Okay, it's not my country per se; it's US. But it's the title of the news I'd just read.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/empathy.html#comments
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/empathy.html#comments
We're Becoming A Nation of Jerks
- Thread starter Trifoilum
- Start date
Okay, it's not my country per se; it's US. But it's the title of the news I'd just read.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/empathy.html#comments
And the aforementioned article : http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-me-care
What do you guys think?
I really do not like generalization studies like this because it puts a label on a large mass of people when the sample study was not as vast and wide as one would like to assume it was.
I do not believe that it is possible for any normally neurologically functioning human being to ignore or suppress their empathy for a sustained amount of time; it is possible indeed to mask it, but empathy is a human emotion that most of all humans I believe have, and have had for centuries. College students, and younger people in general are more inclined to hide their emotions for the benefit of fitting in socially, and some might have actually deceived themselves to think that they do not have empathy at all. It is much more valued in a lot of career fields for a person to be objective, scientific, and emotions have been severely downplayed when it comes to studying and work....those who have strong emotional reactions could be easily labeled as 'whiners' or 'overdramatic' and I think that the pressure to fit in is high among people of these ages.
But in reality there is only a small percentage of human beings who are incapable of feeling empathy, those with antisocial personality disorder have difficulties feeling many normal human emotions that have been tied to irregular neurological development and unusual homelife circumstances- nature vs nurture debate on the causes of antisocial personaliy disorder, but as for now the studies conclude that in the population thusfar there is only a small amount of them who seem to be unable to react with normal human emotions (including empathy).
Has the empathy rate gone down? I do not think that empathy ever declines or reels- actually I think it is always a consistent thing that can sometimes be masked by suppression of it, such as during times of war people will suppress any emotions, including empathy, they have for other countries, their loved ones, etc. just to survive and be able to do what they are supposed to do. They do not 'lose' any empathy, in fact they are still feeling it deep down under the layers of their mask but because of the circumstances their natural biological survival instincts have allowed them to push these strong emotions away until a time they can deal with them that would not be life-damaging/risking. As we can see with war veterans a lot of them who come back end up doing drugs or having various problems because of this masking of their emotions that they are later forced to deal with. This masking wouldn't be the same as a social masking just to fit in- because usually [though not always] fitting in isn't something that would entail life or death and therefore we see less cases of this happening in those circumstances.
The from person to person, some people being more empathetic than others I do not think, if we are talking about normally functioning human beings, even exists. I think that people may -expose- their empathy more often than others, some may be more quick to leap to that stage of showing it outwardly, and others may seem that they do not feel empathy at all, due to personal preferences they may even hide it. But I think it is always there, the same amount in everyone, and I think in general people feel empathy during the same events- when a human can see suffering they feel empathy. That's really what empathy is, it's the reaction to the suffering of self or others, a negative reaction because humans are averse to suffering- we do not want to suffer and we do not want to see others suffer- it creates this horrible sadness and pang of sharing sadness, likely to keep our species surviving as a whole because if one feels empathy and the suffering of another they are more likely to help the other and/or try to prevent suffering from themselves and others in the future.
Contrary to most mystical explanations (read: religion), traits like empathy, integrity, selflessness and humility are not intrinsic to the human animal. We are born completely narcissistic and selfish - just watch a playground of children for some time if you doubt this. Traits such as these have to be forged in the crucibles of experience (often painful) and the individuation process. They don't just appear on their own.
Thing is, America is no longer a society where such forging is necessary or even relevant. With the basic survival needs being met, our primary goal is to be entertained; we're a bread and circuses society at this point. Why should we even bother with character or morality? It's a waste of time if not an outright impediment towards reaching the American Dream (TM).
Thing is, America is no longer a society where such forging is necessary or even relevant. With the basic survival needs being met, our primary goal is to be entertained; we're a bread and circuses society at this point. Why should we even bother with character or morality? It's a waste of time if not an outright impediment towards reaching the American Dream (TM).
I disagree. When I was four years old I befriended an asian girl who had thick brimmed glasses that were pretty much as thick as the bottom of a glass coke bottle. Children on the playground would make fun of her, and they liked me fine, I was alright. But I would go up to her and help her find the swingset, help her get her way around, even though the kids just wanted to laugh and make fun of her I didn't let that happen. We became good friends and she moved away a couple of years later back to China with her parents. But she had a condition that was going to make her blind and deaf by the time she was ten years old - at the time I was too young to understand the impact of that but yes, I did spend time with her.
All through growing up after that point I befriended the special education children and defended them from onslaughts of bullying that they had, and I had too for simply being around them.
I don't think people are innately selfish, empathy does exist, intelligent animals like apes and dolphins have a degree of measurable empathy which simply proves it's a subject of higher mind and naturally evolution trait to entail our survival as a species.
Narcissists definitely did not exist to the extent that they do now in the past, especially for cavemen.
As a caveman, you would know nothing but the group you lived with, and you would care deeply about your group members. Those who didn't care died, and so evolution encouraged empathy. It is also definitely a trait that humans are born with.
The reason that people are becoming so narcissistic now is that they are being cut off from the group. That is also why they are becoming depressed- it is two different heads of the same coin.
I think the internet combined with globalization has made things particularly bad.
