/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2347574
Because it's a low autism score trait

Empathy is individualist solidarity

>The ability experience pathy is what seperates human beings from snakes. The scientific classification for someone who doesn't feel empathy is a sociopath, and the general consensus until a few months ago was that being a sociopath is a bad thing. But now you see rightards proudly proclaiming that they don't care about anything or anyone but themselves, and it's fucking bizarre to me.

Alright what I'm gonna say is a bit controversial, but I think at least part of it is he liberal weaponization of empathy, an an unspoken narrative that's developed in which "You can either have trans rights or economic prosperity." I know that sounds stupid, let me try to explain it as best as I can.

So polls taken place after the election asked voters, IIRC, to describe "what the democratic party is about" and it boiled down to some variation of "trans rights" in the sense of "Dems only care about trans people", you've got that one election ad that Trump ran where it was all "Kamala cares for they/them, Trump cares for you" or what have you. Of course, this isn't limited to just trans issues, that's just the most predominant of them. You had Hillary Clinton in 2016 attacking Bernie Sanders with "Would regulating the banks END RACISM?!?!"

The Modus Operandi, mostly pioneered by neoliberals for years, has been to suppress the Left or economically populist factions by making appeals to empathy. I think this is why we have an assumed divide between neoliberalism and neoconservatism (with the latter being mostly ignored nowadays and the former absorbing the latter) because the neocons would bang the drums of war and appeal to national pride or security while neolibs would, I dunno, wave a pride flag in front of the bombed out ruins of Gaza. And people, especially on the right, have been getting sick of it. They're feeling the sting of declining economic opportunities on a personal level, and they're desperate to undo it, but the far-right offers them false hope and the neolibs put up a weak defense of "Well we can't do that, 'cause that would be mean!"

Think about that quote from Lenin, "You can't make a revolution wearing white gloves". Well, The Right is thinking in a similar manner. Rightists are convinced "if we JUST deport all these goddamn illegals, the labor market will get tighter, more Americans will get jobs, and housing will be more affordable!" It's unlikely to work, but the liberal response is to show pictures of undocumented people being brutalized and say "will you admit this is wrong?!" Well, the Right's decided that it's worth it. A kind of "I'm not gonna let myself get held back by a bunch of crying illegals" decision. The Nazis emphasized a similar kind of thinking: "We're gonna do bad things, but if we just harden our hearts and do what needs to be done, we'll fix everything wrong in our lives and come out stronger than before." It's a kind of Faustian thinking, trade your soul for power in the material world.

Of course the problem is that Faustian bargains are a fundamentally false dichotomy. You don't need some psychotic fascist death squad to improve things. You aren't forced to pick between having a home or being anti-racist. But neoliberals have completely muzzled the Left in national dialogue, so to many people now it's a choice between "doing what has to be done" or continuing the slide into poverty and despair because you don't want to stain your hands. The Left has been playing defense for years, trying to keep the lid on a pressure cooker, all the while things are getting worse and the Right is on the offense with some promise that "things can get better if we just do a little ethnic cleansing". And to be frank, it IS infuriating that every time there's some attempt at positive change in this country, the neoliberals will throw up some pitiable group as a shield.

<Oppose Israel?
>"LOOK AT THIS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR! SHE'S SCARED! YOU'RE MAKING HER SCARED RIGHT NOW! SHE'S CRYING YOU BASTARD!"
<Want to regulate the banks?
>"For hundreds of years THE WHITE MAN has kept women, black, and brown people down. Now that companies are moving to become more diverse you want to shut their doors? You should be ASHAMED of yourself!"
<Support withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq.
>"This is the Afghan Girls' Soccer Team, they were closed down and married off to 60 year old Taliban fighters because YOU wanted us to leave these people unprotected! You should feel DISGUSTED with yourself!"

Eventually you get so sick and tired of neolibs claiming the "moral high ground" that you just say: "Fuck it, fine. I'm evil. Can I get some fucking healthcare please?"

