CARE Model

In class we discussed the CARE model, which includes the CARE values of compassion, action, responsibility, and equality.

I would say that action is the most important CARE value because without action, all of the other care values would just be words. While words and thoughts are a great place to start, they become practically useless when they are not paired with action of some sort. Action is the verb associated with all the other values, and this is why it is the most important of the four.

Equality is the next most important CARE value, because without equality people would be acting in the wrong way and being compassionate to the wrong people. In addition to this, responsibility would mean nothing if you weren't responsible in the right way. What I mean by this is if you do not value equality, you may be racist. This means you would only be compassionate to people who thought the same way as you, and your actions would reflect your prejudice. So in order for your other values to be useful and productive, you must value equality.

The next most important care value, in my opinion, is responsibility. Without a sense of responsibility, you would not feel obligated to act in a respectful/correct manner. This would case all sorts of problems in the world. For example, even if you were compassionate and felt bad for someone getting bullied, if you did not feel like it was your civic responsibility to step in then the compassion is useless because nothing is being solved.

Lastly, I feel like compassion, while vital to society, is the lowest priority on the CARE value list. This is not because compassion is not important, it is because it is virtually useless unless paired with another value from the CARE model.