It sickens and disgusts me to know that I have to share a nation and a planet with people like the ones Mr. Waldman describes in this blog post. America has been turned over to dysfunctional, incompetent sociopaths who enjoy moving fast, breaking things, and don't give a damn if people suffer because of those actions. Meanwhile, Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are salivating at the thought of stealing the hard-earned Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other earned benefits from the American people. It feels like we are now in a really bad sci-fi movie, but this movie doesn't have a happy or even reasonable ending. I'm terrified for myself and for those whose lives will be destroyed by the Trumpian vulgarians. Damn the 77 million marks who fell for that convicted felon's con. You gullible fools have brought about the destruction of my beloved country. Damn you all to hell.
And damn the apathetic dopes who sat the election out or found any excuse to not take the election seriously or thought that they were "making a statement" by not voting. They cry and moan wanting progressive change but they refuse to change as people, refuse to understand that change starts from the ground up, or the fact that this mess that we are in did not happen overnight, it was decades in the making since the goddamned 80s!!! Damn the complacency of the old guard and damn the political naivete, neglegence and laziness of those who refuse to vote or check to see if their registrations have not been purged!!!
Empathy , for me, means compassion. If you want to split hairs and say sympathy is aligning w the grief or sorrow of another, I’ll give you that. But it still comes down to displays of humanity which this “Gang” has no interest and if given the chance ( or whatever roadblocks remain are removed) the cruelty of nazi germany or stalinist russia will again raise its orange stained head. I don’t think elections are coming. Either Europe will get involved if Greenland, Canada and Panama get attacked or the military will find its Constitutional duties.
While reptiles like Vance might couch their greed and selfishness in a convenient interpretation of whatever religion or ideology that they feel justifies their instincts they’re really just echoing Thatcherism and Reaganism. Thatcher claimed there was no society with an everyone for themselves platform that denied any idea of the public good. Britain still hasn’t recovered from the long term damage her short term fixes wrought on their economy. Reagan was less honest but just as mean spirited and the GOP has continued on the path he set.
I think the kind of empathy that they fear is the quality that RFK talked about on the campaign trail in 1968. He too had his flaws. He too was a Catholic. He said in part:
“….we seem powerless to stop this growing division between Americans, who at least confront one another, there are millions more living in the hidden places, whose names and faces are completely unknown - but I have seen these other Americans - I have seen children in Mississippi starving, their bodies so crippled from hunger and their minds have been so destroyed for their whole life that they will have no future. I have seen children in Mississippi - here in the United States - with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars - I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation, and we haven't developed a policy so we can get enough food so that they can live, so that their children, so that their lives are not destroyed, I don't think that's acceptable in the United States of America and I think we need a change.
I have seen Indians living on their bare and meager reservations, with no jobs, with an unemployment rate of 80 percent, and with so little hope for the future, so little hope for the future that for young people, for young men and women in their teens, the greatest cause of death amongst them is suicide.
That they end their lives by killing themselves - I don't think that we have to accept that - for the first American, for this minority here in the United States. If young boys and girls are so filled with despair when they are going to high school and feel that their lives are so hopeless and that nobody's going to care for them, nobody's going to be involved with them, and nobody's going to bother with them, that they either hang themselves, shoot themselves or kill themselves - I don't think that's acceptable and I think the United States of America - I think the American people, I think we can do much, much better. And I run for the presidency because of that, I run for the presidency because I have seen proud men in the hills of Appalachia, who wish only to work in dignity, but they cannot, for the mines are closed and their jobs are gone and no one - neither industry, nor labor, nor government - has cared enough to help.
I think we here in this country, with the unselfish spirit that exists in the United States of America, I think we can do better here also.
I have seen the people of the black ghetto, listening to ever greater promises of equality and of justice, as they sit in the same decaying schools and huddled in the same filthy rooms - without heat - warding off the cold and warding off the rats.
If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
That “other American” is what these MAGA madmen want to make normal for the majority of of the population.
