The Politics of Compassion

Download or read book The Politics of Compassion written by Bin Xu (Sociology professor) and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2008 Sichuan earthquake killed 87,000 people and left 5 million homeless. In response to the devastation, an unprecedented wave of volunteers and civic associations streamed into Sichuan to offer help. The Politics of Compassion examines how civically engaged citizens acted on the ground and how they understood the meaning of their actions. Using extensive data from interviews, observations, and textual materials. Bin Xu shows that the large-scale civic engagement was not just a natural outpouring of compassion, but also a complex social process shaped by the authoritarian political context. While volunteers expressed their sympathy toward the affected people's suffering, many avoided explicitly talking about the causes of suffering-particularly regarding the collapse of numerous schools. Xu explains this silence as a general inability to discuss politically sensitive issues while living in a repressive state. This book is a powerful account of how the catastrophic ramifications of the earthquake throw into sharp relief the moral-political dilemma faced by citizens in contemporary China. Book jacket.