How do you prove empathy?
I have been following the comments, and there is a clear common denominator - empathy vs democracy. A few comments on that.
First, the nature of the adversarial I-win-you-lose winner take all system of ‘democratic’ government common in the West is completely antithetical to empathy. In order to beat your opponent, the last thing you can be towards them and their followers is empathic. The goal is to totally destroy them. American politics more so than Canadian. But as the sides become more and more polarized, all vestiges of empathy are eliminated. Yet I think of Jack Layton, and the Orange Sweep of federal politics. That was really the last hurrah for empathy in our democratic process in Canada. Why did it die with him? Why did it not survive and prosper after his death?
Second, with the rise of ‘profit at all costs’ in corporate America, thanks to Friedman and his Nobel prize, it is seen as the duty of board members to put maximizing profit above all other considerations, including empathy and social responsibility.
But it all feeds directly from the adversarial nature of our Western society in general. In our court system, in our sports model, in our University admissions policies, in our structure of labour unions, even in our concept of the ‘economic class’ system, it is all about pitting one side against another, or the individual against the competitors. When winning by ensuring the other side loses becomes the over-riding goal, empathy takes the back seat.
It all comes down to the difference between the zero sum philosophy of our Western culture, where the goal is to strengthen your side by weakening the other side, vs a win-win philosophy, where the goal is for both sides to get stronger, that is more predominant in socialist cultures. In the first case, empathy is a direct detriment and is to be avoided at all costs. The very last thing one considers in such a system is the well being of the other side, when the goal is to weaken them. In the second case, empathy is a fundamental prerequisite. In order to ensure both sides come out ahead, it is necessary to fully consider the well being of the other person, because the goal is to strengthen them as well as yourself.
Empathy is inversely proportional to power.
In current situation but imagine a world where country leaders could show empathy? I only word it that way because some leaders appear to have it but there’s only so much they can do when the other elected reps decide it’s not worthwhile. I wonder so much why it’s basically a four letter word (so to say) among some groups.
Basically it’s the trait you want in leaders but doesn’t make much side money for people doing proper governing. What a shit system cause they all pour honey in our ears how things will be fantastic if just one group was blamed. Horeshit though.
There was a leader like that in Uruguay. The president took pubkic transportation to work and donated all the money he could. Such a great guy!
Because our culture has spent the past 250 years attempting to minimize the value of empathy.
That’s something that always drives me crazy about the “value of the atomic family” schtick in some conservative circles. On the one hand, they want a return to the atomic family. On the other, they’re still full steam ahead on individualism and keeping empathy out of decision processes.
Meanwhile, other family-based cultures are messy, more “molecular family” than the “traditional” atomic family, because the culture is based on empathy and shame/honor. Without empathy, leadership always dehumanizes the ones it is supposed to serve.
Empathy is socialist dontcha know?
We’re too busy importing the us culture to notice rampant individualism does not make a good society to love in.
Crazy thing is, up until 2024, Canada was proud to be socialist. But you’re right; a LOT of the US culture slops across the border. Happened during the McCarthy years too.
Crazy thing is, up until 2024, Canada was proud to be socialist.
Huh? Canada has not been socialist at any time I can remember.
On one hand, we’re quite socialist compared to the states. On the other hand, I think the last time we as a country could be said to be proud of what socialist things we do have is near a century ago.
I mean, that’s our biggest issue with dealing with conservatives. It’s all bullshit culture war crap coming from down south.
The push for the “nuclear family” has always been about undermining any community structure that can’t be controlled by big capital. Demonize all gatherings except in a well funded church (i.e. a controllable arm of capital) and you can easily convince people that this is the only way life works and there’s literally no other way to do things.
The men are the individuals that do what they want, the women are the family members that do the hard stuff in the house.
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.
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.
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?
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.
It is really false. In fact, most people care if leaders have empathy, they care that the people in power have no empathy, this is the most wanted trait for ceo and top level executives. Psychopaths and sociopaths make the best leaders. Or this is what our society try to push.
It really should be at or near the top of the list of requirements IMO
I care about it a great deal.
But if you want a hypothesis for your question…
I think its because, as primates, we feel a desire to punish our enemies. It an emotional impulse, and therefore gets a power buff in its influence over our beliefs compared to being reasonable and fostering understanding. The empathetic leader is perceived to lack in their capabilities for delivering punishment.
Control is why we (the society) are discouraged from developing the skills to be reasonable in the first place.
Because not giving a damn bubbled up from its sources as teenage angst and toxic masculinity… into the actually dominant role model for rich men
I remember in school everyone was indoctrinated about how amazing globalism is. The issue is that before that those sociopathic narcissist fucks could only cause so much damage. Now that have the whole globe as their playground and their methods grow better and better while the old tricks to deal with them (ergo taking them out to the fields to see the flowers) don’t work anymore because they filled the forces with their own kind.
I suppose because it’s so common. Power creates apathy, it’s a human trait and universal.
The way to mitigate it is to limit their time in power. There are gentle and not-so-gentle ways to achieve that. However it’s done, it needs to be institutionalized and protected as a process. Because people in power will spend some of their power trying to tear down any such process, due to, you know, a lack of empathy. It seems to be a circular trap we’re all stuck in, but maybe someday we’ll figure out a permanent solution. Maybe.
I would buy a mic clip I think.
