I am not the empathetic person in the world.
I am not the empathetic person in the world. I believe we must all live with the decisions we make, that emotions are a personal matter and shouldn't be involved in business or society and that there are over seven billion people on this planet, each and everyone with their own opinions, their own desires and their own perspective on the world.
However, I'm not without empathy, I just don't let it control my thoughts.
The author of this piece uses the term "rational empathy" to describe people, like me, who use knowledge and reason to understand that of those seven billion people out there, there are seven billion stories. Not all of those stories are the same as the other seven billion stories out there.
It would be nice if we were all raised in Pleasentville (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/) where there were no conflicts, where everyone's singular goal of making sure their position in society was meted out fairly and life was all around good.
But life isn't like Pleasantville. Life has a great many varieties: rich, poor or somewhere in between; east coast or west coast upbringing, or somewhere else in the world. This afternoon I saw a picture of what looked like a 10 year old boy wearing blue boots, a set of fairy wings and carrying an AK47.
I wasn't raised in those conditions. Were you? Does the libertarian ideal of one size fits all account for that child? Does it account for those people who are trying to raise families on the meager pay of Wal-Mart or fast-food employees? Or does it only take into consideration people of like backgrounds?
Is it moral or ethical to trod over the backs of others to attain your goals? Why not? If people wanted a change in their lives then those people would change their lives, right?
Or do corporations ensure those people cannot change? Does education matter, but no education was provided because a conservative didn't think poorer people needed access to knowledge? Does opportunity matter and if so, what happens when that opportunity leaves their corporate town, the people jobless, the taxes unpaid and a debt to fix the environment, the roads, the schools unpaid because out of work people don't pay taxes and they don't shop aside from the necessities?
But who cares, right? I mean, the owners of the company and their senior staff all made their money, they got their bonuses and they moved on to the next town.
Does a society have a responsibility to itself? Is there an inherent interest in ensuring the next generation is capable?
What happens when we push aside those people who cannot help us today? Will they help us tomorrow? Will they be there and be capable of contributing to a stable society when they've been neglected because it was convenient to do so at the time?
That is rational empathy: thinking beyond the self and recognizing the larger picture as one giant interconnected web of everything. Killing bees for profit seems fine today, but what happens down the road when those bees are no longer pollinating the foods we eat (http://goo.gl/VD6OL)?
If we tell poor communities they won't amount to anything productive, then who pays the bill when those poor communities stop trying and start becoming a drain on local resources?
When we tell the world climate change isn't happening and our experts are warning about record breaking fire seasons, flooding, snowstorms and hurricanes, who ends up paying for that destruction? Those climate deniers who don't want to spend $3 today to save $300 tomorrow, or everyone else in the form of taxes and borrowing? And then the government is blamed for taxing and borrowing by those same people who were saved by government funds.
We're all interconnected. Each and every one of us. When a hurricane happens in Florida, my insurance rates in Colorado go up. When a exotic fish is let go in waters alien to it and destroys the local ecology, the entire fishing industry and those who rely on that industry suffer. When an aspiring musician is turned away from a religious school, the entire world goes to war and international politics change forever.
But some people don't see the interconnection of a society, they see only what is advantageous of them, what can help them get ahead under any circumstance, without empathy, even the rational kind.
In the modern world, we call those sociopaths. How has a sociopath affected you today?
via Rarian Rakista
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/23/chris_kluwe_heres_whats_wrong_with_ayn_rand_libertarians/
However, I'm not without empathy, I just don't let it control my thoughts.
The author of this piece uses the term "rational empathy" to describe people, like me, who use knowledge and reason to understand that of those seven billion people out there, there are seven billion stories. Not all of those stories are the same as the other seven billion stories out there.
It would be nice if we were all raised in Pleasentville (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/) where there were no conflicts, where everyone's singular goal of making sure their position in society was meted out fairly and life was all around good.
But life isn't like Pleasantville. Life has a great many varieties: rich, poor or somewhere in between; east coast or west coast upbringing, or somewhere else in the world. This afternoon I saw a picture of what looked like a 10 year old boy wearing blue boots, a set of fairy wings and carrying an AK47.
I wasn't raised in those conditions. Were you? Does the libertarian ideal of one size fits all account for that child? Does it account for those people who are trying to raise families on the meager pay of Wal-Mart or fast-food employees? Or does it only take into consideration people of like backgrounds?
Is it moral or ethical to trod over the backs of others to attain your goals? Why not? If people wanted a change in their lives then those people would change their lives, right?
Or do corporations ensure those people cannot change? Does education matter, but no education was provided because a conservative didn't think poorer people needed access to knowledge? Does opportunity matter and if so, what happens when that opportunity leaves their corporate town, the people jobless, the taxes unpaid and a debt to fix the environment, the roads, the schools unpaid because out of work people don't pay taxes and they don't shop aside from the necessities?
But who cares, right? I mean, the owners of the company and their senior staff all made their money, they got their bonuses and they moved on to the next town.
Does a society have a responsibility to itself? Is there an inherent interest in ensuring the next generation is capable?
What happens when we push aside those people who cannot help us today? Will they help us tomorrow? Will they be there and be capable of contributing to a stable society when they've been neglected because it was convenient to do so at the time?
That is rational empathy: thinking beyond the self and recognizing the larger picture as one giant interconnected web of everything. Killing bees for profit seems fine today, but what happens down the road when those bees are no longer pollinating the foods we eat (http://goo.gl/VD6OL)?
If we tell poor communities they won't amount to anything productive, then who pays the bill when those poor communities stop trying and start becoming a drain on local resources?
When we tell the world climate change isn't happening and our experts are warning about record breaking fire seasons, flooding, snowstorms and hurricanes, who ends up paying for that destruction? Those climate deniers who don't want to spend $3 today to save $300 tomorrow, or everyone else in the form of taxes and borrowing? And then the government is blamed for taxing and borrowing by those same people who were saved by government funds.
We're all interconnected. Each and every one of us. When a hurricane happens in Florida, my insurance rates in Colorado go up. When a exotic fish is let go in waters alien to it and destroys the local ecology, the entire fishing industry and those who rely on that industry suffer. When an aspiring musician is turned away from a religious school, the entire world goes to war and international politics change forever.
But some people don't see the interconnection of a society, they see only what is advantageous of them, what can help them get ahead under any circumstance, without empathy, even the rational kind.
In the modern world, we call those sociopaths. How has a sociopath affected you today?
via Rarian Rakista
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/23/chris_kluwe_heres_whats_wrong_with_ayn_rand_libertarians/
Comments
This paragraph is so true! It almost makes me want to ignore any other issue with the article.
The problem is that your post and the article are preaching to the choir. As far as I understand it, the problem with the majority of American conservatives is that they think people get to the place in life they deserve through their own work. There is no random chance or birth lottery to worry about - many of them believe that is just "God's will" at work. Everyone who is poor is poor because they deserve it, therefore they don't deserve our help. Sure you help the people like you when trouble happens and have empathy for them, but surely those who don't have people to help them must deserve it?
To me the viewpoint seems insane, but it is mostly internally consistent.
I think the people of ordinary empathy for their in group, but unable to empathize with non-members (the out group) are a much larger problem than the sociopaths. (Partially because they are so much more common.)
Your first few lines make me want to rant on the horribly misunderstood role of emotion in cognition and decision making, and how they are more than a personal matter and are involved in every decision we make, but I'll try to scale just one mountain at a time, especially right before bed when I don't have time to go look up the links on the true relation between emotion and logic.