When Rules Lose Compassion: Classification and Exclusion in Modern Society from Christian and Buddhist Perspectives
In human society, rules were originally created to protect people, justice was intended to prevent harm, and confidentiality was meant to preserve human dignity. Yet when these principles become embedded in vast systems of power, they sometimes undergo a transformation. What was originally intended to protect people gradually becomes a means of scrutinising, classifying, and excluding them. Principles that were meant to hold the powerful accountable may instead become reasons for the powerful to protect themselves, refuse to provide explanations, and evade responsibility.
A strange phenomenon then emerges in society: a person may be procedurally correct in every respect yet remain completely indifferent to another person’s suffering. An institution may repeatedly proclaim its respect for people while demanding that ordinary individuals surrender ever-increasing amounts of personal information. It may invoke “privacy protection” to avoid explaining its decisions to those affected, while invoking “risk management” to justify the increasingly detailed collection, screening, and classification of people’s identities, relationships, histories, and behaviour. Ultimately, some people are judged to be normal, reliable, and eligible, while others are placed into categories deemed suspicious, unqualified, or unworthy of trust.
Although these modern terms did not exist in ancient times, the moral dangers they contain are not new. Christianity and Buddhism have long warned that one of the easiest mistakes for human beings to make is to elevate themselves in the name of justice, purity, and morality, while reducing others to people who are unclean, illegitimate, or unworthy of being approached. Neither religion rejects principles, but both point out that once principles are separated from compassion and from the realities of human life, they may be appropriated by power and turned into instruments of hypocrisy and exclusion.
The Gospel of Mark records that Jesus and his disciples were walking through the grainfields on the Sabbath. Because they were hungry, the disciples began to pick heads of grain. The Pharisees therefore questioned Jesus: why were his disciples doing what was not permitted on the Sabbath?
The Sabbath had originally been instituted so that people could cease from labour and receive rest. Under strict religious interpretations, however, it had gradually become a standard by which to judge who was law-abiding and who was sinful. Faced with an approach that placed the institution above human need, Jesus said:
> “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
> —Mark 2:27
What this statement reveals is not merely an interpretation of the Sabbath, but a profound religious principle: rules exist to help people; people do not exist to prove that rules are always right.
If a system was originally intended to protect life but later requires people to continue suffering when that suffering could be avoided, or if those administering it can clearly see a person’s difficulty yet respond only by saying, “Those are the rules,” then they may have preserved the outward appearance of the rule while betraying the very purpose for which it was created.
Jesus did not simply abolish the law. What he opposed was the transformation of law into an instrument of self-justification: I have obeyed it, so I am righteous; you have failed to obey it, so you are beneath me. Why you were unable to comply, and what suffering you may be enduring, are then treated as matters of no further concern.
Thus, when the Pharisees criticised Jesus for eating with tax collectors and people who were regarded at the time as sinners, Jesus replied:
> “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
> “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
> —Matthew 9:12–13
“Sacrifice” represents religious conduct that can be seen, measured, and displayed before others. “Mercy,” by contrast, requires a person to enter genuinely into another person’s circumstances and recognise that person’s weakness and suffering.
Jesus was not saying that sacrifice was necessarily wrong in itself. He was saying that if someone conscientiously performs every ritual yet refuses to approach those who suffer, that person’s devotion may be no more than an outward appearance. True faith does not mean standing safely among those considered pure and declaring others guilty. It means continuing to treat an excluded person as a complete human being.
This criticism reaches particular severity in Matthew 23. The scribes and Pharisees scrupulously gave a tenth even of their mint, dill, and cumin. In minor matters of outward form, they appeared almost beyond reproach. Yet Jesus said to them:
> “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!”
He condemned them because they had neglected:
> “the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.”
> —Matthew 23:23
The central issue was not simply whether details should be observed. It was that the proper moral order had been reversed. They attached great importance to things that were easy to record, inspect, and use as evidence of their own righteousness, while neglecting what truly mattered: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
The same tendency can be seen in some modern institutions. Their documentation may be complete, every approval may be in place, every step may have been recorded, and every decision may be supported by some rule. Yet no one may accept responsibility for asking whether the person affected by the decision was treated fairly or whether anyone truly listened to that person’s difficulties.
