Our trouble is this: We want solidarity and salvation to be the same thing. But they’re not. First of all, when we confuse solidarity with salvation, we tend to objectify others. Whenever we see ourselves as saving people, we make ourselves the hero of the story, a moral drama in which we’re riding in on a white horse. In that story, the people we so nobly rescue are just moral props, passive recipients of our kindness and generosity. Aren’t they lucky that we showed up? A lot of compassionate people fall into this trap, failing to see how our desire to save others can be both selfish and
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