>>2347574
>Why has "empathy" become a swear word (one of a growing number of swear words) in rightard circles?
i've never heard of this, are you manufacturing outrage again anon?
>the general consensus until a few months ago was that being a sociopath is a bad thing
i don't believe thats true, actually. i think you just made that up.

>>2347574
I largely believe it has to do with conflating empathy with pity. Compassion is good, pity is weakness.

Cognitive empathy is way more useful and effective than emotional empathy.

Emotional empathy wavers on and off. People with very high emotional empathy and lack of self awareness to use cognitive empathy when under duress will have way worse relationship and life results than a person who has lower emotional empathy but practices pulling out cognitive empathy when needed

>>2347921
Also a person with aspd (sociopathy) can use cognitive empathy.

>>2347921
And this is due to your emotional empathy essentially shutting off when you are upset and you needing to use cognitive empathy (putting yourself in the others shoes logically) by stepping back to avoid a problem. This is way more useful than emotional empathy which goes up and down the same as "motivation" does.

>>2347680
Not really. Empathy is about understanding other people's emotions and beliefs, not endorsing them. Honestly, I think you need to be empathetic to be a good Marxist, because so much of Marxism is about understanding how one's place in social relations causes them to act as they do.

>>2347742
It's not super super common, but I've seen it enough times without actively seeking it out to know that it's the flavor of the month within rightard circles. A lot of it seems to be profilicity, denouncing the signifier of empathy rather than the signified.

>>2347922
Fair enough.

I myself might have a weird perspective on the subject because I'm autistic. I'm emotionally empathetic enough that I like being kind to people, but at the same time, I've always gotten the impression that empathy as I understand it is more cognitive than it is emotional. I was very much into egoism when I was a teenager, for example.

>>2347574

But that's, ironically a misunderstanding of how those rightoids feel about "empathy". It is a social thing what shapes one's understanding of others and their own internal state. There is no baseline, no human nature besides some very basic instincts like protecting and recognizing progeny and so on, and all of that can still be overridden.

But it's not the skill of Empathy that rightoids protest. The main way in which people are told about empathy is through the medicalization of "antisocial behavior" into a nebulous disorder of "sociopathy" and related terms. Suggesting that a lack of compliance with societal expectations is a mental defect that prevents one's behavior from being correctly oriented by "empathy". That is, a shared handicap that is supposed to safeguard against the worst antisocial behaviors. And which one is supposed to pretend comes from "human nature" or whatever psychologists are calling it now.

Rightoids, being edgier liberals, see the problem in handicapping oneself. It's not like anyone really abides by the moralist set of rules that would make you "antisocial". Using the right set of words, you could frame the normal activity of immiserating thousands of lives, by a business executive, a soldier, a bureaucrat… as perfectly abiding behavior that is not "antisocial". No matter how callous or how explicitly those reject to use their empathetic skills to orient their decisions. No sociopaths here.

But if you frame it wrong, say, admitting that one is surrounded by snakes who would do one the same and so one is going to ruthlessly climb over them at their expense in a career… Well buddy, you got yourself a lack of "empathy". Hence "empathy", in common parlance being just a matter of PR. An contradiction of liberal society that runs on radical individualism but overtly coats it in moralist PR. Learning empathy boils down to understanding that contradiction and being appropriately deceitful.
Although seemingly lots of people manage to adopt the contradiction itself and only instinctively be selfish without admitting to themselves they are.

>empathy in the abstract
are we gonna pretend people feel empathy 24/7

>anyone else NOOTICE ideology i dont like saying bada bing bada boom
just another dogshit thread

As is tradishun with reactoids they turn their weakness into a virtue.

morality is a spook.
Its a form of control, right wing evangelicals used it and liberal woke people used it to try to control what people could say and do.

