Empathy works great when you live in a small village and everyone knows each other. It breaks down completely when you get to a city where almost everyone you see is always a stranger.
You can take the most caring person you know who is always happy to help out or offer a shoulder to cry on. Put them onto a crowded subway with the unkempt, the unruly, people with untreated mental illnesses talking out loud or yelling, and they’ll feel threatened and keep their head down.
Generally it doesn’t even have to be anywhere near that extreme. Most people don’t want random people talking to them, even without any aggression involved. Now there are some rare people who feel comfortable engaging those situations but most people absolutely do not. The other side of the coin is that (when watching disasters on the news or whatever) people don’t feel empathy for statistics at all, they need to see a face to empathize with.
Lastly, I will say that empathy does guide public decision making more than it should in a lot of cases. People will engage in stranger danger moral panics or support the “war on terrorism” much more readily than they’ll support attempts to curtail car accident deaths, despite the latter killing far more than the former two combined.
Empathy co-exists with self-preservation and boundary setting. Your example of people on a subway says nothing about empathy. Not wanting people to talk to you says nothing about empathy. Empathy does not demand extroversion. Being scared says nothing about empathy. Manipulating people into panic where they fear for themselves or others and make decisions on that basis does not disprove empathy. Every single example is a red herring based on a false dichotomy.
Also, scale historically increases empathy. The more we have become a connected global society, the more empathy has increased for others around the world.
Lastly, I will say that empathy does guide public decision making more than it should in a lot of cases. People will engage in stranger danger moral panics or support the “war on terrorism” much more readily than they’ll support attempts to curtail car accident deaths, despite the latter killing far more than the former two combined.
Call it whatever you want, empathy is part of the process. When people fear terrorist attacks, they’re empathizing with the victims. They’re literally imagining themselves in that situation and that is what produces their fear response. Exploitation of fear is exploitation of empathy, by definition.
For whatever reason, people can’t seem to muster up the same empathy for victims of a car crash.
You have a very valid point. In 1970, the American population was just over 180 million. Today it is almost double that. It would not be a stretch to posit that American empathy at the voting booth has decreased over progressive US Presidents since then, as the population increased.
It is also interesting to note that empathy in Canada (a much smaller population) at the voting booth has historically been and is still a lot stronger than it is in America.
But I would also suggest that democracy in general weakens the larger the voting population becomes, and it would be fair to say that democracy does not scale.
Oh yes, I’m a firm believer that democracy is bad, and people know this intuitively but they forget because they’re taught to reflexively support democracy and criticize everything else.
People love to trash capitalism on Lemmy but praise socialism and democracy. When it comes to which t shirt style I get to wear, I vastly prefer capitalism. If that were a democratic choice we’d all be wearing the same t shirt!
Or maybe we would be wearing the shirt that helped twice as many people as there are Americans out of poverty in one country - the socialist system of China. China actually has a system of democracy that scales perfectly, unlike the American system that flounders at scale.
China is the place where, if someone hits you with their car by accident, they’ll stop and run you over to finish you off, in order to avoid paying your family for caring for you and your injuries.
It’s nothing to do with race and everything to do with ideology. I have close friends whose parents survived the cultural revolution. They would tell you the same thing.
Your last paragraph is on point. Empathy can be manipulated, objective fact based reasoning is less susceptible. Empathy deserves a seat at the table, but not at the expense of objective reasoning, the latter which plays a much larger role in providing benefits for the majority of a society at large.
As much as I hate to admit it, you’re pretty accurate here. However, there is one thing I’d like to offer: you can train yourself to be more empathetic. It’s hard and requires an open mind not just for the people around you but also in regard to your own self-awareness, but it IS doable.
Because empathy doesn’t scale.
Empathy works great when you live in a small village and everyone knows each other. It breaks down completely when you get to a city where almost everyone you see is always a stranger.
You can take the most caring person you know who is always happy to help out or offer a shoulder to cry on. Put them onto a crowded subway with the unkempt, the unruly, people with untreated mental illnesses talking out loud or yelling, and they’ll feel threatened and keep their head down.
Generally it doesn’t even have to be anywhere near that extreme. Most people don’t want random people talking to them, even without any aggression involved. Now there are some rare people who feel comfortable engaging those situations but most people absolutely do not. The other side of the coin is that (when watching disasters on the news or whatever) people don’t feel empathy for statistics at all, they need to see a face to empathize with.
Lastly, I will say that empathy does guide public decision making more than it should in a lot of cases. People will engage in stranger danger moral panics or support the “war on terrorism” much more readily than they’ll support attempts to curtail car accident deaths, despite the latter killing far more than the former two combined.
I totally disagree.
Empathy co-exists with self-preservation and boundary setting. Your example of people on a subway says nothing about empathy. Not wanting people to talk to you says nothing about empathy. Empathy does not demand extroversion. Being scared says nothing about empathy. Manipulating people into panic where they fear for themselves or others and make decisions on that basis does not disprove empathy. Every single example is a red herring based on a false dichotomy.
Also, scale historically increases empathy. The more we have become a connected global society, the more empathy has increased for others around the world.
That is not empathy, it’s exploitation of fear.
Call it whatever you want, empathy is part of the process. When people fear terrorist attacks, they’re empathizing with the victims. They’re literally imagining themselves in that situation and that is what produces their fear response. Exploitation of fear is exploitation of empathy, by definition.
For whatever reason, people can’t seem to muster up the same empathy for victims of a car crash.
You have a very valid point. In 1970, the American population was just over 180 million. Today it is almost double that. It would not be a stretch to posit that American empathy at the voting booth has decreased over progressive US Presidents since then, as the population increased.
It is also interesting to note that empathy in Canada (a much smaller population) at the voting booth has historically been and is still a lot stronger than it is in America.
But I would also suggest that democracy in general weakens the larger the voting population becomes, and it would be fair to say that democracy does not scale.
Oh yes, I’m a firm believer that democracy is bad, and people know this intuitively but they forget because they’re taught to reflexively support democracy and criticize everything else.
People love to trash capitalism on Lemmy but praise socialism and democracy. When it comes to which t shirt style I get to wear, I vastly prefer capitalism. If that were a democratic choice we’d all be wearing the same t shirt!
Or maybe we would be wearing the shirt that helped twice as many people as there are Americans out of poverty in one country - the socialist system of China. China actually has a system of democracy that scales perfectly, unlike the American system that flounders at scale.
China is the place where, if someone hits you with their car by accident, they’ll stop and run you over to finish you off, in order to avoid paying your family for caring for you and your injuries.
Car insurance is mandatory in China, and includes liability.
Racism is where you blatantly paint an entire race pejoratively, spreading factually false stereotypes just because of their race.
It’s nothing to do with race and everything to do with ideology. I have close friends whose parents survived the cultural revolution. They would tell you the same thing.
So if you do not like their ideology, you get a free pass to be racist?
Nope. I’m not racist, and fuck you for even suggesting it!
You’re doing the same shit people do to defend the government of Israel! Accusing anyone who criticizes the country of being an anti-Semite.
Your last paragraph is on point. Empathy can be manipulated, objective fact based reasoning is less susceptible. Empathy deserves a seat at the table, but not at the expense of objective reasoning, the latter which plays a much larger role in providing benefits for the majority of a society at large.
As much as I hate to admit it, you’re pretty accurate here. However, there is one thing I’d like to offer: you can train yourself to be more empathetic. It’s hard and requires an open mind not just for the people around you but also in regard to your own self-awareness, but it IS doable.