976 Sympathy, Empathy & Compassion

<p>The ideological divide in America is mostly a sociological divide; trying to gain control over your own life, and possibly control over the lives of others. The ideology of meritocracy will naturally separate into the winners & losers, mathematically half on each side. In response, the losers espouse a competing ideology, egalitarianism, which would flip control to them if something like democracy gives them power to do so. Whereas meritocracy is objective, the other side perforce must be subjective, using feelings and demands to feel a certain way, as leverage; specifically the concepts of sympathy, empathy & compassion.</p> <p>As strategy, first the losing side redefines the words, or deemphasizes the ones that don't advance their goals while emphasizing the ones that provide them advantage. Humans all start with sympathy, which is probably evolutionary, where a person feels sorry for the plight of another, maybe even offering their help, which is called compassion. Highly emotional people are said to be sensitive, while victims are cast as suffering. Religious ideology is full of entreaties to help the destitute, maimed, weak, etc., ostensibly to gain access to heaven. Even though the mystical aspect of sympathy & compassion has lost its motivating power, modern Social Justice Warriors now demand such intervention, even make it legally obligatory; what better way for the losers to gain control than to force others to do their bidding based on subjective notions only the losers can judge? From that perspective comes the concept of empathy, which is like sympathy except instead the victim has the authority to claim you are not empathetic enough, and have no say in the matter. One of the greatest of ironies is that civilization could very well be destroyed by too much compassion.</p>