We often times hear that the biggest problem in Western society today is lack of empathy. Trump, Epstein, covid (eugenics) and the Gaza genocide are all pinpointed as examples of how lack of empathy leads to great atrocities. The most vulnerable and oppressed along is are seen as disposable and people don’t even care about each other anymore.
So my question is: how did we get here?
What factors made it so no one cares about each other anymore, and we’ve largely decided to judge others based on their “usefulness” to us and see them as a means to an end rather than as an end unto themselves. Why did we stop seeing every person as having innate human dignity and worth?
For example, let’s say you have $40 left in your bank account, but AuDHD Aurora needs money for DoorDash because she’s low on spoons and can’t cook; would you give Aurora your last $40 or would you let her go to bed starving? Most people would choose the latter simply because there’s nothing in modern society that reinforces the idea that we need to provide for neurodivergent folks even if it means making a sacrifice. Or the fact covid was allowed to kill millions of vulnerable people simply because no one wanted to stay in lockdown. We prioritize comfort over other human life because we have no normalized moral theory of Justice that makes us want to protect the weak.
You also see this with the notion of “the village” that’s become a popular trope among Gen Z. Everyone laments the fact “the village” no longer exists in modern society, and having a “village” is the only way to protect the weak and vulnerable from social murder, i.e. the whole community takes care of disabled and neurodivergent folks. So why doesn’t “the village” exist anymore and why have all attempts at creating “villages” been unsustainable? What causes a community to stick together and feel a strong sense of obligation to each other?
Empathy needs to be the main focal point of any leftist politics in the near future. That and forming a trauma-informed political program so we can heal from our collective CPTSD.
>”collective CPTSD”
That’s literally capitalism, bro. Fuck off with the pop psychology.
Alienation. It’s that simple.
>doing the liberal "basic human empathy" meme in 2026
The reason Western society is the way it is is because labor aristocratic tendencies are so entrenched that class collaboration becomes dominant.
Conversely, Global South workers are so lumpenproletariat, that they are incapable of doing anything without the prodding of a social imperialist power like the USSR or China.
>>2907593The fuck?
All radical politics is based on human empathy. Emotion and morality are crucial because without them you get eugenics.
Also the workers in western countries are becoming way more lumpanized, especially the disabled.
Any form of migration and the breakup of the feudal village making us all strangers to each other
>>2907595Found the utopian moralist.
>>2907539>EmpathyThe people in this IB are literal materialists. Good luck with empathy if you're male.
>>2907595>All radical politics is based on human empathy. Emotion and morality are crucial because without them you get eugenics.Well, maybe if you're Elliot Rodger yourself but eugenics is actually merciful if they never existed in the first place. Point?
>>2907605 called you utopian, point proven.
>Also the workers in western countries are becoming way more lumpanized, especially the disabled.Is this actually being said here?
>>2907593> Global South workers are so lumpenproletariatVomit tier, eurrgghh! Maybe whip them harder!
>>2907618>Vomit tier, eurrgghh!What does this mean? Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?
>>2907539Maupin proving himself to be more of a Calvinist preacher than a legit Marxist, shudder.
>>2907603"If you need to put a surveillance camera on every pole in your city to keep it safe, you've already lost the thing that makes a city safe."
China destroyed. Also doesn't America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, yet people still complain we're soft on crime. Is America just uniquely full of criminals, in their view? I could see it I guess.
>>2907539In one documentary about the Piraha people, a hunter-gathering group in the Amazon, the interviewer asked people if they were frustrated at having to support elderly people. A young man said not at all, I was once young and helpless and the adults supported me, and I'll be old someday and need support myself. Nothing about human rights or the precious individual, which are rather recent ideas. For most of history you hated the people who lived in the next valley over. Bands of men would slaughter their neighboring tribe, take slaves, livestock, and concubines. Or maybe you'd ally with them and attack someone else.
Skaven society
the brutal dictator Joe Biden claimed to have much empathy
>>2907595You poor fool, you came up with your politics based on what you thought would help the most people, instead of what would be the most autistic or contrarian. You rube.