Just a word for the Christians...who are not the same as the people who call themselves Christian:
Jesus say the most important commandment is to love God, and the second...which is like it...is to love your neighbor as yourself. Asked "who is my neighbor" he gave the example of the good Samaritan. Samaritans were not well-liked by the Jews.
As for what "love god" means, Jesus leaves us to find that out for ourselves. He also says "many will come in my name" [saying "jesus this, jesus that] so as to fool the very elect.
Don't forget that the Pope himself called out Vance on his ignorant, selfish reading of Catholic doctrine. As NY Mag reported:
"Having presented basic church teachings on immigration, Francis briskly turned to Vance’s ordo amoris defense of nativism:
"'Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups … The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.
"'But worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.'"
Hannah Arendt already showed how empathy is usually one of the first things that disappear, on the level of civil society, before people start voting for fascism (although to be fair, most Trump voters probably didn't know they were voting for fascism; they were made to believe that Democrats are fascists and Trump pro-democracy... in the twisted way in which Vance used that word in Munich when he somehow claimed that allowing neofascist political parties to say whatever they want (so allowing violent speech and fake news to fester, basically) is the pinnacle of "democracy", as is the idea of giving the executive all three powers of government).
Fortunately, today we know that empathy is (1) innate and (2) highly trainable. A serious decrease in empathy levels therefore simply means that that group (in this case, Evangelicals) no longer has access to solid empathy training tools (also called "emotional intelligence training" these days).
Unfortunately, however, I'm afraid that we on the left need to start examining our own methods first. DEI is and remains a crucial tool to guarantee the equal treatment of all and equal opportunity for all, but "DEI trainings" are based on techniques that go radically AGAINST most emotional intelligence training strategies. So in that sense, I'd argue that "we started it"... . A hollowed-out version of Christianity on the right did the rest.
This is why imho the only solution is that the left FINALLY has the debate that we couldn't have last summer because there was no time: what is good about DEI (which is basically most of what Trump is abolishing in its name), and what turned out to be a terribly failed experiment and needs to be urgently ended, including at university campuses?
Vance feels that way because all late converts to any faith seem to take the more extreme, orthodox approach to their newfound beliefs. Think about it - why would you abandon your prior thinking if you didn’t feel you have to go all in into the new faith? What’s the point otherwise?
I don't see why that would be true in general. Also, boundless love and compassion is basically at the heart of all major religions. Only hollowed-out, fundamentalist versions reject it (mostly because they no longer know how to develop it in the first place). So THE question here is: why did such a hollowed-out version of Christianity take over the American right?
It's easier to see why people with a lot of childhood abuse (such as Vance) would flock to fundamentalist religious approaches: if you weren't fortunate enough to encounter truly compassionate people that helped you deal with the cruel environment in which you grew up, you'll stick with the worldview that Trump's father transmitted to his son: in this life, you're either a killer or a loser, so make sure you're a killer. If you had to turn your heart into a stone (as quite some victims of abuse have to do to survive - the same way doctors without solid compassion training have to do to still be able to fill their days with the suffering of endless numbers of patients), a "religion" that JUSTIFIES your instinctive reaction can feel all the more attractive...
So hey,I noticed that I got no reply on my comment and I was just wondering if you wanted to address the fact that your story is an awful lot like mine, but with a little added and switcherood. Just curious if you knew anything about that. Even the cover art is the same. Weird...
I hadn't seen your post before I wrote mine, but this is an issue that has been getting some discussion in the media; I was inspired to write about it by other articles I read. And I assume we both did a similar search in the Substack image system, which is why we found the same picture.
My Unitarian minister recently delivered a homily on this subject. Mind-blowing, to say the least, but I suppose this kind of justification for bad behavior was to be expected.
It sickens and disgusts me to know that I have to share a nation and a planet with people like the ones Mr. Waldman describes in this blog post. America has been turned over to dysfunctional, incompetent sociopaths who enjoy moving fast, breaking things, and don't give a damn if people suffer because of those actions. Meanwhile, Trump, Musk, and their billionaire cronies are salivating at the thought of stealing the hard-earned Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other earned benefits from the American people. It feels like we are now in a really bad sci-fi movie, but this movie doesn't have a happy or even reasonable ending. I'm terrified for myself and for those whose lives will be destroyed by the Trumpian vulgarians. Damn the 77 million marks who fell for that convicted felon's con. You gullible fools have brought about the destruction of my beloved country. Damn you all to hell.