God is dead, the left helped that to happen. Now you deal with a right wing who doesnt even care about Christian morality

>>2349167
Oh no not the big man
I just talked to him yesterday, he seemed healthy, you know considering

I mean did most people ever really have any empathy for each other just to start?

Just a few days ago I helped a guy that looked homeless reach out to his friend without expecting anything just out of recognition of his need to communicate with people that care about him. Dude was complaining about people constantly running away from him and calling him names over fucking nothing.
Few days before that, I met a smoker who was complaining about people running from him too and and about how badly his throat was hurting from the drug only to not recieive any support in overcoming his issues.
There are more stories like this but I’ll stop there. I don’t think most people are strong enough physically and emotionally to genuinely bear any real empathy (and basic respect) for people past their immediate family members and friends and even then that’s a stretch given how common domestic violence and abuse towards peers is.
In a climate like that, I wouldn’t be surprised by how fucking mad a reactionary can get over the term when the people using it are hypocrites when it comes to it and use it more often to gaslight others.

>>2347735
good take. But I think it also misses something.

>>2347574
It should be a swear word in communist circles as well. Psychologizing is very convenient to the bourgeois and bourgeois intellectual since it's very easily used to dismiss real contradictions and real conflicts. Khruschev's secret speech is a great example and also relevant to actual socialist construction, or rather its derailment. It's no surprise that labor aristocrat "left" loooves it. The psychologizing HR lady is just the latest iteration of this liberal rot, communists had to suffer from this shit much longer than right-wingers.

The right-wingers OP spoke of are honestly more like Marxists than half the people who replied in this thread. You faggots bring up the book definition, but the way the word is used in practice is very different. To them, it's
>a weapon libtards use to attack people for not feeling the right feelings or some gay shit like that
because it is largely that today, hence all the "ayatollah is a mad tyrant", "Kim Jong Un is a mad tyrant", even "Lukashenko is a mad tyrant", you get the idea.
No, the reason why right-wingers are like this is not because they are the authoritarian unwholesome personality (i.e. they're just retarded basically), but rather real factors like downward mobility. The problem is that these real factors do include culture, so it can be difficult to tell where the death drive bullshit ends and where the reasonable "america was founded by religious fundamentalists who believed themselves to be the chosen people of the old testament, no shit they support israel" begins. The cutoff will probably have to be a practical one: the parts that can be tied to practice are acceptable, the ones that can't be will have to be ignored.

>>2349167
God is not morality

>>2347680
>individualist solidarity

This.

This thread is honestly really fucking sad.
I don't know why you would be a leftist if not for empathy.
I don't recognize this website anymore honestly.

>>2347680
>>2350916
What does this mean? I am curious and I searching for it didn't give me anything relevant

>>2350187
I mean to contextualize the "God is Dead" thing, the statement (and Nietzsche's use of it) was more the existence of an "objective" morality was dead. It's easier to understand in the context of Nietzsche's day because you'd have terrific poets like Oscar Wilde who'd be considered "bad" because he was homosexual (and a bit of hedonistic pervert), but not just "bad" in the sense of personal opinion, bad in the sense of objective moral character. The "Death of God" is Nietzsche saying there isn't any morality that exists outside of mankind. Ultimately morality is derived from social consensus but does not exist as an actual reality unto itself.

So you can still say things like "Theft is bad" but that's a personal/social value, and not one that has any tangible bearing outside your submission to that value set. Even then people make arbitrary adjustments to that idea: Stealing is bad BUT Robin Hood is a hero. Stealing is bad BUT it's a victimless crime to steal from corporations. Stealing is bad BUT you can steal bread to feed your family. So on and so forth.