As an American, i tend to agree with the generic assessment, though I would argue that it comes in large part from being bombarded, day in and day out, ceaselessly, since we're old enough to open our eyes, with messages of comsumerism, selfishness, and false superiority (it wouldn't do, after all, NOT to overconsume and send all that unnecessary profit margin to the elites, you know.) We're raised on it and not necessarily genetically this way.
You talk like you've already met cavemen
They may have been cruel cannibals too, we don't know.
But I don't really know anything about cavemen or even care about them lol
And I would gues that jerks who have children won't really be angels with them, so the children don't become any better than their parents and the cycle continues
A lot of religions do not teach that those qualities are intrinsic. Doesn't Total Depravity sound familiar?
Actually, research is increasingly finding that empathy likely is innate. Children begin to develop it at quite an early age. It is not fully formed at birth however. When children first start to feel the suffering of others they tend to assume it is their own emotion and try to comfort themselves instead of those suffering, but soon find that helping others works better. Studies also find that human children exhibit far more empathy than do other species. Human toddlers rush up to help those who need it, while apes will provide help only when doing so does not require them to do out of their way. Young children enjoy feeling helpful to others, and consider it its own reward. They become more selfish when they feel useless. Rewarding good behavior also makes us overestimate how much of the reason for doing it the reward was, and makes what was once enjoyable into a chore.
Slant is a White Knight
I agree with Slant. Humans are not necessarily inherently selfish and narcissistic. I was as she - when I was very young. When my parents took a trip down to Mexico, they stopped at a store to get some things. They heard laughter and looked back towards the car. There I was in the back seat happily giving away all of my toys and food treats to the children outside my rolled down windows. They were laughing and I was laughing. Freaked my parents out of course.
There is this article from science daily:
IMO the students are emulating the leaders and methods of surviving in this country.
What worries me is that the college students of today are the business and political leaders of tomorrow. I do hope they learn some compassion along the way in their journeys.
I agree with Slant. Humans are not necessarily inherently selfish and narcissistic. I was as she - when I was very young. When my parents took a trip down to Mexico, they stopped at a store to get some things. They heard laughter and looked back towards the car. There I was in the back seat happily giving away all of my toys and food treats to the children outside my rolled down windows. They were laughing and I was laughing. Freaked my parents out of course.
There is this article from science daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208155309.htm
IMO the students are emulating the leaders and methods of surviving in this country.
What worries me is that the college students of today are the business and political leaders of tomorrow. I do hope they learn some compassion along the way in their journeys.
Well, that was relevant. At four, you've already been imprinted with social mores.
I don't think these traits evolve on their own, though. It is true that the mechanisms for them to exist have come about through evolution (read about mirror neurons for example) but it is up to socialization to really build upon it; empathy won't emerge on its own just because a human has the neurological capacity for it. Think of it this way: evolution provides the hard drive, society provides the OS.
We are not born with empathy.
How many small children, and
I mean fresh from the womb
do you know that stop crying
because mommy has a head ache?
Or daddy has to wake up in two
hours for work and he hasn't been
to bed yet?
None.
Empathy is learned through conditioning.
We are born selfish. We put ourselves
first. It is how we survive. Even as infants,
we know this. Just look at how we all
once behaved. I know I cried when hungry.
It didn't matter how anyone else felt
or what they were doing.
How many small children, and
I mean fresh from the womb
do you know that stop crying
because mommy has a head ache?
Or daddy has to wake up in two
hours for work and he hasn't been
to bed yet?
None.
Empathy is learned through conditioning.
We are born selfish. We put ourselves
first. It is how we survive. Even as infants,
we know this. Just look at how we all
once behaved. I know I cried when hungry.
It didn't matter how anyone else felt
or what they were doing.
We are born needy and with limited capacity. The whole idea is to grow past these limits. If we don't we can indeed become jerks.
You talk like you've already met cavemen
They may have been cruel cannibals too, we don't know.
But I don't really know anything about cavemen or even care about them lol
And I would gues that jerks who have children won't really be angels with them, so the children don't become any better than their parents and the cycle continues
Parents only have so much control over how their children are socialized. If you keep your children isolated, you can dictate the terms of their socialization, but once they go out into the school, the playground, the neighborhood, or even the daycare, it is too late- society will have its way with them and teach them to act in the socially accepted manner.
I haven't met the cavemen, but I have studied anthropology enough to have a general idea of how people act in different types of societies. We can safely assume that cavemen would have existed in band-level societies (they would have had to)- given this, it is only a manner of understanding band level societies to understand how humans lived before the agricultural revolution.
Like any part of the brain, they may be developed or underdeveloped. They may physically exist but how they are used is up to the individual.
Like Korg said:
I don't think these traits evolve on their own, though. It is true that the mechanisms for them to exist have come about through evolution (read about mirror neurons for example) but it is up to socialization to really build upon it; empathy won't emerge on its own just because a human has the neurological capacity for it. Think of it this way: evolution provides the hard drive, society provides the OS.
That said, I think empathy is a trait which propagates through different societies. If you are a person who recieves little empathy then there is a lesser chance that you will express your own simply because our environment teaches us whether selfishness or selflessness is the appropriate survival tactic. A person who is selfish in a selfless peer-group may get shunned, and a person who is selfless in a selfish peer-group may be taken advantage of.
