The End of Empathy and the Rise of Socialism

Socialism had been hated in America since its inception. In the early days of the American colonies, rather than work together to maintain a prosperous fortune, colonists would banish their political opponents to fend for themselves. The Salem witch trials, for example, likely would have never occurred were it not for the fact that a certain band of extremist puritans were banned from their original colony because of their extreme Christian fundamentalist views. The banned colonists were forced to live on roots from the ground, roots which happened to be toxic and caused hallucinations. The rest, as they say, is history. This is just one of many examples down through history of how abandoning your fellow man in his time of need can cause death and despair for society at large. Even the ruthless Roman emperors grasped this concept and provided their subjects with bread and circuses to maintain their hold on power. Even the ruthless tyrant understood that he could not kill everyone or jail everyone, that his hold on society was largely dependent on the state of those in poverty. FDR understood this when he enacted various social welfare programs like social security and food stamps to keep struggling families afloat during economic uncertainty. Interestingly, the violent anarchist movement in America, which led to the targeting of various well to do American citizens, fizzled out when FDR enacted these welfare programs. Even more interestingly, they seem to be making a comeback during a time when conservatives have launched a consorted effort to undue welfare and social safety nets across the board. Luigi Mangione assassinated a wealthy insurance CEO after he was laid up in the hospital with back injuries and unable to afford care. His act of violence, while condemned by the establishment responsible for his lack of health care, was received quite well by the poor and working classes. Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a young man from Utah who grew up in a conservative family, Tyler Robinson. Robinson mentioned targeting Kirk because he spread hate. It is interesting to note that Kirk was a huge fan of targeting marginalized individuals. He referred to George Floyd, a poor man murdered by police, as a scumbag. My point is not to exonerate figures like Mangione and Robinson of all wrongdoing. Obviously, they acted alone and made their fatalistic, rather foolish decisions impulsively and without consideration for the innocent families and friends of the victims. This is not a call to violent action, as violence, ultimately, is never the answer. Instead, I hope that these examples make you reflect on the unsavory direction our society is headed, back to a time when society drove desperate men insane, to a time when the handle of a gun felt more comforting than the calm words a fellow human being. When I hear prominent figures in our society like political talking heads and entertainers calling for the less fortunate in our society to be spat upon and demeaned in ways that not even the tyrants of old were in favor of, I cannot help but think that we have lost our way, that we have become so callous that equally callous men will be willing to go to jail to seek revenge. It is up to us to reject the hatred that is being spewed against those less fortunate than us, to say no to the calls to cut our social safety nets even further than they have already been cut. We must give the unlucky some hope that their luck might improve, some notion that they can turn that luck around. We must learn to care about our fellow man again. We must refrain from banishing him from our society, no matter how detestable we believe him to be, for if we refuse to show mercy, then he too, driven mad by the toxic roots he is forced to survive on, will begin to hallucinate a non-existent enemy, one that he will undoubtedly seek to exercise. I implore to learn to love the strangers among you again so that we can begin to heal as a nation and as a humanity Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.