I hear these comments for not wanting to help people, and it feels like we’re worshipping individuality to the detriment of community, which is necessary for survival.
- “I don’t want my money going to ___ .”
- “This is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic!”
- “You don’t have any freedoms under socialism/communism.”
- “They’re just looking for a handout because they’re lazy.”
- “I’m a self-made man. I didn’t need anyone’s help.”
- “Empathy is not a virtue.”
- “I don’t see how that’s my problem.”
This is largely an American problem, although it is spreading due to global media.
I blame it largely on Calvinism and the prosperity gospel:
“Good things come to good people” -> “If good things didn’t come to you, you’re not a good person” -> “Poor people are poor because they are bad people, and we should not help them” -> “It’s okay to help billionaires, they wouldn’t be rich if they weren’t good people”
A lot of poor people have this view in the US, which you would think would make them reconsider it, but they solve this with mental gymnastics: They and their in-group are good people, so obviously it’s okay to help them and the good things are coming any second. Another reason not to tax rich people, they’ll be one soon!
Our president is a felon rapist pedophile.
That’s absolutely going to have an influence on young, impressionable minds.
The president is…well, used to be…a person that, among other things, acted as a role model. Now kids are going to be looking to that role model and seeing a felon rapist pedophile that reached the top of our societal structure and they’re going to emulate.
Our society was already sick. Now it’s terminal.
Remember when we used to say someone is “acting Presidential”, back then it didn’t mean tweeting a bunch of derogatory things and grabbing women.
Is not about eliminating empathy. That party is a side effect of carpet bombing anything the left values. It’s just another “makes libs cry”
From my own observations it appears that empathy is rapidly being worn away by hatred. Its hard to empathize with things that go contrary to one’s ideas of correctness
Just had this discussions on Christmas. Jesuses teachings are pretty explicit that followers are supposed to be charitable and compassionate and give freely and help those they can. Talking to some conservative Christian about it they said they were finding it very hard not to be cynical and see every case of charity as just fraud.
To the point where not imprisoning people for trying to move somewhere for work is something they really consider charity.
It’s a sharp contradiction to me
“Back in the day” a lot more people went to church on a regular basis. They also beat their children on a regular basis, and a much larger percentage of those children grew up to perpetrate violence, domestic and otherwise, in their adult lives.
The core teachings of Jesus, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and the rest are good. People standing in the pulpit saying whatever it takes to fill the pews and get donations… less good on average. Theory is easier than putting that theory into faithful practice.
I have no empathy nor sympathy left for the right. I would like for them all to bleed out through their eyeballs.
After watching Israel slaughter tens of thousands of our children while Biden lied and covered for them and have them everything they wanted, i have no empathy nor sympathy left for anyone who isn’t ready for a revolution and calls enthusiastic support for genocide “the lesser evil”.
They’re all Nazis, both sides, and I have zero respect left for anyone who only cares about them and theirs and their life domestically. I have no empathy for anyone who lives in and benefits from the imperial core and doesn’t have empathy for the victims of the empire.
I don’t have sympathy and empathy left for them. When a dear friend told me his mother died, I tried so hard to find an emotion, and I just remembered all the lost children he refused to speak up for and came up empty. Fuck you and your dead mother, I thought as I said I’m sorry for your loss.
Biden is a conservative
MAGA conservatives are literally unable to feel empathy. There have been scientific studies showing the connection between the brain structures that feel empathy and political leaning
It is our duty to encourage empathy in others, otherwise waves arms
USA culture has always been this way. It’s what made us different from Europe and a huge beacon for immigration.
The idea that you can just do what you want and fuck what everyone else thinks, esp your community.
Is worshiping community to the detriment of individuality better? You forget that most communities are highly oppressive and discriminatory, they only want the ‘right’ people to be a part of them. If you challenge the tenants of the community, you will be punished, including expulsion or violence.
These values are cyclical in history. Mostly they persist until the system breaks down and then there is a surge of solidarity which sets things back on the path until people start thinking all their advantages came from their own ability and then the cycle repeats.
The early 1900’s was fairly communal but the great war and the 1920’s was filled with this sentiment of individuality until the depression crashed it out and then there was a split - a combo of Union efforts, reinvestment in government systems and extreme solidarity out of nessesity in the US/UK and the same time toxic individuality caused a canabalization of society in fascist areas of Europe. The World War created more extreme communal solidarity. In the areas where there was union resistance and communal solidarity legislation to keep businesses in check was installed and that gave way to pushback from business interest. As solidarity continued there was more general prosperity and you started seeing marginalized communities start to speak up. Racial communities, disability communities, queer communities - those who had been denied the comfort everyone else was taking for granted popped up and fought like hell for empathy and some made bigger wins than others…but then you start seeing the push back. Austerity gospel via Regan and Thatcher “there is no society just individuals and families” and all those safeguards and solidarity that were put in place to solve the crash of the 30’s started to be undone and slandered as “too much overreach”.
Looking at the UK if you go back even further you see this cycle repeat work backwards and you see it. Victorian workhouse systems replacing the welfare state and then being discarded as cruel. The Georgian fight for the poor law and charity and the industrial revolution’s runaway excess of the rich that fed people into the meat grinder of labour and erroded poor law to force compliance.
Empathy’s time will come again but apparently we need to be reminded by virtue of horror what the cost of this kind of inviduality is.
the cost of this kind of inviduality is.
The thing is, it’s a rare individual who “benefits” from the direction we are continuing to move in. Unless they’re a bunch of sadists who like watching the rest of the world suffer while they insulate themselves with security forces, that they can’t really trust, because where do you get the people to maintain the security?
A society where the richest can walk down High Street in London without a thought to “personal security” is better for the people at the top, too. Unless they’re sadists.
It’s by design.
The spread of the superhero (Übermenschen) to ubiquity in pop culture, especially Hollywood, the punishing and assumption of evil within destitute people, the indoctrination of children (pledge of allegiance et al), the selective curricula that largely keep the general education from showing the populace of the US that their country is more closely related to a self styled African dictatorship than a modern social democracy. Usanians frequently utter “it’s not personal, it’s business”. That is the hallmark of declining hegemon and roughly translates to “fuck you, got mine”.
roughly translates to “fuck you, got mine”.
In the US you much more frequently hear it the other way around: “I got mine, now you fuck off.” Until they “get theirs” they maintain the pretense of sociability.
The spread of the superhero (Übermenschen) to ubiquity in pop culture, especially Hollywood
You mean, like Superman (1938), Flash Gordon (1936), Captain Marvel (1941), etc.?
These are age old comments, I heard all of them from a very young age. It’s been there the whole time.
And it’s been working. For a long time.
Yes. We have become a nation of de facto sovereign citizens. The average American thinks of nothing past the crummy job, the soul breaking commute, the mortgage, and another Ben Franklin for the third star on the fourth stripe on little Ayngylynn’s tae kwon do white belt. Frank Freeway and Susie Soccermom are too wrapped up in themselves to care what kind of people we are.
Back in 1997, my sociology professor said the US would become the meanest society in history. And OMFFSM, I see it everywhere. There’s no more sense of community or even common courtesy. Hurt the other guy or get hurt. Violence over small things will soon be commonplace and inescapable. We will all have to be armed, much as we may hate it. This is all by design.
Ignore. Empathy is hot.
The new “hyperindividualism” trend is sad to look into too.
Yes.