The more elaborate the formal process becomes, the easier it may be for those administering it to tell themselves, “I have done everything I was required to do.” The rule then becomes a form of moral exemption. The procedure makes the judgement on a person’s behalf while insulating that person from the discomfort of conscience.
Jesus therefore continued his criticism:
> “You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”
> —Matthew 23:25
He also said:
> “On the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
> —Matthew 23:28
This is what Christianity calls hypocrisy: a person or organisation continually presents itself as correct, responsible, and respectful of others, while its true purposes may be to protect its own interests, preserve its power, control risk, and avoid responsibility.
The second chapter of the Letter of James describes a particularly concrete scene. A rich man wearing a gold ring and fine clothes enters an assembly, and people offer him a good seat. A poor man in shabby clothes also enters, but he is told to stand aside or sit on the floor by someone’s feet.
The text states directly:
> “If you show favouritism, you sin.”
> —James 2:9
“Favouritism” here does not refer merely to judging someone by physical appearance. It also includes judging people according to wealth, identity, occupation, reputation, or social position. A person should not automatically receive greater respect merely because he possesses more resources and is better able to prove his legitimacy. Nor should another person be treated as having less value because he is poor, has difficulty expressing himself, possesses incomplete documentation, or has fallen under suspicion.
The parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke illustrates this religious spirit even more fully. A man was attacked by robbers on the road, beaten, and left lying there. A priest and then a Levite passed by. Both possessed recognised and respected religious status, yet each went past on the other side. The person who finally stopped to help the injured man was a Samaritan—a member of a group excluded and despised by many Jews at the time. He bandaged the man’s wounds, took him to an inn, and paid the cost of his care.
Jesus asked:
> “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
The answer was:
> “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus then said:
> “Go and do likewise.”
> —Luke 10:36–37
Here, “neighbour” does not merely mean someone who lives nearby. It refers to a person whom I should care for and treat as a fellow human being—as someone close enough to deserve my concern.
The background to the story is that an expert in the law had first asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” The implied question was: whom am I obligated to love? Only members of my own people? Those of my own religion? People close to me? Who falls outside the boundaries of my duty to care?
Jesus did not answer by providing a list of people who qualified for assistance. Instead, he told this story:
• A man was attacked by robbers, beaten, and left beside the road.
• A priest passed by but did not help him.
• A Levite passed by but did not help him.
• The third traveller was a Samaritan. He stopped, bandaged the man’s wounds, took him to an inn, and assumed the cost of his care.
At that time, deep religious and ethnic hostility existed between Jews and Samaritans. The most surprising feature of the story is therefore that two men with the “right” identities and respected religious positions failed to help, while the person who truly showed mercy belonged to a group despised and excluded by Jewish society.
After telling the story, Jesus did not ask, “Whose neighbour was the injured man?” Instead, he asked:
> “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
> —Luke 10:36
The expert in the law replied:
> “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus then said:
> “Go and do likewise.”
> —Luke 10:37
This reversal is highly significant. The expert’s original question—“Who qualifies as my neighbour?”—was an attempt to define the limits of his obligation to care. Jesus reversed the question: “Are you willing to become the neighbour of the person who is suffering?”
A “neighbour,” therefore, is not a status conferred upon someone only after that person has satisfied certain conditions. It is a relationship of care that I actively establish with another person. Jesus’ meaning may be expressed in this way:
Do not ask only, “Does this person belong to a group that I am required to help?” Ask instead, “When this person suffers, can I become the one who is willing to help?”
“Go and do likewise” does indeed mean that people should follow the example of the third traveller:
• Do not decide whether to help according to ethnicity, religion, identity, or social judgement.
• Do not imitate the first two travellers by finding reasons to pass by on the other side.
• Do not merely profess support for love and justice.
• When confronted with actual suffering, stop and take meaningful action.
• Do not offer only a momentary expression of sympathy; be willing to assume real costs in time, money, and responsibility.