>>2907750>UNHOUSED DISABLED SEX WORKER NEED COVID TESTS AND 5 STAR HOTEL ROOM NAOThe fact the American left is full of people like this is all the proof I need that it's failing significantly.
>>2907539>let’s say you have $40 left in your bank account, but AuDHD Aurora needs money for DoorDash because she’s low on spoons and can’t cook; would you give Aurora your last $40 or would you let her go to bed starving? Unless Aurora agrees to do something for me in return she's not after mutual aid but a human piggy bank.
>>2907750She probably needs money for her fentanyl habit.
>>2907766Neo-Playonianism is reactionary
>>2907750People like this are the reason no one gives mutual aid (GFM bucks) anymore. There are way too many cartoonishly outlandish people begging for dollars to the point where you don't know who is actually serious vs. who's just being over-the-top for the sake of being over-the-top. "TRANS QUEER DISABLED AUTISTIC BIPOLAR CHRONICALLY ILL BROWN BODY FEMME SEX WORKER NEEDS $10,000 IMMEDIATELY FOR NEW TV AND FOOD PROCESSOR"
>>2907603This guy sounds like he’s making a case for racial segregation and ICE deportations.
>>2907716The idea of a "global community" is hella recent, a product of the Enlightenment.
>>2907819There’s nothing scientific about social or political “science”. Thus why the word “science” must be attached.
That said, emotions are what ultimately push people into politics. There’s a lot of effort to make people feel hopeless and alienated.
>>2907822Marxism isn't a science?
>>2907824Marxism belongs to organized religion, not science.
>>2907716People in tribes share an identical moral worldview and religion.
>>2907857There’s always dissent
>>2907865Then you'd get removed from the tribe and would have to fare on your own, or find another tribe.
The idea of "free thought" is a very, very, very recent idea.
>>2907865Well yes, that's how we ended up with human beings in polynesia, you exile those guys from the tribe
>>2907865>>2907868>>2907870Also keep in-mind that tribal societies do not separate religion from cultural practice, family bonds, etc. the way modern people do. So even the idea of "dissent" gets murky.
>>2907870Yeah Polynesians are descended from the assholes who got ticked out of ancient Taiwan and went elsewhere. Some of them went to Indonesia but when they got too assholey they ended up going all the way to Madagascar.
>>2907873>>2907868Not sure I agree with your view on tribe people being savages
>>2908044Nothing I said indicates that they’ve “savages”, idiot.
>>2907716> A young man said not at all, I was once young and helpless and the adults supported me, and I'll be old someday and need support myself. Nothing about human rights or the precious individual, which are rather recent ideas. And if this notion of helping is deeply rooted in our nature as humans, how do you explain the fact it barely exists anymore in modern society?
>>2908126I’d also add that a tribe in the Amazon has ti be interdependent on each other. Not so much in a city where you have things like nursing homes, professional care workers, special education schools, etc.
>>2908126People aren't even happy about being alive anymore (so won't automatically like their parents for bringing them into the world), and giving a shit about your abusive parents is no longer socially enforced since there is zero benefit to it (you pratically will inherit nothing)
>>2908126I guess if you have to work everyday it gets hard to take care of people. Even paying a nursing home is expensive.
Hunter gatherers societies probably have few old people too. Most don’t make it to old age
>>2907539I understand what you mean, yet Marx himself said (greatly paraphrasing here) "We will show no compassion, and expect none from you. We will not excuse the terror."
Can we really complain about lack of empathy when if the shoe were on the other foot, a true Marxist would be just as ruthless?
As regards to an AuDHD being low on spoons: Lenin said, "He who does not work shall not eat."
>>2908339>Lenin said, "He who does not work shall not eat."Sounds like a work based chaos cult
>>2908339"AuDHD" is such a retarded thing. Almost every woman (because let's face it, it's ALWAYS white women who throw around this one particular diagnosis) who claims to have it just has regular overwhelm with society but needs it medicalized so that others will come to her rescue.
