This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »
Have you signed the Charter for Compassion, and if not, why not?
The Charter for Compassion was opened for people to affirm in November 2009.
I signed it last night, and was the 88390th person to do so. Tonight it is up to 88429.
Nearly 1/2 a million people have watched Karens' TED talk announcing the Charter.
So why haven't more people signed it?
Perhaps you didn't know about it? I've only just found it out of over a thousand TED talks. Perhaps you watched the talk, but were too busy to look at the charter website? Perhaps you took a dislike to Karen?
I hope there wasn't anyone who didn't sign because they are opposed to the idea of compassion!
Maybe you are a non-believer and thought it was only a religious thing. It's not.
Read it. It asks you affirm a principle which is at the heart of secular codes of morality as well as religious ones, a principle which may be hard wired into our brains.
So have you signed it? Have a look at the charter itself (ignore the talks, all the other stuff on the charter website) and if you can't sign, please tell me why. What would have to be different for you to accept it!
There are 1.2 million TED community members. Let's see if we can give the charter a boost and stand up and be counted in the process?
http://charterforcompassion.org
Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.
Robert Mayer 20+
Nigel Bamber
I know that I can't fulfil the charter 100%. Already lost my rag at someone who pulled out in front of my car on the way to work, hitting the horn and feeling full of righteous aggrievement. Then I thought, "What am I doing? I signed the Charter for Compassion the other night". It made me feel a right idiot and defused my anger. I should have been working for peace on the road, instead of wanting justice for having been nearly crashed into. For the rest of the journey I was giving way to people on the road all over the place. But the memory of signing the charter will fade. What will happen in a month or twos' time in a similar situation. Perhaps I should have a charter that I sign every evening or week to reinforce the compassionate concept in myself.
This regular reinforcement of concepts is something that is done very effectively by ritual in lots of religions. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent process in the secular world. Alain de Botton does a very interesting TED talk on the lessons that the secular world can learn from the religeous world.
Robert Mayer 20+
Nigel Bamber