This directly reflects the central argument of this essay. The first two travellers possessed recognised religious status, yet failed to express religion’s most fundamental mercy. The third belonged to an excluded group, yet it was he who truly practised the religious spirit.
The heart of the story, therefore, is not simply that we should “help our neighbours.” Its meaning is deeper:
Whatever a suffering person’s ethnicity, religion, identity, or classification, if that person is before you and needs help, he is someone for whom you should care—and you should actively become his neighbour.
Buddhism expresses a similar spirit in different language.
The Buddha lived in ancient India, where society was governed by a rigid caste system. A person’s status was often determined at birth. Some were considered naturally pure and worthy of respect, while others were regarded as low, unclean, or even contaminating to those who came into contact with them.
In response to this system of classifying people by birth and identity, the Buddha declared in the Vasala Sutta of the Sutta Nipāta:
> “Not by birth is one an outcast; not by birth is one a brahmin. By deeds one becomes an outcast; by deeds one becomes a brahmin.”
> —*Vasala Sutta*, *Sutta Nipāta*
In the Vāseṭṭha Sutta, the Buddha similarly said:
> “One is not a brahmin by birth … by action one is a brahmin.”
> —*Vāseṭṭha Sutta*, *Sutta Nipāta*
The word “brahmin” referred to the caste regarded at the time as the highest and purest in society. The Buddha’s point was that a person’s true worth is not determined by birth, family, title, or social identity, but is expressed through conduct.
From a Buddhist perspective, many of the identities assigned by society are conventional names created by collective agreement. Such names may help society organise practical affairs, but they cannot become a person’s essential nature. When people absolutise these categories, they forget that those assigned to different groups all grow old, become ill, experience fear, lose those they love, desire respect, and wish to be free from suffering.
Modern society may no longer openly use labels such as caste, but it can continue to produce new classifications: trustworthy and suspicious, normal and high-risk, eligible and ineligible, worthy and unworthy of protection. Classification may sometimes serve a practical purpose. But when someone placed within a particular category loses the opportunity to be heard, understood, and treated as an individual, classification ceases to be merely an administrative tool. It begins to acquire the power of a system of social rank.
Buddhism also offers a profound warning about rules and teachings themselves. In the Alagaddūpama Sutta—the Discourse on the Simile of the Snake—in the Majjhima Nikāya, the Buddha tells the famous parable of the raft.
A man comes to a river. The near shore is dangerous, while the far shore is safe. He gathers branches and grass and binds them together to make a raft. With the help of the raft, he crosses the river. After reaching safety, however, he should not carry the raft permanently on his back simply because it once helped him.
The Buddha said:
> “I have taught the Dhamma as similar to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding on to.”
> —*Majjhima Nikāya* 22, *Alagaddūpama Sutta*
Even the Buddha’s teaching is a means of helping sentient beings cross beyond affliction and suffering; it must not become a new object of attachment. Human rules, therefore, should certainly not be treated as absolute entities that can never be examined or questioned.
The value of a raft lies in whether it helps people cross the river, not in how perfect its construction appears. In the same way, the value of a principle should be judged by whether it genuinely reduces deception, harm, and suffering—not merely by whether the process is orderly, the documentation is complete, or responsibility has been formally allocated.
If a raft no longer helps a person cross the river but is instead tied to his body so that he cannot walk, there is no meaning in continuing to insist, “This is a proper raft.” The same is true of rules. If a rule has ceased to be a means of protecting people and has instead become a burden pressing down upon them, it must be reconsidered in light of its original purpose.
Buddhism also identifies attachment to rites and observances as a mistaken view that binds living beings. This does not refer to sincere ethical discipline. It refers to the mistaken belief that the mechanical performance of certain outward forms can by itself prove that one is pure, correct, or superior to others.
The true purpose of moral precepts is to reduce killing, deception, greed, and harm to living beings. If a person outwardly observes the precepts but becomes proud, thinking, “I am purer than others,” or excludes others in the name of preserving purity, then the precepts have already been appropriated by attachment to self and conceit. Outwardly, the person appears to be distancing himself from evil; inwardly, he may be cultivating contempt, indifference, and aversion.
