Compassion is Bad.

 This Sep. 23, 2019 email response from Grant Sterling to 'Gich' resulted in a long thread on the International Stoic Forum

G:

    To have "compassion" means to share a passion with someone.  Passions are bad.  Ergo, compassion is bad.
    Someone loses a loved one.  They falsely believe that the death is evil.  As a result, they feel grief.  I come along and have compassion--I share their grief, because I share their false belief that the death was evil.  Confusion with regard to the things that are good and evil has led me to this bad condition. 
    Kindness and generosity have to do with aiming to make the lives of other people better (by helping them with or or providing them preferred indifferents, or by encouraging them towards Virtue and true goodness).  That's certainly correct for a Stoic--indeed, that's Stoic Love. But that's consistent with recognizing that externals are neither good nor evil.  Once I start sharing other peoples' grief, anger, etc., then I have lost my own eudaimonia, and will not be any more effective (and may be less effective) in helping them. 

    To put it another way...I can try to help you deal with the death of your loved one without accepting your false judgment that the death was truly evil.  I can be kind, without being compassionate.

    Regards,
        GCS


If we consider the ''good feelings' of kindness, generosity, warmth and friendliness together we arrive at compassion it seems to me. But Epictetus condemns compassion ...

[Epictetus, Discourse 2.21, Of inconsistency] ... Most men will confess that they are compassionate. What then is the reason? The chief thing is inconsistency and confusion in the things which relate to good and evil. ...

Any thoughts?

Regards,

Gich


http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0236%3Atext%3Ddisc%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D21