Where Does Compassion Fit In Your Approach?

I recently posed the following question to one of the top motivational speakers in the country:

“Where does compassion fit in your approach? Or do you subscribe to the law of attraction viewpoint that suggests that everyone who falls on hard times has somehow attracted their circumstance? And, if so, how would you explain the Holocaust, for example?”

While they did not respond, someone else did weigh in with the following question:

“My question to you @Dr. Jon M. Ketcham would be do you believe that anything remotely close to the Holocaust could happen again to the people affected? If the answer is no I would suggest that THOSE PEOPLE (emphasis added) are attracting something different today. – Just a thought.”

Here is my reply:

“In response to your question, i do not believe that anyone who was impacted by the Holocaust ever “attracted” it in the first place. This whole “Law of Attraction” thing is nothing more than a propagandized approach to feeling good about ourselves and our selfish whims while completely divorcing ourselves from the plight of others. There is not a shred of evidence showing similar behavior, like attracting like, anywhere in nature: not in physics, not in chemistry and not in biology; quite the opposite actually. And, most religious and spiritual texts do not support it either. The Law of Attraction promotes judgement and intolerance under the guise of empathy (awareness of the plight of others so you do not attract similarly) yet is totally devoid of compassion (giving a shit about the plight of others). Do i think a Holocaust-like event could ever take place again? Absolutely! As long as we perpetuate this divisive, we/them mentality, ALL people are at risk. It is likely to occur again and again, over time, for a whole host of seemingly justifiable reasons.”

I share this for the following reason: for as long as any of us can separate out any segment of the population as “those people” we are all very much at risk.