’s most renewable energy source.

Christianity’s Report Card: Needs Improvement

If Christianity were graded on its compassion track record, the results would be… mixed. On the plus side: the abolition movement, civil rights activism, liberation theology, and Quaker peace traditions. On the minus side: crusades, witch trials, white supremacist theology, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, and prosperity gospel hucksters promising divine riches in exchange for your credit card number.

In other words, Christianity has done both Good Samaritan work and some deeply questionable “Smite Thy Neighbor” extracurriculars. It’s the spiritual equivalent of a student who sometimes writes brilliant essays but also occasionally sets the classroom on fire.

Compassion, the Virtue We All Outsource

Compassion sounds wonderful until you realize it requires effort. Aristotle, ever the killjoy, claimed virtues are cultivated through repeated action. Translation: you have to practice compassion, like an instrument or yoga. Unsurprisingly, most of us prefer the shortcut version: dropping off canned goods for a food drive while posting a humblebrag selfie captioned, “So blessed to give back!”

Real compassion—being present with suffering, sharing burdens, building relationships—takes time, vulnerability, and actual human contact. Who has time for that when there are streaming services to binge and political arguments to win on Facebook? Better to outsource compassion to charities, nonprofits, and the occasional government program while we get back to what matters: curating our personal brands.

The World Religions’ Compassion Olympics

Every faith tradition has its own branding of compassion. Buddhists practice karuna and lovingkindness. Hindus embrace daya and ahimsa. Jains avoid stepping on bugs, which is commendably thorough. Jews call God “The Compassionate One.” Muslims call God “The Merciful.”

And then there’s modern America, whose contribution to the Compassion Olympics is “thoughts and prayers”—a phrase so overused that it now functions as a passive-aggressive way of saying, “I am aware of your suffering, and that concludes my responsibilities.”

The Golden Rule (Now Available in Irony)

Every religion insists on some version of the Golden Rule. “Do unto others,” or at least, “Don’t be a jerk.” It’s beautifully simple, which makes it bafflingly difficult. Instead of applying it directly, we tend to reinterpret it through a helpful filter: “Do unto others what you think they deserve, based on your personal biases and political leanings.”

For instance: “Do unto others the charity of a $5 fast-food gift card, while doing unto yourself the luxury of a third vacation home.” Or: “Do unto others the right to live, provided they live far away and never ask for asylum.” The variations are endless, creativity abounds.

Compassion as Charity: Canned Goods, Not Companionship

Let’s face it: our society loves charity but despises solidarity. Charity lets us stay in control. We drop off donations, pat ourselves on the back, and never have to ask the poor their names. Solidarity, on the other hand, requires relationship, and relationship risks the dangerous possibility of realizing that the “stranger” is actually not so alien after all.

That’s messy. That’s inconvenient. That’s human. Which is why we prefer the canned-goods model of compassion: simple, efficient, and best of all, tax-deductible.

Jesus: Radical, Inconvenient, Public

The original exemplar of compassion in public life, Jesus of Nazareth, did not exactly play it safe. He hung out with the wrong people, said uncomfortable things, and generally refused to conform to society’s respectable norms. He gave sermons that didn’t end in altar calls but in mobs plotting his execution. He practiced the kind of compassion that disrupted economic systems, unsettled religious elites, and offended just about everyone in power.

Naturally, this makes him an awkward role model. The “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet sounds cute until you realize the answer is probably: “Get arrested for protesting unjust systems, make friends with society’s rejects, and tell the wealthy to give their stuff away.” Which is decidedly less marketable than a megachurch concert with fog machines.

The Problem With Strangers and Aliens

The essay began with the observation that we all live surrounded by strangers and aliens. This is true. But perhaps the real problem isn’t their existence—it’s our pathological need to label, categorize, and dismiss them. Compassion threatens this system because it forces us to actually engage.

Compassion asks us to cross lines, to sit with discomfort, to share space without controlling it. It dares us to look at the stranger and say, “You, too, are human,” which ruins the entire aesthetic of Us vs. Them. No wonder we avoid it.

So What Do We Do?

Well, if we’re serious (which, to be clear, is highly unlikely), we might try listening more and speaking less. We might consider the weak instead of worshiping the strong. We might even experiment with humility—though let’s not get carried away.

Or, more realistically, we’ll keep tweeting about compassion while practicing its opposite, because hypocrisy has always been more fun. After all, compassion is a virtue best left to saints, philosophers, and people who don’t mind getting their hands dirty. For the rest of us? Thoughts and prayers will do nicely.

Compassion, Our Favorite Fantasy

At the end of the day, compassion is like a gym membership: everyone praises it, few actually use it, and most of us only dust it off when guilt or social pressure demands it. Yet its potential remains. If ever enacted sincerely, compassion might just undermine the politics of hatred, challenge the economics of greed, and humanize the public sphere.

Which is why we’re unlikely to commit to it. Because what would America be without its comforting divisions, its righteous outrage, its self-satisfied charity drives, and its leaders who demonize half the population before breakfast? A better place, perhaps—but certainly a less entertaining one.

So here’s to compassion: the virtue we love in theory, avoid in practice, and joke about in essays. May it continue to haunt us with the possibility that, just maybe, life among strangers and aliens could be more than tolerable. It could be humane. And wouldn’t that be the most ironic outcome of all?

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