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My own – perhaps controversial – take is that a lot is explained once you realize that the United States, as a country, is deficient in empathy. One example is

My own – perhaps controversial – take is that a lot is explained once you realize that the United States, as a country, is deficient in empathy. One example is The American Dream: the idea that anyone can be rich if they just work hard enough, which also implies that being poor is a personal failure: you didn't work hard enough. What this misses is that in the end, you're still going to need people to pick up the garbage, and serve McDonalds, and so forth. turns out not all of society can be composed of lawyers, doctors, and computer programmers. Who knew? There are many more examples, but I don't want to sideline this too much by various political issues. I'm not entirely sure what the source of this is, or if it's recent or more rooted in history. It's just my observations of the US as an adult.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
the United States, as a country, is deficient in empathy. That doesn't really contradict what I said. Social misfits often do lack empathy. This is sometimes at least partly biologically based, but is frequently compounded by more "normal" types behaving monstrously towards them because they are different. I've raised two special needs sons. They don't intuitively get a lot of social stuff. I've had to carefully explain many things. But the reality is that a lot more social stuff is learned than most normal people want to admit. Needing to actively and intentionally teach it to some people who don't readily pick it up without instruction isn't as bizarre and alien as the world wants to pretend it is. Plus, the lesser emphasis on empathy in America does have positives. Differently wired people tend to have a higher tolerance for things more empathetic people can't cope with. High empathy is not a good thing for being a soldier or a surgeon, both important roles in the world. the idea that anyone can be rich if they just work hard enough The origin of that idea is that we had escaped entrenched class structure in Europe. America was conceived of as the land of opportunity. This was a positive thing, not a way to blame poor people for their poverty. For a lot of people, that proved to be true for a long time. Those ideas aren't fundamentally broken, but some things have changed and we aren't coping so well with some of those changes. I think we can resolve our problems. It's not hopeless. I'm just not entirely sure how we get there from here.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  I didn't intend to contradict your post, but rather add to it, or have a conversation. > A lot more social stuff is learned than most normal people want to admit People tend to have an innate ability to socialize with their immediate surroundings: family, friends, coworkers, and other people they personally know. Beyond that, things are harder, and more learned. Fiction probably plays a very large role in this by the way. > High empathy is not a good thing for being a soldier or a surgeon, both important roles in the world. I'm actually not so sure about this; empathy isn't some sort of binary toggle, or uninfluenced by intellect; we have some control and choice over it. All other things being equal, a surgeon empathic to a patient's concerns (rather than indifferent) would make for a better surgeon, and a soldier highly empathic towards their fellow comrades would probably be a better soldier. > The origin of that idea I that we had escaped entrenched class structure in Europe. America was conceived of as the land of opportunity. > >This was a positive thing, not a way to blame poor people for their poverty. I appreciate that, but that was almost 250 years ago and things have changed rather a lot since then. Especially in modern context, "it's your fault if you're poor" seems to be a natural (though often unspoken) consequence of "you can be rich if you work hard enough". > For a lot of people, that proved to be true for a long time. Those ideas aren't fundamentally broken, but we some things have changed and we aren't coping so well with some of those changes. I think they are, because at the end of the day what a society needs if a fairly small group of people doing knowledge work, and a fairly large group of people facilitating that. One reason we can work as computer programmers is because other people do our food growing and construction and cleaning etc. None of this is unique to the US, but in a lot of countries there seems to be more recognition of this in the form of worker protection, better social welfare, etc.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I think they are, because at the end of the day what a society needs if a fairly small group of people doing knowledge work, and a fairly large group of people facilitating that. The industrial revolution changed that. We now need relatively few people growing our food. At one time, you needed like twenty farmers for every non farm job to feed that non farmer. Thanks to modern technology, modern farmers provide food for many people per farmhand. This frees people up to be teachers and scientists and any number of other things that are about developing new knowledge or preserving and passing on existing knowledge. There is a long history of human cultures collapsing. Some of them collapsed when people no longer knew how to effectively maintain extensive irrigation systems that supported farms and helped keep the people fed. If our current system collapsed, the sudden die off could be to the tune of billions of people. There is no shortage of work that can be done. What needs to be done varies as cultures evolve. There are endless people with problems too trivial to address in a subsistence culture that can be worked on by more advanced cultures that have freed up workers to do things more trivial than just try to come up with enough food to not die of starvation this year. Sexual satisfaction. Emotional contentment. Good social relationships. Health issues.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