Now to redirect the conversation back to empathy. Psychologists have conducted studies that show that it's a strong motive force for people who lean more "liberal" or "left" whereas conservatives value things like "loyalty" and "authority". And I think the issue is that these traits have diverged into separate political camps while a powerful political ideology needs to uphold both values. Empathy and loyalty, willingness to rebel and willingness to obey, the ability to care and the ability to harm. Marxism-Leninism, though not wholly limited to MLism, would ultimately be the synthesis of these "liberal" and "conservative" traits into an ideology that could fight but also govern. Anarchists will bring up the Kronstadt rebellion or the crushing of Makhnovia as "crimes" of Bolshevism, the chief weapon wielded against historical socialism is lists of atrocities one after the other, but the reality is that elements of ruthlessness allowed the Bolsheviks (and later Communist Revolutionaries) to win. There is not a single success to Anarchism, if we define success as the ability to take and hold territory for the duration of a war. Makhnovia failed, Kronstadt failed, Catalonia failed. They can point to maybe one glorious year in which they oversaw a society (in the midst of a war) but it was government driven by moral principles without the necessary ruthlessness that ultimately delivered them to their doom. It's like a ship that's one big party, where everyone is the captain and no rules exist, colliding with an iceberg and sinking to the ocean. They can say that for one brief week the ship sailed, but it was state socialism that made it into port.

Now this isn't to dog anarchists, but rather to say: there are ideals that are higher but which can't be pursued without some suspension of empathy. You shouldn't stop opposing Israel even if some old Holocaust Survivor is genuinely hurt by you doing so. You shouldn't support overthrowing Iran even if they're regressive on LGBT rights. Liberals in particular use selective empathy; crocodile tears for all the gays supposedly killed by Hamas in Gaza while not caring about the tens of thousands being slaughtered en masse by Israel. The end goal is good, but along the way there will sadly be just, honorable, and loving people who'd oppose you every step of the way for one reason or another. The point is having assurance in one's own ideals enough that you can overcome that, but the feelings of guilt or empathy aren't bad in and of itself.

Think of emotional empathy like any other emotion: fear, anger, joy, etc. Fear keeps us safe but you shouldn't over-indulge in it to the point it becomes the lone decision-maker in your life.

>>2351011
>Ultimately morality is derived from social consensus
Wrong. Morality is derived from material condition but You preach idealistic notions of morality as mere abstract concensus. All moral theories have been the product, in the last analysis, of the economic stage which society had reached at that particular epoch.
>but does not exist as an actual reality unto itself.
Wrong. You say morality is utterly subjective, denying its objective social function. If morality truly was what you say it is, then proletarian morality is no different from bourgeois morality.
>So you can still say things like "Theft is bad" but that's a personal/social value, and not one that has any tangible bearing outside your submission to that value set.
Wrong. Morality is easily recognized in laws and their enforcement. Theft, rape, and murder being illegal has definite material bearing even on those who refuse to submit to that value set.

small soul neoliberal bugman ideology:
https://www.thenerdreich.com/silicon-valleys-scary-new-religion-tescreal/

>>2347735
>Alright what I'm gonna say is a bit controversial,
<"as a degenerate US settler who is is aligned with my fellow settler degenerate Elon Musk, this seems very rational"
Can you name a single socialist who has ever spoken to these undocumented slaves who are undeserving of empathy? Just one socialist, that's all I'm asking!
Funny how these PMC indoor kids pretend like they are any different than Zionists. I'm sure their counterparts in Israel are also writing 4chan posts about how they are smart and rational for being satanic reptilians

>>2351114
Material conditions aren't totally separated from social consensus. The base and superstructure work in tandem, they aren't independent from one another.

>You say morality is utterly subjective, denying its objective social function.

Again, morality doesn't exist independent of human societies. It's not "objective" in that sense.

>Morality is easily recognized in laws and their enforcement.

If laws make morality than laws proposing executing women for being raped or throwing gays off buildings would be "moral" in the realm they exist in. Yes, laws have material bearing; if you get caught. But as we see with the ultra wealthy or people who get away with their crimes, laws aren't some spectral force that imposes a punishment after death, they're human constructs and can only be enforced by other humans. You kill someone on a desert island and there's no "material" or "objective" consequence for it.

>>2351515
>"MUH SETTLERS"