PROJECTION IS NOT COMPASSION.

An apparent element of animal consciousness is projection. Humans project their emotions and deepest defenses all the time on other humans. A human being will often unconsciously dislike another who looks like or acts like himself/herself. Human beings project their own emotions on silently listening authority figures in psychotherapy, for example. I will refer to humans here as I would other animals as neuter. 

Cats and dogs seem to perceive their human hosts as belonging to their respective species. Dogs notoriously challenge their hosts for alpha rank, as though the human host were another dog. House cats, bred from those that are solitary in the wild,  similarly approach their new human host with territorial caution or even territorial testing, as though the human host were another cat. 

Projection is a tool for conscious bonding in the case of pet-human interaction. A symbiosis develops when a human learns how to react to gain the pet's affection and trust, just as the pet learns the same. The human might operate from an intellectual understanding of the pet species, but the human may also simply behave as the social animal or alienated animal it may be. Projection, response, interaction all mix to form that bond, whether intentional or not.

Projection can be a helpful trait when it is tempered with an enlightening response or reaction from the animal screen upon which a human projects. However, other species aren't trained therapists. The needy human projects its great need for affection onto an adopted cat and gets badly scratched for invading the cat's space. A diffident human projects its need to be respected or obeyed onto an adopted alpha dog, and its house gets destroyed whenever it leaves the dog alone. 

Human projection can be dysfunctional with other humans as well. It is too often confused with compassion, for example. I believe the current migration crisis in Europe is a good example. Well meaning Europeans have accepted political policies opening European borders to millions of migrants from non-European and non-Judaic-Christian cultures. While compassion is often cited as the emotional foundation for this largess, it seems more likely that projection is at play. "We are all the same." is a common slogan among those who advocate open borders. 

"We are all the same." is a verbal form of simplistic projection with no real basis in reality when looking at the impact of mass migration on a culture when millions of migrants come into that culture from very different ones. It ignores the impact on both migrants and natives of that culture. That is hardly compassionate. It is presumptive. It can also be destructive.

True compassion is rooted in the acceptance of personal differences with informed/intelligent empathy. In the cases of the adopted animals I mentioned earlier, being compassionate to the dog, which feels secure in a well led pack, means being assertive and in charge, whether on not that is the host's natural temperament. Being compassionate toward the adopted cat means understanding its need to establish a comfort zone in a new territory by leaving it alone to feel its way. 

It is not compassionate to welcome millions of migrants from diverse cultures into a civilized and established alien culture without being extremely cautious to understand their socialized mentality originating in their native cultures. Projecting on them a natural adaptability to the host culture is not compassion. It is simply projection, an animal trait which is instinctual and/or defensive, not necessarily informed or intelligent. 

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