the United States, as a country, is deficient in empathy. That doesn't really contradict what I said. Social misfits often do lack empathy. This is sometimes at least partly biologically based, but is frequently compounded by more "normal" types behaving monstrously towards them because they are different. I've raised two special needs sons. They don't intuitively get a lot of social stuff. I've had to carefully explain many things. But the reality is that a lot more social stuff is learned than most normal people want to admit. Needing to actively and intentionally teach it to some people who don't readily pick it up without instruction isn't as bizarre and alien as the world wants to pretend it is. Plus, the lesser emphasis on empathy in America does have positives. Differently wired people tend to have a higher tolerance for things more empathetic people can't cope with. High empathy is not a good thing for being a soldier or a surgeon, both important roles in the world. the idea that anyone can be rich if they just work hard enough The origin of that idea is that we had escaped entrenched class structure in Europe. America was conceived of as the land of opportunity. This was a positive thing, not a way to blame poor people for their poverty. For a lot of people, that proved to be true for a long time. Those ideas aren't fundamentally broken, but some things have changed and we aren't coping so well with some of those changes. I think we can resolve our problems. It's not hopeless. I'm just not entirely sure how we get there from here.

Carpetsmoker 7y ago
I didn't intend to contradict your post, but rather add to it, or have a conversation. > A lot more social stuff is learned than most normal people want to admit People tend to have an innate ability to socialize with their immediate surroundings: family, friends, coworkers, and other people they personally know. Beyond that, things are harder, and more learned. Fiction probably plays a very large role in this by the way. > High empathy is not a good thing for being a soldier or a surgeon, both important roles in the world. I'm actually not so sure about this; empathy isn't some sort of binary toggle, or uninfluenced by intellect; we have some control and choice over it. All other things being equal, a surgeon empathic to a patient's concerns (rather than indifferent) would make for a better surgeon, and a soldier highly empathic towards their fellow comrades would probably be a better soldier. > The origin of that idea I that we had escaped entrenched class structure in Europe. America was conceived of as the land of opportunity. > >This was a positive thing, not a way to blame poor people for their poverty. I appreciate that, but that was almost 250 years ago and things have changed rather a lot since then. Especially in modern context, "it's your fault if you're poor" seems to be a natural (though often unspoken) consequence of "you can be rich if you work hard enough". > For a lot of people, that proved to be true for a long time. Those ideas aren't fundamentally broken, but we some things have changed and we aren't coping so well with some of those changes. I think they are, because at the end of the day what a society needs if a fairly small group of people doing knowledge work, and a fairly large group of people facilitating that. One reason we can work as computer programmers is because other people do our food growing and construction and cleaning etc. None of this is unique to the US, but in a lot of countries there seems to be more recognition of this in the form of worker protection, better social welfare, etc.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I think they are, because at the end of the day what a society needs if a fairly small group of people doing knowledge work, and a fairly large group of people facilitating that. The industrial revolution changed that. We now need relatively few people growing our food. At one time, you needed like twenty farmers for every non farm job to feed that non farmer. Thanks to modern technology, modern farmers provide food for many people per farmhand. This frees people up to be teachers and scientists and any number of other things that are about developing new knowledge or preserving and passing on existing knowledge. There is a long history of human cultures collapsing. Some of them collapsed when people no longer knew how to effectively maintain extensive irrigation systems that supported farms and helped keep the people fed. If our current system collapsed, the sudden die off could be to the tune of billions of people. There is no shortage of work that can be done. What needs to be done varies as cultures evolve. There are endless people with problems too trivial to address in a subsistence culture that can be worked on by more advanced cultures that have freed up workers to do things more trivial than just try to come up with enough food to not die of starvation this year. Sexual satisfaction. Emotional contentment. Good social relationships. Health issues.