All ideas exist in an evolutionary system. New ideas are being produced all the time and the ones that prosper have the best fitness. An idea like this prospers because it has multiple fitness advantages:

- It tells people they are inherently better than other people: "Other people aren't as good as you."

- It excuses their bad behavior: "Your bad behavior is not your fault, you just reached your limit in dealing with bad people. It would happen to anyone".

- It offers a false veneer of being reasonable, even when it is just a framework of excuses. As you say: "It points to a need to balance compassion for self and others."

I don't think such ideas are necessarily engineered this way, but that is why they proliferate.