In Aṅguttara Nikāya 6.63, the Buddha said:
> “It is intention that I call kamma; having intended, one acts through body, speech, and mind.”
> —*Aṅguttara Nikāya* 6.63
This teaching shows that Buddhism does not assess an action only by whether its outward form satisfies a rule. It also considers the intention behind the action.
A person may outwardly claim to be protecting others while actually seeking to expand control. He may appear to be preserving order while in reality protecting his own power. He may claim to respect people’s confidential information while using that claim to prevent them from understanding decisions that directly affect their interests—even as ordinary people are continually required to surrender more of their own information.
Therefore, saying, “I followed the requirements,” does not automatically establish moral innocence. Buddhism would continue to ask: What was your true intention? Did it arise from compassion and wisdom, or from fear, craving, the desire for control, and the wish to evade responsibility? Did it ultimately reduce the suffering of living beings, or did it increase that suffering?
Verse 5 of the Dhammapada also states:
> “Hatred is never appeased by hatred; by non-hatred alone is hatred appeased.”
This does not require people to abandon the distinction between right and wrong, nor does it require society to tolerate harm. Rather, it reveals that if a society continually creates suspicion through suspicion, answers exclusion with exclusion, and uses humiliation to correct wrongdoing, it is unlikely to eliminate the problem. It will more likely cause fear and hostility to grow.
A person who is subjected to suspicion and exclusion over a long period may gradually lose trust in society. The way society treats that person may then influence the way he treats others. Conversely, when someone who has made a mistake or fallen into difficulty is still treated fairly and humanely, he is more likely to pass that kindness on to others. Compassion is not indulgence toward wrongdoing. It is a means of preventing harm from continuing to spread.
Viewed in this way, Christianity and Buddhism use different language but point towards the same essential truth.
Christianity teaches that the law was made for people, and that what truly matters is justice, mercy, and faithfulness. If something appears righteous outwardly but is inwardly filled with greed, indifference, and hypocrisy, then its justice is only a shell.
Buddhism teaches that identities and names are not a person’s essential nature, and that the teachings themselves are like a raft for crossing a river. If people become attached to outward forms and develop discriminatory thinking, self-attachment, and conceit, then even a tool originally intended to free living beings from suffering may itself become a form of bondage.
The problem, therefore, is not that society should have no laws, principles, or protection for personal confidentiality. The real questions are: Whom do these things protect, and who bears their cost?
If they primarily protect powerful institutions—allowing those institutions to avoid explanation and responsibility—while ordinary people bear the consequences of scrutiny, suspicion, and exclusion, then they have departed from their original purpose. If a person’s worth increasingly depends upon whether he can produce sufficient documentation, prove that he presents no risk, or gain admission to an approved category, then human dignity has been reduced to a conditional qualification.
The true religious spirit requires us to return continually to several fundamental questions. Are we protecting people, or merely protecting the system? Are we reducing harm, or using the language of correctness to transfer suffering to others? When someone experiences injustice and exclusion, do we stop like the Good Samaritan, or do we pass by like the priest and the Levite, using an apparently legitimate reason? Do we use principles to restrain our own greed and pride, or do we use them to judge others and elevate ourselves?
What religion truly seeks to transform is not, first of all, the labels attached to other people, but the greed, pride, indifference, and discriminatory thinking within our own hearts.
A society that truly embodies the Christian spirit will not allow the law to consume the human person. It will restore the law to justice, mercy, and faithfulness. A society that truly embodies the Buddhist spirit will not mistake names and identities for a person’s essential nature. Beneath all distinctions, it will recognise the suffering shared by living beings and their common desire to be free from suffering.
Justice without mercy becomes cruelty. Morality without humility becomes hypocrisy. Precepts without compassion become bondage. A system that invokes protection but serves only power may ultimately become an instrument of exclusion and oppression.
True justice is not merely proving that we have done nothing wrong. It is retaining the willingness, especially when we possess power, to see another person’s circumstances. True purity does not mean distancing ourselves from those considered impure. It means refusing to allow our own hearts to be governed by greed, pride, fear, and indifference.