As a resident of Utah, I'm surprised by the Mormon numbers. Kinda. In my experience, many Mormons outside of the Idaho-Utah-Arizona belt tend to be more liberal, so that might be why.
Seeing the numbers for blacks and Hispanics saddens me. That's how the Republicans manage to get votes there.
I don't intuitively disagree with the premise that non-religious people are more motivated by empathy than religious people, but statement 2 using the phrase "God's truth" seems like it would make atheists or agnostics less likely to choose it than if it were worded more neutrally.
The issue is that propaganda has redefined "empathy" to mean "giving tons of free money to freeloading brown people", which makes it an easy thing to turn ignorant racists against.
The other issue is that the US education system has failed rural citizens to the extent that many of them are ignorant racists.
Picture a lecture hall where an eager student poses what seems like a simple question: "What marks the birth of civilization?" The student, like many of us, probably imagined ancient tools, artistic cave paintings, or early weapons. But anthropologist Margaret Mead's answer would forever change how we understand human progress. "A healed broken femur," she said, leaving her audience stunned. In that single, unexpected response, Mead revealed a profound truth about what truly sets humans apart from all other species. In nature's harsh reality, a broken leg is essentially a death sentence. A wounded animal cannot flee from predators, cannot quench its thirst at the waterhole, cannot hunt or gather food. It becomes vulnerable prey, destined to become another creature's meal long before its bones could ever heal. But a healed femur tells a different story a uniquely human story. It speaks of compassion, of sacrifice, of one person choosing to stay behind with an injured companion. It tells us of someone who hunted and gathered food for two, who protected and nursed the injured, who put their own survival at risk to ensure another's recovery. This was not just about medical care; it was about something far more fundamental: the choice to help another human in need. As Mead so eloquently concluded, "Helping someone through difficulty is the starting point of civilization." In these words, she reminds us that civilization is not built on tools and technologies, but on our capacity for compassion. The true measure of human progress is not in the weapons we forge or the cities we build, but in our willingness to care for one another."
Are these numbers supposed to be a revelation or give new insights? If you asked me if empathy should get in the way of justice and ritiousness (not divine interpretations, just morally correct), I would also say hell no. People don't want anything to be allowed to get in the way of what they beleive is the ultimate correct thing-
The way people talk about empathy on the fediverse while denouncing and haranguing people they claim to lack it tells me they haven't really internalized it, and they maybe talk it up for social currency.
Empathy can only approach fair & impartial judgement when we apply it equally by extending it to those we don't relate to—when we seriously try.
I have (and probably everyone has) observed enough people rush to judgement with a great deal of empathy for those they can relate to while making 0 effort for people they don't understand.
They're assholes with empathy.
Empathy is trendy to invoke, especially in social media.
The popular premise seems to be that we can solve the moral failings in society if we'd all just develop our psychological health to better contemplate how others feel.
While that may help, it's incredibly reductive.
Feeling is a very low bar that doesn't set a standard.
Empathy doesn't stop someone from being an asshole.
It doesn't imply proper action or duty.
A subjective feeling prone to error, misjudgment, and uneven results is not a reliable basis of moral judgment & conduct.
Plus, it seems like a reversion to a type of virtue ethics that suggests morality simply amounts to having empathy.
Isn't it a bit more than that, and aren't there systems of ethics to better model it?
I remember a time when instead of talking about empathy, people talked way more about acting & treating everyone with basic decency and standards.
They might have even brought up a social contract or the golden rule.
They'd imply society has or ought to have rights, duties, and universal principles to judge moral conduct.
Those quaint ideas at least affirm some objective, external standard unlike empathy, and I think it's overdue to restore those ideas to prominence in popular discourse.
See?
Like right there: I explain that there's way more to morality & ethics than empathy (whose flaws are obvious enough to motivate philosophers to base systems of ethics on universal principles instead), and someone too superficial to bear the thought that their sacred cow has legitimate issues goes downvoting instead.
Empathy at the fediverse is performative.
Purporting to care about empathy, however, is very popular.
The survey may just reflect that superficiality when serious ethicists & philosophers wouldn't consider empathy a great foundation either.
no comments (yet)