The limits of human-ness and the election by rue

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The limits of human-ness and the election

POSTED BY: RUE
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 8, 2008 19:24
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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 5:36 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

The limits of human-ness and the election

This is something I've been scooping up stray information on for a long time.

At its one extreme is the sociopath who doesn't recognize the human-ness in anybody (and maybe not even in themselves). At the other end is a spirit that says this: 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind...'

And mostly in between there exist you and I. The death of a Sudanese child - tragic, we say, with no real feeling. The death of a homeless man who lacks medical care - too bad but it's his fault, we might think, with a little smugness about our own good judgment and work ethic.

This hits home. Because he is like us.

It turns out we (mostly) have empathy for the people who are like the people we grew up with, and who resemble what we think we are.

And that's the Obama gap. People say they don't 'understand' him. He doesn't 'connect' with them. But the lack of connection is really in between their ears. Obama is 'other'. And that's what the election is going to come down to in the voting booth.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 5:57 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Sad, but true. I gym with an extraordinary woman. But as wonderful as she is, ALL she sees in Obama is a black male who was abandoned by his father.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 6:30 AM

DEADLOCKVICTIM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
It turns out we (mostly) have empathy for the people who are like the people we grew up with, and who resemble what we think we are

Interesting post Rue, and I tend to agree, however in the sentence above, I may be the exception to the rule.

I have never found evidence that I was adopted, kidnapped or a victim of some sci-fi like mind/body transfer, but the thing is, growing up I can't remember ever fitting into my surroundings. As I gained the ability to form rational thought, my ideas and those of my peers were totally different. You might attest those feeling to teenage angst or an overbearing father, but I always felt that I did not belong with the people around me.

However, after leaving that stagnant environment, I met people who shared views similar to my own - or who were at least more open minded, and in that regard I do empathize with certain types of people.

As for the presidential election, I think I have made my views known on this board, but just to emphasize once again my lack of respect for those who feel that winning dirty is an acceptable tactic, let me say that I firmly believe that these types of campaigns only further polarize an already fractured society.

....or in the words of John Prine

Some humans ain't human
Some people ain't kind
They lie through their teeth
With their head up their behind
You open up their hearts
And here's what you'll find
Some humans ain't human
Some people ain't kind

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 6:55 AM

FREMDFIRMA

I guess that makes my position even stranger.

I simply do not have that level of emotional attachment to other human beings - my "empathy" for them is wholly based on personal philosophy and morals.

While occasionally regarded as callous for not having an emotional response, that doesn't mean there is not *A* response, just not a visible one.

And that response, to the whole of human tragedy, evolved into a strong desire to cut out and burn the very roots of that which creates broken people like me.

And I mean to do it, with all deadly seriousness.

Once you comprehend that, you understand all that you need to.

-F

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 7:04 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

In this society I think we're all broken to some extent Frem. Even the ones who are doing "very well" have to limit their engagement with others, lest their happy lives be tarnished with misery.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 8:15 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I think we're all born broken to some degree.

People have a hard time 'reading' facial expressions on people who don't look like the people they grew up with. It's really true that for a large number of people 'they all look alike to me'.

Maybe the answer is for all children to grow up in places with different colors, backgrounds, talents and intelligence, education and income levels - and assuming their parents don't quickly pull them away with words like 'We don't associate with those kind'.

But ultimately, the human mind is broken because we can think there's an 'us' and a 'them'.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 8:29 AM

DEADLOCKVICTIM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I think we're all born broken to some degree.

I'm not sure we are born that way, but we are certainly conditioned at a very early age....

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 8:41 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

UUhhhm ... there really is a learning disability that can't be overcome.

When people grow up with one set of associations they can't seem to make the overall leap that other people who are not like them are people too. That's not to say that people don't make individual exceptions (some of my best friends are ...). But in ways that count besides conscious feelings - reaction times, unconscious associations, interpreting expressions ... there is a gap between 'like me and my group' and 'not like me and my group'. Us and them.

It's what makes it possible to not care very much about the people in Sudan, or to walk by the homeless man hustling money.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 8:51 AM

JONGSSTRAW

We're "conditioned" about many things growing up.

One thing we're conditioned to do is to discriminate....

We discriminate in all areas of our human existence:
Food we eat
People we date
Clothes we wear
Entertainment we watch
Colors we like
Drinks we drink
Cars we drive
Almost every single thing we do in our lives involves us making a decision, a discriminatory decision based on our learned preferences, our own life experiences.

Yet somehow, against a lifetime ( short or long) of making personal discriminatory choices we are magically expected by the PC Gods to not discriminate with human beings. Their color, race, religion, orientation, et al are not be any factor in our personal and business lives.

