Not that the vast majority would be without empathy, just that power would raise it from where it sits currently. Thought I should clarify that.
Gotta build a world where compassion and empathy are rewarded and that will happen
Between a third and a half of the world’s wealth comes from inheritance. If your parents have savings you will likely become privileged when they die. You’ll experience some small windfall, and may even move up a class. Will you keep your empathy and class politics? What will you do with the money? Or will you just hide and perpetuate the system?
We are organised in such a way that authority and empathy exclude each other. Never forget that authority is an authority by collective agreement, even when enforced by violence. A king never rules alone. If you elevate basic morality as a prerequisite for your participation with said authority it has no choice but to do so. So reach out to people and have important talks about these things. It is very important that agreement is formed as broadly as possible.
I think our inverse relationship between power and empathy is essentially a society-wide maladaptive response to trauma.
It is beneficial to a society in times of famine, war, and general disaster, to have a leader who is able to say that 12 year olds should be fed before 14 year olds. It is also beneficial to a society in those times for the majority of people to be more willing to do something if an authority figure tells them to than they are willing to decide to do something.
When a society is generally secure, this becomes hugely problematic, because some portion of us are predisposed to be both heartless and powerful (the causation is largely irrelevant, because there’s a definite correlation), and most of the rest of us will support them and carry out their wishes.
Highly recommend reading David Graeber’s “Dawn of Everything”, “Debt: the First 5000 Years”, and “Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology”. It explains a lot about how humanity ended up this way.
And the causation between people being heartlessness and power of authority is incredibly important: the way we build society creates the incentive structure of how we behave within that society. We have created a society that rewards abandoning empathy and solidarity to gain power and authority (i.e. security and stability) Thus we have a society of people who have no empathy or solidarity.
I love David graeber, that’s always a good recommendation.
I think that causation would be important for dealing with the issue, but I also believe there is zero practical chance we do deal with it, so it’s realistically irrelevant. We’re in a self-reinforcing cycle and it’s not changing unless we actually change it. Only in the last few years, I’ve seen us hit a dozen of what would have seemed like breaking points in the nineties, and we’re not breaking.
As Ursula K LeGuin put it
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”
There is no such thing as “breaking points”. Revolutions aren’t this spontaneous thing that just happens all of a sudden. It is the result of years of deliberate and concerted effort by communities to change their way of life.
I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not talking about capitalism or even anything created intentionally by humans.
I’m talking about much more fundamental aspects of humanity- that we become tribalist and like a strongman leader during tough times, that we want to protect children over the elderly in emergencies.
Those play well into capitalism, but they also play well into most systems people have created (because they’re fundamentally human). I don’t think they’re immutable, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near being able to change them right now.
Not because I think they’re as inevitable as monarchy, but because it would be pointless to fix those things first without figuring out a way to stop fighting wars with each other, because those tendencies will return immediately in response to war.
It’s like working with someone to help them with PTSD, then sending them immediately back to the environment that gave it to them. A) PTSD might have been protective, if it made them more sensitive to loud noises or hyperaware of any changes that might indicate a danger; and B) they’re just going to develop symptoms of PTSD again.
So yes, we could change these aspects of humanity, but it would be pointless unless we can figure out a way to coexist without developing them anew.
You need to read more about the anarchist aspects that Graeber and LeGuin advocate. Conflict in inevitable with the ruling powers that create these circumstances which dictate how society at large behaves but conflict doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
What you’re talking about is in fact created by humans. We create the conditions that incentivizes that behavior. He goes over the mechanisms behind it in his books “Debt” and “Dawn of Everything”. Humanity doesn’t just default to hierarchy.
It is entirely possible to build new and then enforce our autonomy from the current ruling class. We know it is possible. We have done it before and we can do it again.
You don’t get to positions of power by being nice. You’re either corrupt to begin with or you will become corrupt on the journey. It’s like any other competitive situation without proper refs and rules. People without morals do things to “win” that people with morals wouldn’t. This is why the shit rises to the top.
Oh my god are you THE reanukeeves? Who was in ‘mhe tatrix’? Holy shit dude I love your work, but why did you shave your facial hair when you started getting old?
Don’t forget my roles in “Wohn Jick”, “Boint Preak” and “Till and Bed”. I actually don’t shave, it’s due to the testosterone blockers I’ve been taking because I feel that I am too manly and am setting an unrealistic goal for humanity.
That’s reasonable. Yes.
I think it does, except for the kind of person who seeks and covets that power, they’re already damaged goods.
