I hear these comments for not wanting to help people, and it feels like we’re worshipping individuality to the detriment of community, which is necessary for survival.
- “I don’t want my money going to ___ .”
- “This is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic!”
- “You don’t have any freedoms under socialism/communism.”
- “They’re just looking for a handout because they’re lazy.”
- “I’m a self-made man. I didn’t need anyone’s help.”
- “Empathy is not a virtue.”
- “I don’t see how that’s my problem.”
The new “hyperindividualism” trend is sad to look into too.
Some of that is dumbfuckism. Constitutional republics are democracies, for example.
Some of those sentiments have always existed & come across as though you were born yesterday.
While socialism is a broad term, communism usually refers to communist states, which are authoritarian regimes that even in theory reject universal individual rights/liberties. Non-authoritarian socialism is something else.
People have a duty to beneficence. However, plenty of people lazily toss empathy around as an argument from outrage fallacy instead of bothering to build a more credible & persuasive argument. Listeners get sick of that fast & don’t mind if you think of them as monsters: they certainly don’t care about your poorly argued opinions.
So, that could be deprogramming or it could be ineffective discussion breakdowns. I don’t think empathy requires programming. I’d think its rejection require reprogramming.
Individualism doesn’t necessarily mean selfishness. As pointed out elsewhere, collectivism can also lead to oppressive injustices.
no, it was never there.
It’s by design.
The spread of the superhero (Übermenschen) to ubiquity in pop culture, especially Hollywood, the punishing and assumption of evil within destitute people, the indoctrination of children (pledge of allegiance et al), the selective curricula that largely keep the general education from showing the populace of the US that their country is more closely related to a self styled African dictatorship than a modern social democracy. Usanians frequently utter “it’s not personal, it’s business”. That is the hallmark of declining hegemon and roughly translates to “fuck you, got mine”.
Ignore. Empathy is hot.
They’re sure trying their best.
Evangelical leaders are certainly trying.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/is-empathy-a-sin-some-conservative-christians-argue-it-can-be
It’s not innate…
Innately humans are just animals. It takes effort to get people on the same page that cooperating is usually best
But we stopped teaching kids that in school 20 years ago.
That’s the sad truth about it. It’s not that the right corrupted a generation, just that between them an the neoliberals, no one wanted to help them. They both wanted brain dead tribalism because that’s what their mutual donors want
It honestly shouldn’t be that hard for everyone to follow the string back to "no child left behind’ but I remember pointing out this would happen 30 years ago, and I thought it was obvious back then too.
Animals work together very easily and frequently actually, same and different species, even things called symbiotic relationships. That argument is proving your point wrong and indicating that most hatred is indoctrination.
And they’re socialized for that too…
Take a social animal, raise it in isolation, and it will be almost impossible for it to integrate in a group after released as an adult…
You’ve never seen any of the videos of wildlife rehab hiding the fact that they’re human from an animal?
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Independence can be weaponized to make people fight each other.
So can collectivism be used to manipulate people to sacrifice “for the common good”, like for example, forcing you to be in the military to “fight for our country” in foreign wars.
Me vs Us
Us vs Them
Both can be problematic.
But who’s the us and who’s the them? And why would a distinction necessarily force us to commit murder?!
If you decide on anything superficial (race and tribe, for instance), the bonds will be easily broken and the people will be easily manipulated. If you pick something like character and ideology, you can have a wider circle (these things are more flexible) and if you dislike the out group it is for actual reasons like a major moral disagreement and not the amount of melanin.
Annoyed to report: successful and long standing communes/communities seem to all be highly selective, at least initially.
If you’ve got good examples that contradict this, please share.
Of course they are, they’re full and doing great lol
I might be starting one soon with mostly family… It’s a long shot, but I’d interview you then the time comes if you want. No promises
I feel like examples that prove it using some standard definitions are a prerequisite to that conversation.
Without standard definitions such as selection method/criterium and controlling for variables such as external factors your basically asking me to refute apples with oranges.
At least since the 60s/70s, it’s not new.
Wasn’t there segregation before the 70s? So it seems like a default state for USA since forever.
“Hate thy neighbor skin color”
https://segregationinamerica.eji.org/report/how-segregation-survived.html
“I hate insert group of people”
everybody!
First they made you fear someone, then they told you they lived down the street.
Debatable how deliberate that was, but it’s certainly not not what they wanted…
Very, because it is politically advantageous.