>>2907593>First world workers are labor aristocracts>Third world workers are lumpenprolesSo there are no proletarians but there somehow is a bourgeois and we somehow live in capitalism… make it make sense…
>>2908387Everyone is bourgeois, most are petit bourgeois
>>2907539I want mine, I could give a shit about a village, I'm only leftist because I'm broke and a worker, therefore getting mine involves workers being benefited.
Empathy is a spook.
>>2907827back to r/neoliberal
>>2907539you're not so much dealing with a human universal as with two other forces
- rightism is a mental illness. i do not say this glibly or hysterically, we can read off, ipso-facto, from the actions of rightists that their combination of low openness and low agreeableness is pathological. this is not, in itself, a partisan point. (there are benefits to being high openness and low agreeableness, and many successful inventors, businesspeople, etc, are in this area. this is a disagreeable personality type, and one that often falls into the rightoid coalition, but it is not a pathological one and broadly it remains rational and open to argumentation.)
- the scope and scale of contemporary society and the methods used to ensure that decisions do not have any individual accountable for them. thus, even if every individual in a ministry is opposed to the government's gaza policy, each one feels powerless to alter it, and the policy stands. not because they are not empathetic but because the system has been purposefully designed to prevent their empathy from altering policy. people are, as a rule, taught to think of themselves as powerless or simply doing something necessary. (this is basically why liberals, who are not mentally ill in the sense that rightists are, allow themselves to be strung along trying to compromise with the clinically insane.)
(yes, yes, it is an insult to the other clinically insane people to compare them to rightists, i know.)
>>2907716this is a nice story as such, but one of the theories for why primitive societies go after witches is that it's a face-saving way to get rid of old people who stick around too long.
>>2908126it does, it's just directed into different channels. the fundamental difference in modern society is scale. it's easy to care for all 30 people in your little group, possible to
know of all 1,500 people in a small town, and it's impossible to care for all 300,000 people in even a small city.
but it's still easy to care for 30.
>>2908339It is hard to refute the charge of marxism operating as an organised religion when it's so common to simply go "yeah, but scripture said…"
In any case, the Soviet constitution of 1936 explicitly stated that this was the duty of
every able bodied citizen Define “empathy”
>>2908927Looks like the left just broke down into vibes
>>2907827>>2907824Marxism is a framework, not a science because it has multiple competing interpretations and that's if you're being honest.
>>2908917Care and concern for legitimate interests of others
>>2908927Why do people think fitness equal beauty? Fitness is to be strong and healthy.
>>2908485>Every able bodied citizenAble bodied meaning those who aren't missing a leg or something. Likely would also include the severely mentally ill/disabled, but that still doesn't include someone being "low on spoons"
>>2908976the only thing more cringe than not being able to do anything is being able to do something and choosing to sit on your ass engaging in performative cruelty instead
>>2908968>Why do people think fitness equal beauty? Fitness is to be strong and healthy.It is, in an age where 56% of the population is obese or worse. Less than fit is actually disgusting.
>>2908982I am simply stating how I understand that part of the Soviet Constitution, not giving a personal recommendation/opinion on it.
>>2908927>The more dysgenic the better>Fat genocideThat clip just made it to AsmonGold and I have never seen anything more idiotic in my life. I know the stereotypes but just how common is this kind of stuff in the left?
You need to be decimated by the SAW guy.
>>2908927His will the DSA recover from this bullshit?
>>2908999>His will the DSA recover from this bullshit?That's not really education
god this thread sucks ass lololo how has empathy turned from understanding how someone arrives to the positions and values they hold (a very MATERIAL thing you need to understand if you want to get anywhere with the whole revolution thing) to some kind of intellectual kill switch that turns discussions into shit flinging competitions about who has less "moralistic" ideals than the other, both sides of this conversation need to be genuinely shot
>>2907539>So my question is: how did we get here?I would say the destruction of small rural communities and urbanization due to progress in mechanized farming. Its unnatural for humans to live in large scale societies and to care about strangers they have never met.
>So why doesn’t “the village” exist anymore
Technological progress.
