http://m.nautil.us/issue/51/limits/no-yo...veryone-rp
EXCERPT: [...] Social scientists have found that in-group love and out-group hate originate from the same neurobiological basis, are mutually reinforcing, and co-evolved—because loyalty to the in-group provided a survival advantage by helping our ancestors to combat a threatening out-group. That means that, in principle, if we eliminate out-group hate completely, we may also undermine in-group love. Empathy is a zero-sum game. Absolute universalism, in which we feel compassion for every individual on Earth, is psychologically impossible. Ignoring this fact carries a heavy cost: We become paralyzed by the unachievable demands we place on ourselves. We can see this in our public discourse today. Discussions of empathy fluctuate between worrying that people don’t empathize enough and fretting that they empathize too much with the wrong people. These criticisms both come from the sense that we have an infinite capacity to empathize, and that it is our fault if we fail to use it....
MORE:
http://m.nautil.us/issue/51/limits/no-yo...veryone-rp
It's funny how much common sense stuff scientists are consistently rediscovering. The expense...not so much.
(Aug 12, 2017 05:30 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]http://m.nautil.us/issue/51/limits/no-yo...veryone-rp
EXCERPT: [...] Social scientists have found that in-group love and out-group hate originate from the same neurobiological basis, are mutually reinforcing, and co-evolved—because loyalty to the in-group provided a survival advantage by helping our ancestors to combat a threatening out-group. That means that, in principle, if we eliminate out-group hate completely, we may also undermine in-group love. Empathy is a zero-sum game. Absolute universalism, in which we feel compassion for every individual on Earth, is psychologically impossible. Ignoring this fact carries a heavy cost: We become paralyzed by the unachievable demands we place on ourselves. We can see this in our public discourse today. Discussions of empathy fluctuate between worrying that people don’t empathize enough and fretting that they empathize too much with the wrong people. These criticisms both come from the sense that we have an infinite capacity to empathize, and that it is our fault if we fail to use it....
MORE: http://m.nautil.us/issue/51/limits/no-yo...veryone-rp
Thank you. Now why did we need a social scientists to remind us that to love everyone is to love no one? I don't really care why they did it but I'm glad they did. Both liberal and conservative discourse has gone off the rails and have backed into extremist positions but in this particular case this overwhelming emphasis on empathy comes from the liberal wing but I question whether its indeed empathetic. I believe this push towards the global is what makes people feel politically impotent. Just to offer one small example during the whole Brexit debate there was an emphasis on the greater European good over national interests. One was automatically labeled 'nationalist' with all its shady connotations. To be a nationalist is to be suspect, a "little Englander", to have a global vision is to be progressive but how are citizens to maneuver democratically when the levers of democracy grow further and further away from the local and national level? I don't expect an answer about Brexit, I'm just indicating how people are being pushed towards a global outlook and the feeling of having no control leads people back to what they can directly care about and understand, their neighborhood and their country. This attempt to broaden our concerns is leading to groups fragmenting into smaller groups. I've never known a time when group identity was as important as now, we are starting to see it in everything.
An interesting article and concept for consideration.
Quote:Basing our moral criteria on maximizing happiness is not simply a philosophical choice, but rather a scientifically motivated one: Empirical data confirm that happiness improves physical health, enhancing immune function and reducing stress, both of which contribute to longevity. Shouldn’t our moral choice be the one that maximizes our collective well-being?
With the advance of technology and nigh instant global communication of disastrous events, there has also proliferated the demands for our attention and requests for our empathy in the form of funding relief assistance. The government and other organizations have been quick to capitalize on this with fund matching schemes. Other groups and worthy causes solicit our empathy at the grocery check-out, putting one in the public spotlight to say 'aye' or 'nay' to a small contribution of fiscal empathy.
Financially and emotionally, one can only endure so much soliciting of concern and it reminds me of my grandfathers' teaching that 'charity begins at home.'
We have so many needs in our own communities that go unaddressed yet individually and as a nation we are almost daily asked to step up to the plate for a further removed cause.
It does indeed wear one down and begin to confuse one's sense of where to engage with the larger scheme of things.
(Aug 15, 2017 04:18 PM)scheherazade Wrote: [ -> ]An interesting article and concept for consideration.
Quote:Basing our moral criteria on maximizing happiness is not simply a philosophical choice, but rather a scientifically motivated one: Empirical data confirm that happiness improves physical health, enhancing immune function and reducing stress, both of which contribute to longevity. Shouldn’t our moral choice be the one that maximizes our collective well-being?
With the advance of technology and nigh instant global communication of disastrous events, there has also proliferated the demands for our attention and requests for our empathy in the form of funding relief assistance. The government and other organizations have been quick to capitalize on this with fund matching schemes. Other groups and worthy causes solicit our empathy at the grocery check-out, putting one in the public spotlight to say 'aye' or 'nay' to a small contribution of fiscal empathy.
Financially and emotionally, one can only endure so much soliciting of concern and it reminds me of my grandfathers' teaching that 'charity begins at home.'
We have so many needs in our own communities that go unaddressed yet individually and as a nation we are almost daily asked to step up to the plate for a further removed cause.
It does indeed wear one down and begin to confuse one's sense of where to engage with the larger scheme of things.