And damn the apathetic dopes who sat the election out or found any excuse to not take the election seriously or thought that they were "making a statement" by not voting. They cry and moan wanting progressive change but they refuse to change as people, refuse to understand that change starts from the ground up, or the fact that this mess that we are in did not happen overnight, it was decades in the making since the goddamned 80s!!! Damn the complacency of the old guard and damn the political naivete, neglegence and laziness of those who refuse to vote or check to see if their registrations have not been purged!!!
Empathy , for me, means compassion. If you want to split hairs and say sympathy is aligning w the grief or sorrow of another, I’ll give you that. But it still comes down to displays of humanity which this “Gang” has no interest and if given the chance ( or whatever roadblocks remain are removed) the cruelty of nazi germany or stalinist russia will again raise its orange stained head. I don’t think elections are coming. Either Europe will get involved if Greenland, Canada and Panama get attacked or the military will find its Constitutional duties.
Clinically speaking, a person without empathy is known as a <i>psychopath</i>.
While reptiles like Vance might couch their greed and selfishness in a convenient interpretation of whatever religion or ideology that they feel justifies their instincts they’re really just echoing Thatcherism and Reaganism. Thatcher claimed there was no society with an everyone for themselves platform that denied any idea of the public good. Britain still hasn’t recovered from the long term damage her short term fixes wrought on their economy. Reagan was less honest but just as mean spirited and the GOP has continued on the path he set.
I think the kind of empathy that they fear is the quality that RFK talked about on the campaign trail in 1968. He too had his flaws. He too was a Catholic. He said in part:
“….we seem powerless to stop this growing division between Americans, who at least confront one another, there are millions more living in the hidden places, whose names and faces are completely unknown - but I have seen these other Americans - I have seen children in Mississippi starving, their bodies so crippled from hunger and their minds have been so destroyed for their whole life that they will have no future. I have seen children in Mississippi - here in the United States - with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars - I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation, and we haven't developed a policy so we can get enough food so that they can live, so that their children, so that their lives are not destroyed, I don't think that's acceptable in the United States of America and I think we need a change.
I have seen Indians living on their bare and meager reservations, with no jobs, with an unemployment rate of 80 percent, and with so little hope for the future, so little hope for the future that for young people, for young men and women in their teens, the greatest cause of death amongst them is suicide.
That they end their lives by killing themselves - I don't think that we have to accept that - for the first American, for this minority here in the United States. If young boys and girls are so filled with despair when they are going to high school and feel that their lives are so hopeless and that nobody's going to care for them, nobody's going to be involved with them, and nobody's going to bother with them, that they either hang themselves, shoot themselves or kill themselves - I don't think that's acceptable and I think the United States of America - I think the American people, I think we can do much, much better. And I run for the presidency because of that, I run for the presidency because I have seen proud men in the hills of Appalachia, who wish only to work in dignity, but they cannot, for the mines are closed and their jobs are gone and no one - neither industry, nor labor, nor government - has cared enough to help.
I think we here in this country, with the unselfish spirit that exists in the United States of America, I think we can do better here also.
I have seen the people of the black ghetto, listening to ever greater promises of equality and of justice, as they sit in the same decaying schools and huddled in the same filthy rooms - without heat - warding off the cold and warding off the rats.
If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America.”
That “other American” is what these MAGA madmen want to make normal for the majority of of the population.
Waldman
thanks for this. it helps to hear from someone who agrees with me...without having read the same political talking points.
Just a word for the Christians...who are not the same as the people who call themselves Christian:
Jesus say the most important commandment is to love God, and the second...which is like it...is to love your neighbor as yourself. Asked "who is my neighbor" he gave the example of the good Samaritan. Samaritans were not well-liked by the Jews.