>and why have all attempts at creating “villages” been unsustainable?
People are forced to move to cities if they want a job.
>What causes a community to stick together and feel a strong sense of obligation to each other?
In the past it was threat of hunger and outside violence.
>"lack of empathy is bad" "prioritize neurodivergent folks"
are you actually stupid anon, prioritizing ND folks like myself who have low empathy(no emotional empathy and apathy to emotional problems but still understanding) most days and no empathy under intense sudden stress means not spreading bullshit like this, delete this thread it really doesn't contribute anything
people itt pretending not to understand what empathy means.
yea we are going through an empathy crisis considering that the government is filled with pedophiles who are literally dabbing on us and bragging about their crimes while no one finds that revolting
Empathy is a biological phenomenon most apparent in mammals.
We dont have a lack of it, its still there but the alienation of workers does hamper how empathy works.
If the only other people you see are on a screen you will be lacking empathy with your interactions
>>2910652Because what are you gonna do? You’re not going to kill them and you’re not gonna convince the military to kill them
You’re asking about why people no longer care for the weak and marginalized. Protip: if you yourself are struggling to get by you’re not going to care much for others outside your immediate family/household.
Reminder that empathy is not about
>helping the disadvantaged and poor
>being an activist at a food bank
>writing tweets or donating money to support the cause
empathy is about not making shit worse.
If you relentlessly scam or abuse absolutely random people and then donate some of your money to the homeless you're not empathetic, you're still a piece of shit. One good deed doesn't nullify all the other bad shit you're doing.
the destruction of unions and the labor movement was just the beginning; capitalism, imperialism, fascism, whatever you want to call it - is an ideology defined by infinite excess, by perpetual expansion and accumulation of wealth and power - it can always get worse, that's the whole point. after eradicating the organization of labor the next step is to eradicate other kinds of social organization, or even better, eradicate the fundamental human traits which compel and allow people to work together to begin with, i.e. empathy and humility and integrity and civility. human beings are, by default, caring and humble and honest and peaceful creatures. under normal circumstances, we do not like to see people suffer or die, we do not like to stand on soapboxes or be followed or idolized, we do not like to tell lies or pretend to be something we're not, and we do not like to be in conflict with other people. it takes powerful outside forces to compel us to do these things and become accustomed to doing these things, it took tremendous deliberate effort to create a society of self-centered, narcissistic, phony, petty people. and to seal the deal and really make it stick, we are made to believe that we were always this way and it's just our fundamental nature, that there is no such thing as humanity and there is no such thing as society.
if you ever really study the history of the nazi party in depth, particularly the propaganda element and joseph goebbels and the kinds of things they talked about and planned to do in the future after exterminating the jews and winning the war, you can see some pretty striking parallels with what has happened in post-ww2 european and american society. for example, christianity posed a major problem for the nazi party and their future plans for the world, jesus's teachings of charity and fellowship and humility were fundamentally incompatible with an ideology that was all about self-reliance and the strong dominating the weak and violence/cruelty as the natural order and humans rising to greatness and becoming demigods. convincing the german people to despise jews and gypsies and slavs and immigrants and communists and homosexuals and other outgroups was relatively straightforward, but to get them to turn their backs on christ, on their own faith and their own culture and traditions which been the backbone of their entire society for over a thousand years, was quite a tall order. the nazis knew that they couldn't deal with this problem the same way they dealt with the other problems, this was something that had to be handled very delicately and it would have to be a gradual and subtle process of indoctrination. the nazi party would outwardly present itself as a champion of traditional christian values while the true anti-christian sentiments would be closely guarded and only those in the inner circle would be privy to them, and over time the secret ideology of the inner party would be carefully and gradually doled out to the outer party and the white european population at large, revising and redefining and re-interpreting the christian ideology until the point where it differed from the nazi ideology in name only.