And doesn't it also have a patronizing tinge? I am not against helping others but instead of helping other groups and nations become more autonomous its seems as if it reinforces the notion that these nations or people are unable to resolve or creatively solve their own problems. Everything gets dumped into a big pool and then we wonder why we cannot act on a global level.
Yeah, and where did you go?
Hmmm?
Ever donated money to help out the impoverished in some other country? My S-I-L went over to Malawi one year , came back with a sad story of how poor and ill equipped people over there were. So to help them out she was asking for money to help buy a tractor for them, just to make farming a little easier. I did, felt good about it until word came from the next group of saviours that the tractor now sat in a field where some guy who claimed ownership hung his wet clothes/animal skins on. All rusted to shit, parts missing and so on. That was the last time I pulled the wallet out for such a cause.
(Feb 23, 2018 11:00 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]Ever donated money to help out the impoverished in some other country? My S-I-L went over to Malawi one year , came back with a sad story of how poor and ill equipped people over there were. So to help them out she was asking for money to help buy a tractor for them, just to make farming a little easier. I did, felt good about it until word came from the next group of saviours that the tractor now sat in a field where some guy who claimed ownership hung his wet clothes/animal skins on. All rusted to shit, parts missing and so on. That was the last time I pulled the wallet out for such a cause.
Reminds me of the
Roundabout Playpump that a range of news and investigative reporting agencies from
BBC to
PBS Frontline were thumping positively back in 2005. I recollect getting a warm fuzzy feeling after watching those segments that year. The Hollywood celebs launched into their "covert self-publicity" via "do-gooder mode" to endorse the charity-riding gimmick and raise funds to implement the product in South African villages.
Of course, as "the road to hell is paved with..." movements and marketing endeavors go, it largely made the situation even more inconvenient for the women who had been laboriously using the handpumps to obtain water.[*] The extra complexity of the pumping mechanism was too challenging to maintain for local repair and upkeep resources. Smaller communities didn't have that many children available with free time for non-stop play on the apparatus. Often a well just wasn't tapping into a large enough or renewing enough groundwater supply for the Playpump to increase the yield anyway, if the kids were aplenty.
Eventually some of the women of the villages got their old handpumps returned to the wells after the $9,000 to $14,000 contraptions were removed and junked.
- - - footnote - - -
[*] In areas where the
handpumps themselves didn't beforehand have an almost equally lousy record in terms of reliability. (But presumably handpumps were at least cheaper for either the local community or international donors to purchase.)
~~~
CC....Showing my age but for some reason I always think of these lyrics whenever I get a request to help the poor. From JC Superstar (Everything's Alright):
Surely you're not saying
We have the resources
To save the poor from their lot
There will be poor always
Pathetically struggling
Look at the good things you've got
I don't feel ashamed to have good things and I can't be made to feel shameful about them. If I don't have the good things, do I become a charity case? I suppose I get to keep them unless I need to sell in order to procure the funds needed to donate. Besides it just feels wrong to interfere with traditions*, customs, cultures, philosophies, etc. Maybe I'm too harsh but I'd rather help my own countrymen first, and even that I take personally, not wishing to donate to those charities with huge administration costs.
* Interesting side note ..... While my S-I-L was in Malawi, apparently she woke up one morning to find a spear shoved into the ground at her tent entrance. Whether it's true or not, she said that it was a sign from a local villager, someone they were trying to help, staking his claim on her. Made her very nervous and they changed her sleeping arrangements to keep an eye on situation. Perhaps like anything else, it's good to know who you're dealing with.
(Feb 24, 2018 01:39 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]CC....Showing my age but for some reason I always think of these lyrics whenever I get a request to help the poor. From JC Superstar (Everything's Alright):
Surely you're not saying
We have the resources
To save the poor from their lot
There will be poor always
Pathetically struggling
Look at the good things you've got
I don't feel ashamed to have good things and I can't be made to feel shameful about them. If I don't have the good things, do I become a charity case? I suppose I get to keep them unless I need to sell in order to procure the funds needed to donate. Besides it just feels wrong to interfere with traditions*, customs, cultures, philosophies, etc. Maybe I'm too harsh but I'd rather help my own countrymen first, and even that I take personally, not wishing to donate to those charities with huge administration costs.
* Interesting side note ..... While my S-I-L was in Malawi, apparently she woke up one morning to find a spear shoved into the ground at her tent entrance. Whether it's true or not, she said that it was a sign from a local villager, someone they were trying to help, staking his claim on her. Made her very nervous and they changed her sleeping arrangements to keep an eye on situation. Perhaps like anything else, it's good to know who you're dealing with.
I think that in a lot of these cases idiot compassion is at play.
Idiot Compassion
You probably already know that this song was in reference to
this passage.
Was her gesture a case of idiot compassion? He didn’t seem to think so.
I think a better question is if you didn’t have good things, would you become a different person? In other words, are your processions part of your identity?
Our status seeking behavior is something that C C has mentioned several time before. I asked someone a few weeks ago, someone who is very materialistic and a bit of snob, if she looked down on the less fortunate. She said that she didn’t. She thought they could pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they wanted to. She thought that their unfortunate circumstances stemmed from poor choices. In other words, she thought that it was merited and deserved.
Great Gatsby Curve
What do you think, Zinman?