Performative Compassion: When Caring Becomes a Competition

Virtue signaling has become the new gold standard. Rather than flex the size of my bank account or metaphorical penis, my worth is now determined by how many peace signs and flags I place on my lawn or social media account. The more performative my compassion, the more effective my ability to moral grandstand and thus the more I matter.

When did caring become a contest? When did the need to have an opinion about everything and let everyone know what that opinion is become cool?  Even the uninformed brazenly speak about issues they know only a fraction about as a way to feel like they fit in. Our primal nature is the longing for acceptance. No one wants to be cast out of the tribe and left behind to fend for themselves. Perhaps this is why it has become an automatic reflex for people to feel the need to fill the air with their words and opinions. We’ve traded the quiet dignity of our own uncertainty or certainty for the noise of belonging. Performance dressed up as conviction. Whether we believe it or not.

Several decades ago, a friend of mine passed away. She died in a terrorist bombing. When it came time for her funeral and memorial, I noticed people jockeying for the limelight. It was almost as if their actions were screaming, “No I knew her the best. She was my friend.” It was hard to digest what I was witnessing. The idea that anyone would make someone’s death about them was not something I had encountered yet here I was watching it unravel in real time. Performative compassion had now become a competitive sport. As if the grieving process was universal and the automatic assumption was that everyone grieved the same way. The attempt and unspoken pressure I felt to twist my grief into some sordid competition was a perverted manifestation never intended for this world. The performative compassion being thrust upon me along with the desire to show me and everyone else how to care and how much is enough, too much, or just the right amount, was never a lesson I was looking to be taught.

We have drifted away from our ability to be organically authentic while simultaneously yearning to connect. In its place we have adopted performative compassion in our attempt to show others how we wish we felt. Perhaps some of us embody the messages we broadcast on our channels, but I will ask you this: When you believe something so profoundly, why should it matter what anyone else but you thinks? When I meet someone and they feel compelled to tell me who they are and what they stand for in their first breath, I make a point to take a step back. Words are nice but I need action. Actions are the language I speak.

I have been to hell and back. I’ve walked with the devil and politely declined permanent residence. I have lost friends, my career, and my reputation. I even lost myself. When I was a little girl, my dad would hold my hand and turn to me and say “Just remember, when your chips are down, you will see who your real friends are”. I knew his words were of value. The same way he taught me not to trust strangers or stand too close to the end of the driveway. He was teaching me street smarts. Purposely making me aware of the cruel nature of this world without bursting my imaginative bubble or ripping away my naivete. Little did I know the lesson about my chips being down would be an integral part of my destiny.

When Humpty Dumpty (me) fell off the wall and the ground beneath me collapsed, it did not take long for me to see the friends I thought I had quickly run for cover.  It was like watching a mass exodus. Both comical and ironic. “Friends” so desperate to feast on my light, were now sprinting in the opposite direction for fear the bombs blowing up around me would negatively impact them. As if my own personal carnage was contagious and the shrapnel falling from the sky would somehow hit them instead of me, the intended target.

There was no performative compassion for my mental health crisis or the fact that society and the system had failed me. There was no asking how I was doing or if I was okay. There was no posting on social media or placing signs on their porches honoring a crisis they knew existed but didn’t want to acknowledge. It was easier than dealing with the mess or looking in the mirror. I did not blame them for this but recognized the distinction between those who had the courage to approach me directly versus those who treated my isolation like someone who had been infected with some unique undiagnosable highly transmissible disease. What most people don’t understand, they fear. Mental health is not a crisis that receives compassion let alone performative compassion. The paradox is humorous if it were not so sad.

This performative compassion and posturing we have embraced and incorporated into our daily lives is the opposite of authentic. It is a way of making us feel better when our insides are screaming and our minds are spinning from a society so dysfunctional that we feel like we must state the obvious and our nervous systems are demanding we do something. This posturing is that something.

When people think their loudness means they have the moral high ground on something never intended to be a competition, I am reminded of my grandfather who used to poke fun at people and say that the louder someone is, the more right they think they are. I suppose not much has changed.

When people feel powerless, they quickly look for ways in which they can regain that power. Performative compassion and assuming the moral high ground is just another mechanism for accomplishing this. The problem with this, however, is that because it is performative, it is inauthentic in its nature and intent. Real power stands on solid foundations, not ones we create to escape our current reality.

It is unfortunate that we feel like our silence or our small actions are nonexistent if they aren’t posted to receive likes or ample validation. I long to exist in a time when actions are genuine and compassion is not something we do for applause or acceptance, but because it is what’s in our heart. It does not need to be demonstrative or public. It just is and that is enough.