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!
This is also true in Hinduism and Buddhism, it’s just always been convienient for rulers to convince peasents of this
Are we making ppl more insensitive to sex by mass circumcising?
IDK what the point is of this question. Yes, circimcision does make the penis less sensitive, and was implemented in the Christian world to discourage masturbation, implemetned in the ancient world as ritutalistic mutalation, reformed by Abrahamic tradition as a form of harm reduction. Cicumcision was not actually invented by Abraham, the practice predates Judiasm and modern religion.
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.
The idea that the president used to act as a role model is so bizarre to me as a Swede. We’ve had prominent political figures that have had very good reputations, but I can’t imagine anyone considering a politician as a role model. They’re just people that, hopefully, are doing their job. Wanting to emulate a politician, like a prime minister, or a president, just feels scarily like hero worship. Very culty.
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.
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”
right wing propaganda via news, shows and movies is very effectivive. its always seperating “in groups” against outgroups"aka poors, lgbtq+, homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, vs a moral white guy that is always above average. or sometimes they show those wierd racist kinks, like white guy going after asian women. thats how they pacify americans.
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.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Communal action and solidarity are essential for providing benefits to individuals.
You may ask your boss to raise your pay, likely to be rejected, or you can join a union and demand a much higher pay and better working conditions.
You may do your best to add small niceties to shared spaces, or you can unite with your neighbors and make the community thrive.
You may stand alone against injustice, only to be moved when convenient. Or you can walk the streets together, making your shared concerns heard.
Neither of it is actually much ideologically tied, and it can go in any direction. But the point is, collective action is best when addressing issues many people face individually.
Building a culture of self-made individualism is a deliberate attempt to remove the levers of power granted by collective action, and to make it easier to crush dissent on the way to build an authoritarian dystopia.
That’s not to say collective action cannot be abused to make a very ugly society - fascism is one example - but that the best results are achieved when the individuals retain their own views, but are willing to cooperate over the shared issues.
you assume it’s biconditional. it’s not.
you can ask your boss for a raise, and get fired. for a lot of people there is no option for a union. and the smart move is to apply for another job that offers you better wages in another community entirely.
some of us had given a lot to our communities… and told to go f ourselves for not ‘fitting in’ or standing up against that community when it was willing to commit injustice in the name of ‘justice’.
also HOAs are a great way neighbors unite… specifically to oppress everyone else around them by making up all sorts of weird rules and penalties restricting the freedom of others. and if you you have no option to not be in the HOA now in a lot of places because that form of ‘community’ has become pervasive and oppressive in the name of ‘justice’ of preserving property values and creating exclusionary housing. that isn’t facism, it’s the self-interest of the community putting itself way above the interest of any individual who might want different.
Community isn’t necessary a net positive effect, oftentimes it can be totally oppressive. you can organize to create and promote injustice against marginalized people and further marginalize them or straight up criminalize them.
for a lot of people there is no community when shared views are retained. the point of community is submission of your individuality to the ‘greater good’.
I have no empathy nor sympathy left for the right. I would like for them all to bleed out through their eyeballs.
The extreme left are fucking irritating, constantly going on about virtue signalling bullshit that nobody cares about while the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet.
The extreme right want genocide though, it’s not really the same thing…
both left and right extremists virtue signal and would gladly genocide you.
they are the same. they just have different social groups they support/hate.
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.
So how do you feel watching Trump do worse in full view?
The full view thing is … interesting, unique in my experience. It’s one of the few “good” things about the recent unpleasantness. Hopefully all this blatant graft, corruption and just plain evil in clear view leads to some reforms.
When a Republic卐n is publicly nasty, be on guard. They’re doing worse while you’re distracted.
Biden is a conservative
OK instead of looking at it that way, think about how you feel about other people and what other people mean to you.
If someone new is born, does that mean you have a new resource, or a new competition for resources?
Back in the day, a new person meant a extra pair of hands, not just another mouth to feed.
If I died tomorrow, would you care in any material way? I’m not talking about your subjective, passing emotions, I’m talking about if you would feel my loss materially. Would anything be different about your life?
I would. Even just the comment you left here impact my world in a positive way. You probally work too (visable or invisible labor). Your existence, your voice creates space for others.
But that is in sharp contrast to have been told people are just wicked and evil all day and that people just take from the deserving and give nothing back.
I actually do work in a field which benefits others.
I was able to work full time because so many people in my industry quit or died during covid. I probably wouldn’t have a steady paycheck if it weren’t for the deaths of thousands of people. I just couldn’t get my foot in the door. This goes for all industires. The job market has been terrible and way too competitive for my entire adult life. For me to own a home, thousands more would need to also die. Please do not retaliate against me for informing you of this. It’s not my fault, my doing, or my preference.
There aren’t enough housing units to accomodate the population, and for this to change, some people are going to have to either reliquish their property or build more properties. I didn’t set it up this way and me pointing it out doesn’t mean I’m evil or that I want it to be like this.
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
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.
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.
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.?
it’s not personal, it’s business
This mentality is such an ingrained part of corporate culture, and our culture has been centered around corporate life since around when Reagan came into office. The top suggestions for how to survive in this USA culture is to cut off empathy. What’s worse is I think a lot of people have. There’s an air of cruelty to every aspect of this society, from politics to police to medical to social media. Everyone wants a break from the reality of their shitty life, and many are willing to step on others for the hope of an opportunity.
Yes.
