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Maybe the scale at which you love your neighbor comes at the cost proportional to how much you hate your common rival. To put it another way, humans might be i

Maybe the scale at which you love your neighbor comes at the cost proportional to how much you hate your common rival. To put it another way, humans might be incapable of emotional empathy outside of tribal brotherhood. That is, people they can identify with. It'd make sense in a sort of selfish gene way. Emotional actions just seems wholly negative at the scale of our society. This may be the core of our division. We shouldn't be encouraging broad emotional responses to global events.

miedpo 7y ago
Hmm... just two cents I have. While this may be true to a large degree, I do think it's possible to overcome this. I went on a religious mission for 2 years and one of the things I remember most vividly about it is that I came to a point where I didn't have emnity towards other people. It took a lot of work (quashing emnity can be hard), but it did work. I'm not sure most people are in a place where they are ready to try that, but I do think it's possible. Anyways, yeah just my two cents :). People do have a tendency to be tribal as you said.
chongli 7y ago
You don’t need empathy to love your neighbour, you just need to choose to do so. This is one of the central tenets of Christianity. This story reminds me of Scott’s essay I can tolerate anything except the outgroup [1]. I am partial to Father Brown’s argument that it doesn’t count if you only forgive the people you like. That’s just tribalism, which humans are naturally inclined toward. The hard thing is to forgive (or indeed to offer anything of worth to) people you don’t like. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
pbourke 7y ago
> humans might be incapable of emotional empathy outside of tribal brotherhood Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man

miedpo 7y ago

Hmm... just two cents I have. While this may be true to a large degree, I do think it's possible to overcome this. I went on a religious mission for 2 years and one of the things I remember most vividly about it is that I came to a point where I didn't have emnity towards other people. It took a lot of work (quashing emnity can be hard), but it did work. I'm not sure most people are in a place where they are ready to try that, but I do think it's possible. Anyways, yeah just my two cents :). People do have a tendency to be tribal as you said.

chongli 7y ago

You don’t need empathy to love your neighbour, you just need to choose to do so. This is one of the central tenets of Christianity. This story reminds me of Scott’s essay I can tolerate anything except the outgroup [1]. I am partial to Father Brown’s argument that it doesn’t count if you only forgive the people you like. That’s just tribalism, which humans are naturally inclined toward. The hard thing is to forgive (or indeed to offer anything of worth to) people you don’t like. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

pbourke 7y ago

> humans might be incapable of emotional empathy outside of tribal brotherhood Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man