A diner having a row with a waiter in a swanky restaurant chills the blood in a way that a quarrel over a pizza order elsewhere would never do. Compassion is rarely the custom of the privileged.
Interpretation
Social status can impact the way we view conflicts and compassion in different settings.
Derren Brown's quote highlights the stark contrast in how quarrels are perceived based on social context. A conflict in an upscale restaurant evokes stronger emotions and judgments, particularly around issues of privilege and compassion, compared to a more mundane situation like a disagreement over a pizza. This suggests that our social environments shape not only our experiences but also our responses to them.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about privilege during a debate.
Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practise anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.
What I do is rooted in magic - it's got a big foot planted firmly in conjuring, even if the other foot's planted in psychological techniques.
Feeling we have to be constantly updated about the lives of our friends and that everything we say has to be out there leads to frustration, anger and jealousy much more than it leads to anything else.
We go through life owned by the stories we tell ourselves which are often historic and charged narratives - things we've learnt since childhood that we don't even consciously realise are going on.
Clearly if a hypnotist could make someone to steal £100k just by telling them to, the world would be a different place, and I suspect that hypnotists wouldn't bother doing shows in pubs or dodgy Spanish holiday resorts.
It's a controlling thing on stage - you're directing the action, getting people to play their role. In real life, I take being kind and nice seriously, so the last thing I'd ever want to be is that weird, controlling, manipulative character.
All that you think is rain is not. Behind the veil angels sometimes weep.
Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.
We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.
Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him-and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.
Honest difference of views and honest debate are not disunity. They are the vital process of policy among free men.
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
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