I say that is a daunting task for human beings. It goes against the basic laws of nature. We humans are supposed to be thinking creatures, as opposed to our animal friends in the woods who stay within their kind, and pass on chemical instincts from generation to generation. We are expected to rise above our instincts. Some can, many cannot. It does not make them monsters, only less enlightened.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 8:59 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

It means that - being aware of our own reactions - we have to engage our reason as a counter to the way we are being manipulated by the expert manipulators.

Sadly, most people will vote on their 'gut feeling'. The problem with a gut feeling is that it's pretty easy to manipulate. Priming is one example. Unconscious bias is another.

So, to mix anatomical metaphors - we have to take out gut feelings firmly in hand and engage our brains rather than our hearts.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 1:28 PM

KIRKULES

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

And mostly in between there exist you and I. The death of a Sudanese child - tragic, we say, with no real feeling. The death of a homeless man who lacks medical care - too bad but it's his fault, we might think, with a little smugness about our own good judgment and work ethic.

This hits home. Because he is like us.

It turns out we (mostly) have empathy for the people who are like the people we grew up with, and who resemble what we think we are.

I think most good people have a lot of empathy for those less fortunate than themselves. The reason it doesn't seem so in many cases is that our brains can't cope with the enormity of the suffering in the world, so as a defense mechanism our brains deal with these empathetic thoughts like any abstract understanding of something we have no direct experience with. If our brains allowed us to experience empathy every time we recognized suffering, we'd go insane.

Other than his being a liberal academic elite, I think Obama is very easy to identify with for most people. He seems like a great guy to me and to most conservatives, I just think his policy ideas will be a disaster for the future. If Obama was a conservative Dem like Bill Clinton he'd win with 90% of the vote.

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 3:04 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
It means that - being aware of our own reactions - we have to engage our reason as a counter to the way we are being manipulated by the expert manipulators.

In response to this, and to Jongs' post just above it, I'll only offer this:

I *KNOW* that I have my own set of prejudices. Knowing it doesn't make it okay for me to act on those prejudices - it makes it more wrong, because I'm obviously biased in certain regards. The long and the short of it is...

My prejudices should be MY problem, not my neighbors' problem.

Mike

This world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel.

Trolls Against McCain!

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Wednesday, October 8, 2008 7:24 PM

HKCAVALIER

Y'know, the trouble I have with your thesis Rue boils down to it's reliance on statistical information. What you're defining, in my view, are merely tendencies, not real limits.

I, personally, don't identify with what you describe here at all. My empathy, whether I like it or not, is pretty vast in its reach and extent. The animal before me--white man, black man, four legged, finned--moves me. I identify with their struggles; I can't be indifferent to their suffering, whether I'm looking at a feral cat or George W. Bush.

I think one issue here is that empathy is a species of love, and we learn at a very early age to bind our love, constrain it, control it as best we can, deny it if we have to, lest it hurt us. We're taught thousands of lies about love before we can even talk. Also, of course, empathy puts us in touch with pain, profound, ubiquitous-seeming pain. A lot of people learn ways to cut themselves off. We learn to fear the other--I don't see that it is inborn at all. I've known too many fearless small children to think they were born with such prejudices.

Sure, you can more easily read the faces of people you are familiar with--sooooooo, just get familiar with the faces you want to understand, right? Problem solved! I don't see some grave "brokenness" in humans that what is unfamiliar to us may at first be confusing.

I think this discussion so far is a little top-heavy with value judgements, anxiety, whopping assumptions, and gratuitous self-doubts that keep you from talking about reality much.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
UUhhhm ... there really is a learning disability that can't be overcome.

When people grow up with one set of associations they can't seem to make the overall leap that other people who are not like them are people too.

Is this true of you, Rue? Are you so disabled?

Quote:
That's not to say that people don't make individual exceptions (some of my best friends are ...). But in ways that count besides conscious feelings - reaction times, unconscious associations, interpreting expressions ... there is a gap between 'like me and my group' and 'not like me and my group'. Us and them.

And you think this is actually hardwired into us humans?
Quote:
It's what makes it possible to not care very much about the people in Sudan, or to walk by the homeless man hustling money.
Sure, you can deaden your feelings, deny them, lie to yourself, but a guy hustling money is hustling money--I'm thinking you're gonna have a whole raft of feelings about that guy! Does that mean you are indifferent to his suffering?

The trouble I see is that we get taught that LOVE means we OWE the ones we love something in particular--if you dare to open your heart to the homeless man, you'll end up having to move him into your basement or something. Somehow people don't REALLY feel like they have a right to say no, in the face of empathy--or that it suggests that they lack empathy if they say no.

But that's a lie. It's made up. We, each of us, have limits. And becoming an adult means accepting those limits.

Am I missing something here?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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