Any virtue become a vice when pursued in isolation - and the virtue of pity has surely been exploited to the hilt in this fashion.Likewise horror - evoked by the horrible things of the world.
These are standard weapons for the mass media, politics, government, artists, educators and those who seek to manipulate and corrupt us to their own nihilistic agenda.
Unbounded pity is evoked (usually with an implicit threat against those who fail to go along with it); horror is shown or created with the (again totalizing) intention that it cancels, makes a mockery of, any claims of goodness anywhere.
By the power of depiction, aided by the power of imgination, pity and terror are induced and enhanced to stun, transfix and thereby divert or dissipate any attempt at understanding - any attempt at the virtue of prudence which balances virtues and vices - any attempt to attain the comprehension of order and achieve the greatest Goodness.
Thus the prevalence of that special evil of despair - a sin which does no good, but merely evokes even-more pity and horror.
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