of course, germany never managed to get this far and they lost the war and the third reich fell, but then look what happened after that. in the united states you see the rise of mccarthyism and nixonism and reaganism and trumpism, christianity becomes politicized and radicalized into a reactionary ideology against socialism and labor reform and the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement and homosexuality, now reaching the point where you have megachurches run by billionaires which essentially just function as cathedrals to donald trump and people like elon musk suddenly trying to present themselves as christian allies and admonishing people to "go to church" and appearing at political rallies hosted at faith-based venues. in britain you see the rise of thatcherism and the infamous sermon on the mound where thatcher explicitly rejects the charity and fellowship and humility of christianity and describes a radical new interpretation which espouses greed and self-reliance and individual greatness and even goes as far to say that there is no society, there is no brotherly love, there is no fellowship between human beings. in post-soviet russia you have the rise of putinism and the russian orthodox christian church being radicalized into a fiercely pro-putin xenophobic, homophobic, islamophobic, anti-western reactionary movement. the nazis walked so that their successors could run, the victors in world war 2 did not destroy the nazis; they conquered the nazis, they appropriated their ideology and their technology and they studied them extensively and learned from their mistakes so that they could try to succeed where they had failed. we are living in the fourth reich, or perhaps the fifth reich or maybe the sixth, it's hard to even keep count at this point. maybe the nazis weren't even the beginning, maybe there is no beginning and no end to any of it, it's just the empire and the goal of the empire has always been the same, to eradicate and abolish humanity, to turn human beings into something completely different than what they were evolved to be; to create a world without men, only gods and beasts.
why does the burden of being empathic fall on the people that have less power and time available? I don't need to be empathic for the world to get better, me being empathic doesn't actually acomplish shit, if billionaires are empathic they can literally end all problems.
>>2910962Problem is the process of becoming a billionaire and remaining a billionaire filters out people who have empathy
I don't agree. I take a pragmatist (in the philosophic sense) view towards emotions, which I think is more aligned with their biological reason for existing. Empathy is just one emotion among others, and emotions themselves are just a part of a larger mode of being. Logic and rationalism are equally valuable, and they are in extreme dearth in our "post-truth" society. I think the clean unification is to be found in utilitarianism, although I would caution against the simplistic formula of "make the majority happy, fuck the minority." However I do believe that in order to mange mass society some calculative instinct is required, as you are inevitably dealing with the Realm of Quantity. The problem is not a lack of empathy but a more general concept of decadance and corruption with the elites. We have the extreme opposite of Plato's "philosopher kings" in power
>>2907539>We often times hear that the biggest problem in Western society today is lack of empathyWe only hear this from hippy libtards, who cares?
When has the world ever not had a "lack of empathy"? I can't think of a single point in time where there was some boundless well of empathy that we now no longer have access to
So dumb
>>2910975well then the problem is not a lack of empathy, the problem is we are not killing the evil people, if the evil powerful people continue to do evil and all the non powerful people do is be nice evil will still prevail.
>>2907539Sounds like you're trying to reinvent religion from first principles.
>>2907539>So my question is: how did we get here?Good question
>So why doesn’t “the village” exist anymore and why have all attempts at creating “villages” been unsustainable? What causes a community to stick together and feel a strong sense of obligation to each other?Yes
>Empathy needs to be the main focal point of any leftist politics in the near future.Let's start. What does the "left" mean in the first place? It relates to the how we got here question. What is "left"?
>>2911048>Sounds like you're trying to reinvent religion from first principles.What makes you say that?
>>2911004Is radical politics not based on empathy at its very foundation?
>>2907539There is no lack of empathy in Western society. Empathy in Western society is just extremely selective.
>>2911062Even fascists have empathy towards their in-groups.
>>2910652Empathy =/= sympathy
>>2911060No of course not lol. It's based on class interest. "Empathy" as described in this thread is just bourgeois moralism or basic human sociability, it's no more the basis of radical politics than thinking or talking or any other basic human function
>>2911060>Is radical politics not based on empathy at its very foundation?In general it's empathy after failures.
