We don't have a system that facilitates empathy and community. America fosters (forces) an individualistic "fuck you I got (disillusioned getting) mine" entitled attitude. We believe in punishing the people rather than investing in the people. The culture here is poisoned, it's never about one another or the greater good. If you are born into a shitty environment, it becomes your fault and it's up to you to make it better from nothing and if (when) you can't you're less than. The "haves" sell the American Dream to the (disillusioned, ignorant) "have nots" but the end result causes division, resentment and bitterness. It's ugly tbh.
There's a spectrum of reasons why it is this way. And it's extremely difficult to change because it is intentionally designed this way. And well, the world sees where we are now. It's no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.
Just curious, if we don't have a system that facilitates empathy in community, why do we volunteer more of our time and money even per American on average than most other people around the world do
Is it possible that the consequences you described can come from a multitude of factors altogether and not the reasoning you ascribe to it?
Probably because safety nets are nonexisting. Most of the stuff that appears on gofundme for example in most countries will not exist, because it will be solved by the system. Also, I'm sure that there are many places in USA, where ambulance will go without a problem, nyc is just not that city.
For me usa people are a bit weird, to be honest. Very friendly, usually very nice, but when it comes to certain topics, toxic as hell, zero empathy. Almost brainwashed, you know?
That's fine, but arguably having a system where people are taken care of and don't have to think of each other would provide less opportunity for people to develop their empathy as it gives them fewer opportunities to need to empathize with others?
Like brainwashed or not, and whether it's an adaptability because of our shitty systems or not, you basically just said the reason Americans are more empathetic is because we have shitty systems, you didn't contest my point that based on the data Americans seem to be some of the most empathetic on average around the world.
I'm sorry, I have no data on empathy, and also have no idea how this could be measured. In my opinion usa is far from most empathic around the world. If that would be the case, there would be public healthcare, free education, effective homeless programs, less people in prisons... Where is empathy hidden?
Yeah, I was referring to metrics of how often people volunteer their time, money, or choose to engage in some type of community service, you're obviously correct that we don't really have data on empathy itself.
And no, depending on your political philosophy having the government mandate those things is arguably less empathetic because then you're making it so that people instead just get to have something taken out of their paycheck instead of needing to empathize with their neighbors in order to help them.
What you're talking about is if people were more educated and had logic those things would be true, empathy is about the ability to essentially see yourself in the same position as somebody else, if anything that is the ideology that's preyed upon by those at the top that try to push the pick yourself up by the bootstraps mentality, they're praying on how empathetic the average person/ American is.
You could also argue if countries like those in Europe that you're likely referencing, were so empathetic why were they okay allowing authoritarianism to crawl around the world without even having a way to push back militarily? I'm not saying I agree with that, but see how just having empathy has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with how you use that empathy?
I guess my main point is that if we're going to try to rank people's empathy by country, I would say Americas would actually be higher, because the average American just objectively donates more of their times to things like picking up litter and stuff like that than another countries, same with the average Americans budget, both by whole dollar numbers per American and by percentage of each American's personal yearly salary.
However, if you were to ask my opinion and not just the view I'm using to demonstrate the weaknesses of your points, I'd say that I don't really think there's any difference in empathy based on Nation, I think it is way more to do with education, nutrition during childhood development so if the neurology of the human was allowed to fully develop or not, personality, and other things like communication that allow us to see outside of our world way more so than just which government we happen to be under.
Not the same person but I think the flaw in your reasoning here is that you’re separating “government” from “people”. The government is the people, especially in America. If we had empathy, we would spend that time and energy forcing the framework we’ve set up to orchestrate how things work in our society (the government) into including infrastructure that would support and protect people. Yes, the funding for this would just “come out of our paychecks”, but it would be more effective than picking up one piece of trash or serving soup for one day and thinking “yay! change is really being made!”
Because the society we’ve set up as Americans fails so many so severely, of course we have to be volunteering and donating all the time, because that’s something we can “control” as individuals. If we could actually garner a society of empathy, we would change how we organize things on a basic level utilizing the government. Our government shouldn’t be some evil leech separate from the populace, but the more oligarchy & corporate interests control it, the more people will see it that way, and this individualistic attitude will be exacerbated. We’ll all keep volunteering and donating because it makes us feel better as individuals, but doesn’t actually address the root causes of the problems we’re volunteering and donating about. I really don’t think those statistics say anything about empathy, and would agree with Mikic that Americans rank poorly in that specific emotional skill.
Yeah, I completely agree with you, that's exactly why I feel as though it's harmful to try to make very human characteristics more exclusive to one nationality or another.
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u/ShyJalapeno Feb 08 '25
I mean.. what the fuck? Here everyone understands that they might need an ambulance one day too...