The cure for a bleeding heart

I’m reading a book titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins. According to this autobiographical tale, John worked for years as an economist whose main job was to cajole third world countries, especially those of geopolitical significance to the US, to take out huge loans that he knew they couldn’t afford. The loans were supposed to be used for infrastructure development. The developers the countries hired would naturally be US companies. Once these countries defaulted on their loans, as Perkins says everyone knew they would, they would be indebted to the US. This indebtedness would make the countries much more likely to cooperate with US interests all the while leaving them in sometimes worse conditions than before. Perkins struggles with his conscience throughout, but all of those sleepless nights and pangs of guilt never stops him from doing his job. His heart bleeds for the poor and downtrodden of these nations, but he keeps selling their governments on loans he knows they can't repay anyway.

And that illustrates one of my main problems with bleeding hearts. So many of them are hypocrites of just this type. By the time Perkins writes this book, he has seen the light and is attempting to make amends by spreading the word about the evil empire that is the US. What isn't spelled out in the book is that he now runs high priced seminars discussing the topic of his book and self help subjects in general, in luxury locations and at little economic risk to himself since he apparently remarried well. Which would earn my admiration normally. After all, he's moved from exploiting third world countries to a public all too ready to feel guilt about its relative wealth and to project shame. The bleeding heart leftist tone his book has taken so far is too annoying though. He doesn't have the good sense and the courage to admit what he's doing and enjoy the game. He condemns the imperialist agenda of US corporations while acting as one of their chief agents. Liberals like this so often pass judgment on the greed of others from their McMansions and cross the world preaching the virtues of environmentalism using their private jets. And liberals aren’t the only type of bleeding heart. Social conservatives for example wail loud and long about the evils of abortion and the virtues of being pro-life while exulting in a righteous crusade against Islam, which they euphemistically call a “War on Terror,” and are in love with the death penalty. So much for that pro-life thing, huh? How can conservatives also be bleeding hearts? For the purposes of this post, you know you have a bleeding heart when you romanticize something out of reality and despise anything or anyone who contradicts your fantasy.

Suffering from a bleeding heart doesn’t just breed hypocrisy. It’s blinding. The bleeding hearts of the world refuse to see the realities staring them in the face. Liberals refuse to acknowledge that changing society and government won’t transform a selfish and often dumb human nature, while conservatives refuse to see that there is nothing sacred about the past or tradition and that sometimes innovation is necessary. Those are just two obvious examples. By not seeing and grappling with reality as it presents itself, you make yourself ineffectual, inefficient and ineffective. You make yourself stupid.

What’s the cure for a bleeding heart? A huge dose of reality. Become a realist. Open your eyes. Become curious about the world around you. Take in as much of it as you can. Learn to describe it as you see it and not as you wish it would be or could be. Then go deeper. Look for the roots of what you see. When examining other people, look first at their deeds and not their words. Practice detachment from your own feelings and behavior as well to gain as much objectivity about yourself as possible. In all these ways and more, you can make the switch from romantic idealist to pragmatist, from bleeding heart to realist.