The loss of empathy

[UpInArms]

This is at the heart of so many of our most vexing problems.

Too many people see things every day that they would never tolerate in their own lives, but feel no need to intervene.

It could be something major like watching a grown man sexually brutalize a child, and then looking away ... but hey ... that child was not HIS younger brother/nephew/child. That child was not someone he knew, so it was no biggie.

It could be something quite minor, like picking up money that someone in front of you drops unknowingly, and not saying "Hey, you dropped this." It's not like you knew that person, or that the $20 they dropped might be grocery money. Finders-keepers.

Empathy-loss is all around us.

TV shows delight in humiliating people.

Everything is now a contest.

Cooking shows used to be about teaching people how to cook..Now they are "wars", where contestants hope for others to screw up, so they can "win."

It's all about the cheap laugh, the public humiliation of people who don't "measure up"..people who are placed there for our amusement when they get "punked."

It extends into politics too.

How many times have we seen politicians routinely and callously vote against things that people need, UNTIL someone in their own family (or they themselves) suddenly, by fate, are placed in the same boat?

Familial empathy is easy. In most families we are taught to care for and about each other.

An evolved society cares about ALL people.

We care when others cannot afford food, and we feed them. We do not laugh at them and deride them for being too lazy to find work.

We care when others cannot find health care they can afford, and we try to see that they do get care ... We do not shrug our shoulders and say ... "Too bad about that..they should have taken better care of themselves."

Lack of empathy allows all kinds of terrible things to happen, because as people get more and more insulated, it gets easier and easier to go from ignoring bad things that happen to others, to helping those bad things happen ... and enjoying the process.

(I wrote this in 2011 .... seems like I must have been having a "vision." )

[blm]

1. Failed Christians embraced the Republican politics of greed and cruelty

and kicked Christ’s teachings of compassion and empathy to the curb.

[PJMcK]

2. Well stated

I think I remember your original post as this sounds so familiar!

I might add that people, in general, have become greedy. "Wall Street" the film was wrong: Greed is bad. It motivates the worst instincts in people and it doesn't promote community. It's divisive.

All of this is reflected in our country today.

[303squadron]

3. The Army psychologist at the Nuremberg Trials said

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

G. M. Gilbert

[UpInArms]

4. Thank you

I had not heard that.

[KatyaR]

5. A MAGA woman wrote a book:

Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion
by Allie Beth Stuckey

And yet she claims to be a Christian.

" A sharp Christian voice makes a bold argument: when politics are driven by empathy rather than truth, innocent people pay the price.

We are told that empathy is the highest virtue—the key to being a good person. Is that true? Or has “empathy,” like so many other words of our day—“tolerance,” “justice,” “acceptance”—been hijacked by bad actors who exploit compassion for their own political ends?

In Toxic Empathy, Allie Beth Stuckey argues that empathy has become a tool of manipulation by left-wing activists who bully people into believing that they must adopt progressive positions to be loving. She explores the five most heated issues through which toxic empathy is deployed: abortion, gender, sexuality, immigration, and social justice. Progressives use catchy mantras to present their perspective as empathetic, like “abortion is healthcare,” “love is love,” or “no human being is illegal,” but in each case, they ignore the other side of the moral equation. For example, abortion is presented as compassionate for the woman, but what about the human life the procedure kills?

This book isn’t about killing empathy; it’s about submitting our empathy to God’s definitions of love, goodness, and justice. Stuckey exposes the logical pitfalls and moral consequences of toxic empathy, equipping Christians with research-backed, Biblical truths to dismantle the progressive lies that have permeated our culture—and our church. "

[Aristus]

6. Got-DAMN, that's sick!

Christians are such monsters.

[UpInArms]

7. That "person" is vile

thanks for alerting me to more existing nastiness

[valleyrogue]

9. She is a dimbulb who is regularly raked over the coals

over on Reddit's "Insane Prolife" subreddit.

[Oneironaut]

12. This is hilarious! They all believe this, but, try not to say it out loud.

[alarimer]

8. I've often thought it has its roots in the elevation of the individual above all.

We are a collection of individuals rather than a society where we do the most good for the most people.

Individualism is the rot at the heart of the American experiment. It's unsustainable. Even the Democratic party is not immune to this kind of thought.

[valleyrogue]

10. "Libertarianism" lies at the root of the rot.

"Nobody is the boss of me" nonsense that most people outgrow by the time they are three years old. Not these sociopaths.

[Donkees]

11. Photo: Having more empathy would be an achievement for humanity

Mohammed Mohiedin Anis, or Abu Omar, 70, smokes his pipe as he sits in his destroyed bedroom listening to music on his gramophone in Aleppo's formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood on March 9, 2017. Photo by Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216460385

[A_Steel_Magnolia]

13. Wow! You are prescient!

Last edited Sat Feb 8, 2025, 08:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Added: We often underestimate the social and cultural impact of the resident of the oval office. In addition to serving as the head of state, they are role models, mentors (in absentia) and influencers in and out of government. You identified so many unrelated aspects of society from patterns of behavior (and speech) to mannerisms to attitudes that followers display on a daily basis (in and out of the media). That's powerful!