This recent video by the Humanist Report is typical of the left, full of calls for empathy. He's frustrated that former MAGA supporters only turned after Trump fucked them with gas prices, grocery prices, their businesses, loved ones deported, scammed them with watches, etc. Complaining that they're selfish, don't follow the golden rule, don't care about foreigners getting bombed, how they're the main character. He's frustrated that when the left pitches medicare for all they have to push it as some cost cutting measure for the state or small businesses, instead of saving lives, or that opposing war has to be dressed in economic concerns, that apparently blowing up foreigners would be good if regular Americans benefited more.
In other words, he's frustrated people look after their own interests like Marxists always say. Funny thing, he's an atheist, I believe, but it seems he wants people to be Christian saints.
>>2911625Anti-imperialists say the same about ex-soildiers
>>2911625>>2911704Moralizing and romanticism is common everywhere :/
Anti-Human Rhetoric is a Tool of Capital and Must Be Rebuked; Empathy as a Revolutionary Weapon
Published in HOUDINI Magazine, 2025-02-25
Anti-human rhetoric is the poison gas of capital's last stand, manufactured, weaponized, and pumped into the lungs of the masses through every crack in this rotting empire. These phrases, "fuck around and find out," "leopards ate your face," are not just words. They are the ideological jackboot on the throat of solidarity, the death rattle of a system that must dehumanize to survive.
"You didn't," not you specifically, but the vague caricature of you that someone's created in their mind. That caricature deserves to die, so when people die, it's okay. It's fine. The normalization of death is something you must sit with; it's a deeply entrenched part of capitalist culture.
"You shouldn't have been yelling on the subway. You shouldn't have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. You fucked around and found out. It's fine he strangled you to death. Sucks to suck." When they laugh as families lose everything in natural disasters, when they shrug as families are bulldozed from their homes, they reveal the truth: capitalism cannot breathe without suffocating us first. This is "culture"; it is the deliberate erosion of our capacity to see each other as human beings, not competitors in their death-match marketplace.
We have to rebuke this anti-human rhetoric. We, as communists, have to rebuke this anti-human capitalist rhetoric. How we can do this is by rejecting the postmodern, ironic detachment from existence that's been cultivated. Meaning what you say. Be sincere. Be empathetic, more empathetic than anyone else around you. Spread empathy. There's no limit to how much sincerity you can put out into the world.
I went to a business seminar when I was 20. Just sat in to see what it was about. The guy was talking about empathy like it's a weakness. "You can't get too attached. You've got to grind. Isolate yourself. Work on yourself. The only person that matters is you." That's the "fuck you, I got mine" culture we're trying to destroy. They teach isolation. They sell apathy as "self-care". But we say: Empathy is our artillery. It is how we challenge the alienation of capitalism. It is our greatest strength.
You want to know why they preach empathy as weakness in their business seminars? Because they know, they fucking know, that if we truly felt each other's pain, if we truly grasped the chains binding the woman beside us, the worker across the aisle, the child starving in a country we've never seen… their whole house of cards would collapse. Empathy is the match that lights the fuse of revolt.
They want us fragmented, laughing as our neighbors drown. But we must be the ones who drag each other up from the water. When they say you deserve to die for not voting," we answer: No one deserves to die. Everyone deserves to live. That is the core of communism. Not pity. Not charity. Solidarity.
And let's gut this lie that you can be "progressive" while kneeling to capital. We see people who talk about how progressive they are, how positive, how moral. They're doing the right thing. They're the most moral people in the room. The adults are in charge! And yet, these are often the people espousing the most insidious anti-human rhetoric in defense of capital. They're the ones using phrases like "leopards ate your face." They're the ones who'll lambast you for not voting for a Democrat, even though that same Democrat sent bombs that killed your family in another country.
They're the same Democrats who'll say, "We can't let them cut Medicaid. That'd be horrible." But as soon as it happens, it's, "Well, you fucked around and found out. Should've voted blue. Maybe you'll learn a lesson. You deserve to die from a lack of medication. You deserve a preventable death. Leopards ate your face."
In my mind, this makes any claim of solidarity they've ever made complete hogwash. Complete fucking bullshit. If, in one breath, you tell me you support me and would care for me when I'm sick, but when I get sick, you laugh in my face and say I deserve it, your words ring hollow. These people do exist, but they are a loud minority. The capitalist algorithms, the media streams; they reward the rage, the nihilistic apathy, the embrace of the anti-human, of the capitalist eldritch.
