Nah, I'm not dismissive of it, it is extremely important. Self-love is critical to be able to love others. Still, my point is that compassion and actually helping people should be taught in parallel. It is better in a Sangha, of course, at least mutually.
Consider the story of Buddha’s Dog as my go-to story about how Buddhists are definitely saying you need to actually take action to help people in the world for your own self improvement, it's not enough to just feel sad about things and "want to help".
https://theosophywatch.wordpress.com/2019/06/05/tales-of-enl...
