A page from The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley
I guess it’s not exactly surprising, but it seems to explain a lot of things I’m witnessing in my later adulthood. I’ve always felt deeply impressed by selfless heroes, but I never really pondered the profile of heroism.
Empathy being a sign of privilege isn’t the truth I needed to read today :/
In a weird way, having emotionally available and supportive parents is absolutely a privilege. People are able to develop empathy in spite of bad parents, and good parenting isn’t a guarantee to a good person, but parenting is a major factor for life success. I wish it weren’t, and I hope we can build a society that could guarantee every child full opportunities.
Luckily, it is the kind of privilege you can pass on to your children.
You don’t have to have any other privileges for that. Just patience and love (yep, not easy, but doable by all means)
You can break the cycle
When you are fighting to survive, it’s only normal to have less bandwidth to care for others.
That’s the irony of it. I’m by no means a scholar of Thich Nhat Hanh, but I remember reading an account from his early life as a Vietnamese monk during the conflict with imperial France in which he had basically nothing and was himself barely surviving, but still found a way to feel peace and express compassion for a young French soldier suffering from malaria who desperately raided the monastery at gunpoint.
The opposite I feel, we are stronger as a group and my instinct when shit hits the fan is to make sure everyone involved is ok and ready to face the challenge together
But… I’m confused. Didn’t Musk call empathy a weakness? Surely someone so tolerant, inclusive, and humble couldn’t be wrong.
Fucking hell. I can’t escape being reminded of this shitstain everywhere, even if I filter political posts.
Yeah I wish we could filter comments as well.
programming.dev##article.comment-node:has(div.comment-content:has(p:has-text(/Musk/i)))Put that into your adblocker custom filters (assuming you’re using a browser)
Yeah, I heard ignoring the shit world around you is a really good way to effect change
I tried to effect change for 8 years. I gave up when Americans decided that they wanted the shit world. My mental health can’t handle it, I literally am losing years of my life with every moment I spend reading about how the people in this country are hell bent on turning it into the worst possible existence.
We were in this position before, a period of even greater division, even to the point of violence.
Our mistake was not teaching the fascist confederates the price of evil.
It’s about as effective as talking about it on social media all day, every day. The people making real change are out in the real world doing concrete things - not just posting about it online. Shaming people for not wanting to be miserable 24/7 because of the constant firehose of bad news isn’t just unproductive - it’s counterproductive.
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Paul Bloom has written an entire book arguing Against Empathy
I’m not sure I entirely agree with his thesis but it’s not a completely outrageous idea. I often wish I could tone down my level of empathy as well.
Reading the page, it doesn’t sound like he’s against empathy at all. He’s specifically against making decisions based on “feels” and targeting empathy specifically because he seems to believe it’s a tool often misused.
For a second I was expecting something akin to Radical Candor’s “ruinous empathy” which has been used an excuse by managers the world over to justify their inherent lack of any empathy for the people around them.
Seems like an interesting read, adding it to my list. Thanks.
People are terrified of empathy. Empathy is the capacity (or even the obligation) to experience the suffering of others. Suffering HURTS. Empathy HURTS. People will do anything to avoid thinking about the victim on their plate.