We must never forget this. We must never allow what could be botted, "dead internet" looking-glass consent manufacturing operations to hold our hearts in disarray. We must rebuke the anti-human rhetoric of capitalism, and we must do so out of a sense of love for our fellow human beings.
Even as we begin to fight back in this class war, as things escalate, as conditions worsen and the struggle for revolution intensifies, we must remember: we do this out of love. Love for the single mother working two jobs just to keep the lights on. Love for the kid in Gaza who's never known a day without drones buzzing overhead. Love for the teacher just trying to hold down a job while resisting, and the Amazon driver pissing in bottles to meet quotas. Love for the homeless man freezing on a park bench, and the immigrant family locked in a detention center.
This isn't just about tearing down a broken system. It's about building something better, a world where no one has to die because they can't afford insulin, where no one has to lose their home because rent doubled overnight, where no one has to sell blood to afford food, where kids don't go hungry, and the streets aren't lined with needles, a would where no one has to bury their child because a drone strike hit their school again.
We fight because we love. We organize because we care. And we will win, we will defeat capitalism because we refuse to let the anti-human rhetoric of capitalism define us. We are not nihilists. We are not doomers. We are revolutionaries. And we will not stop until every last shred of this anti-human, this anti-life system is burned to the fucking ground and replaced with something worthy of the people it's meant to serve.
>>2910962the thing of it is, everyone does have empathy, it's a universal human instinct and it's not really a burden, if anything the burden is ignoring one's own empathy which is something that requires continuous and tremendous, albeit often-unconscious effort. there's a reason why greedy rich people and cruel abusive people and pathological liars and other immoral people tend to become extremely defensive and angry or have a narcissistic meltdown if ever they are confronted or exposed for their behavior, why they tend to live lives of tremendous excess and extravagant spending, why they tend to only ever be concerned about extremely small petty things, why they tend to engage in high-risk/impulsive behaviors like gambling or substance abuse or compulsive sex, why they tend to often seem like they are playing a character all the time and not really being themselves and don't seem to think that their life is real and that it's just a movie where they are the main character or a video game where they are the player and everyone else is an npc - they do all of these things because they have an extremely guilty conscience, they are constantly doing everything they can to escape from reality and not think about who they are and what they've done, they are constantly running away from deep feelings of guilt and shame, which means they do have empathy. a person without empathy wouldn't need to go to such lengths to escape from reality. jeffrey dahmer had empathy, that's why he was a raging alcoholic and was wasted 24/7. elon musk has empathy that's why he wants to become a trillionaire and why he ran and hid from his own children and why he rants and raves about empathy being a weakness and a disease like he's trying to convince the world and himself that he doesn't have empathy. the real problem is, there is a limit to how much guilt a person can psychologically endure, we all hold ourselves to account for our crimes whether we realize it or not, and the accounting is scrupulous and sometimes even overzealous. the more a person dissociates from reality, the more numerous and egregious their crimes tend to get, the worse their crimes get and the more guilt they carry the more they dissociate, and eventually the rap sheet gets so bad that they will quite literally break from themselves and become permanently insane from the enormity of their crimes and nothing can possibly bring them back, there's simply too much to account for, if they ever truly reckoned with who they are and what they've done they would kill themselves, so they just have to keep doing what they're doing and getting worse and worse because it's either that or death. we call these people psychopaths and treat it like some kind of mysterious innate illness or defect, but this othering is just a comforting story we tell ourselves; we want to believe that we are fundamentally different from those kinds of people and we could never become like that, that they're like aliens from another planet or something. but they're not, they're humans just like us and anyone could become like that, it's just a question of how far they've gone and how much they have destroyed their own ability to live with themselves and to what level they are able to find ways to distract themselves and insulate themselves from reality.
>>2916166>Did Maupin get zucked?What was the vidrel about?
>>2916699Not reading books.
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