As for what "love god" means, Jesus leaves us to find that out for ourselves. He also says "many will come in my name" [saying "jesus this, jesus that] so as to fool the very elect.
perhaps he meant the very elected.
Don't forget that the Pope himself called out Vance on his ignorant, selfish reading of Catholic doctrine. As NY Mag reported:
"Having presented basic church teachings on immigration, Francis briskly turned to Vance’s ordo amoris defense of nativism:
"'Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups … The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.
"'But worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.'"
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/pope-vance-wrong-migrants-letter.html
I published this piece on the war on empathy on March 13th. I covered the same quotes and books and we even used the same cover art. https://substack.com/@bluepnwcats/note/p-159014312
Very interesting and important, thanks!
Hannah Arendt already showed how empathy is usually one of the first things that disappear, on the level of civil society, before people start voting for fascism (although to be fair, most Trump voters probably didn't know they were voting for fascism; they were made to believe that Democrats are fascists and Trump pro-democracy... in the twisted way in which Vance used that word in Munich when he somehow claimed that allowing neofascist political parties to say whatever they want (so allowing violent speech and fake news to fester, basically) is the pinnacle of "democracy", as is the idea of giving the executive all three powers of government).
Fortunately, today we know that empathy is (1) innate and (2) highly trainable. A serious decrease in empathy levels therefore simply means that that group (in this case, Evangelicals) no longer has access to solid empathy training tools (also called "emotional intelligence training" these days).
Unfortunately, however, I'm afraid that we on the left need to start examining our own methods first. DEI is and remains a crucial tool to guarantee the equal treatment of all and equal opportunity for all, but "DEI trainings" are based on techniques that go radically AGAINST most emotional intelligence training strategies. So in that sense, I'd argue that "we started it"... . A hollowed-out version of Christianity on the right did the rest.
This is why imho the only solution is that the left FINALLY has the debate that we couldn't have last summer because there was no time: what is good about DEI (which is basically most of what Trump is abolishing in its name), and what turned out to be a terribly failed experiment and needs to be urgently ended, including at university campuses?
Vance feels that way because all late converts to any faith seem to take the more extreme, orthodox approach to their newfound beliefs. Think about it - why would you abandon your prior thinking if you didn’t feel you have to go all in into the new faith? What’s the point otherwise?
I don't see why that would be true in general. Also, boundless love and compassion is basically at the heart of all major religions. Only hollowed-out, fundamentalist versions reject it (mostly because they no longer know how to develop it in the first place). So THE question here is: why did such a hollowed-out version of Christianity take over the American right?
It's easier to see why people with a lot of childhood abuse (such as Vance) would flock to fundamentalist religious approaches: if you weren't fortunate enough to encounter truly compassionate people that helped you deal with the cruel environment in which you grew up, you'll stick with the worldview that Trump's father transmitted to his son: in this life, you're either a killer or a loser, so make sure you're a killer. If you had to turn your heart into a stone (as quite some victims of abuse have to do to survive - the same way doctors without solid compassion training have to do to still be able to fill their days with the suffering of endless numbers of patients), a "religion" that JUSTIFIES your instinctive reaction can feel all the more attractive...
So hey,I noticed that I got no reply on my comment and I was just wondering if you wanted to address the fact that your story is an awful lot like mine, but with a little added and switcherood. Just curious if you knew anything about that. Even the cover art is the same. Weird...
https://bluepnwcats.substack.com/p/em-pathetic?r=gc3ns
I hadn't seen your post before I wrote mine, but this is an issue that has been getting some discussion in the media; I was inspired to write about it by other articles I read. And I assume we both did a similar search in the Substack image system, which is why we found the same picture.
My Unitarian minister recently delivered a homily on this subject. Mind-blowing, to say the least, but I suppose this kind of justification for bad behavior was to be expected.
Consider the motives of those decrying empathy.
https://bonhoefferchild.substack.com/p/narcissism-the-prosperity-gospel
https://thenoosphere.substack.com/p/why-the-war-on-empathy-is-really
https://essayx.substack.com/p/without-empathy-civilization-crumbles
It is so sad that all the rich oligarchs have is money!