Is compassion a weakness, or a strength, in people and in politics?

Hank has called compassion an obligation since 2009, and in 2016 the ultimate manifestation of strength. John said in 2018 that making others weaker is not an effective strategy, and in 2020 that the human project grows stronger by protecting the vulnerable.

Axis: compassion is strength ... compassion is weakness

Concept: empathy

Positions by date: 7 records in 7 videos. The position was refined (2020), never reversed, in these records.

John

date	how	position	video
2018-11-27	first on record	John says trying to become stronger and make others weaker is not a very effective strategy, personally or geopolitically: the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War in the end.	On The Melian Dialogue 00:02:26
2020-06-02	restate	John says he must listen better to Black Americans and marginalized people, believing that listening with openness and empathy moves us toward generosity, advocacy and justice.	--- 00:02:26
2020-10-15	restate	Many are taught that only the strong survive, the powerful doing what they want and the weak suffering what they must, as the Athenians put it; in fact the human project grows stronger by protecting the vulnerable.	Civilization and the Lies We Love 00:02:26
2020-10-27	restate	John thinks Biden would be a fundamentally different president: listening with empathy, building teams of experts instead of concentrating power, leading with decency and humanity.	The time I met Joe Biden 00:02:55

Hank

date	how	position	video
2009-07-07	first on record	Hank argues that compassion, a rational caring for everyone, is a powerful obligation alongside love for those close to us.	Too Much Love will KILL YOU 00:02:11
2016-10-14	restate	Hank rejects the view that compassion is weakness: compassion is the ultimate manifestation of strength, and strength-talk that aggravates fear is weakness.	Compassion, Weakness, and the 2016 Election 00:02:52
2020-10-02 (said on 2020-10-01, implied)	refine	The description says compassion is not forgiveness and not something done for someone else, but something that helps Hank understand the world better.	I ain't she was with well and I so and it's and but so and I'll and video description

Dates are upload dates, which set the order. Where the speaker gives a different recording date in the video, it is added as "said on YYYY-MM-DD, implied" (derived from the date said in the video).