To be empathic, is to be human. Yet, today in the United States, empathy is seen as a weakness.
For me, it became obvious that empathy in America began to fade about sixteen years ago, and its loss has detrimentally affected the actions of the United States negatively and progressively ever since.
As Emily Standley Allard of MSN stated about two months ago now in relation to ‘what’s wrong with America’, she states;
“It’s what connects us, helps us build relationships with other humans, animals and nature, and allows society to function with kindness and fairness.”
Today, little of that is in evidence.
As Allard states;
Americans, specifically, “have stopped seeing each other as fellow human beings with emotions, struggles, and dreams, and instead view them as obstacles or tools to be used”.
And the humanity and social connection that formed our world our relationships, our very lives is being lost, the consequences of which reach far beyond our individual interactions with others.
They shape the very fabric of our world.
Empathy and understanding used to shape our discourse. The way we spoke to each other within politics, economic policy, where corporate decision-making has become more strident, less caring, less concerned in relation to the effects of its actions,
Without compassion and empathy, the consequences ripple throughout society, impacting individuals, destabilizing communities, — even shaping our global interactions and the tensions they contribute to.
It also affects children, who without witnessing compassion, kindness or listening to adults speak to each other rationally, intelligently, using their emotional intelligence to communicate, become less empathic, and more willing to seek self-satisfaction.
It shapes the future, and in so doing makes us less kind, less rational, less willing to listen. It begins to affect how we view our actions with such negativity that empathy is seen as weakness.
It also illustrates a profound lack of emotional intelligence.
It enables leaders to increasingly ignore their responsibilities and actions, because no one calls out their behaviour, their beliefs and their statements go unchallenged.
Something that is in evidence every day at the White House briefings.
People, who know better, begin to ‘go along to get along’. Ultimately it dehumanizes, creates social devisions and polarizes opinions. Without the ability to step into someone else’s shoes, to see a different perspective or find common ground, it is easier to ignore, to degrade and ultimately dehumanize. It spreads like a virus until one’s political affiliations and opinions affect race, religion and class.
Today, not just in public discourse, but in the media, conversations are combative, stuck in constant conflict. Simply put, without empathy, it is easier to allow, or worse, to create a world where the ‘others’ become the enemy and their suffering, then becomes entirely ignored.
America’s Normalization of Exploitation and Injustice
America now accepts systemic injustices. Whether in labor practices, wage, and through racism, sexism, ageism, or against those who don’t speak either ‘your language’ or ‘your way’, mistreatment against vulnerable populations become accepted, even institutionalized. “That’s just the way things are.”
Today, in the United States, but more clearly visible in Washington, through ‘plutocrats, kleptocrats and through greed and the polarization of profit over people — things are getting infinitely worse.
Worsening working conditions, increased homelessness, greater disease, less health care, less social services, more mental illness, and the growing gap in availability of treatment between the ultra-rich and the struggling masses of Americans is now creating pain, anger and further polarization that will lead to worsening social interactions.
And this then becomes reflected in America’s foreign affairs, which without empathy, kindness or concern leads to the creation of zero-sum positions being taken, that ignore the needs of others, or that respects international law and order.
Scarcity, famine, warfare and military actions that are either immoral or border on war crimes become ignored and accepted as ‘what do you expect…it’s a war.’
And through such thoughts, and the actions that follow, dehumanization then becomes complete. Complete desensitization leads directly to human suffering, like Gaza, like Iran, like Cuba, like the next conquest or the next destroyed international ‘transaction’.
And What Does the World See in Response?
“The loss of empathy is the foundation for relationships—romantic, platonic, familial, and professional”, as Allard so eloquently and clearly states.
Without meaningful connections, narcissism and self-interests leads to toxic personalities. It rewards and prioritized self-interest above all.
One need only spend one hour of one’s life paying close attention to the pronouncements, statements, language and discourse of America’s (so called) leader and his henchmen to see that power, wealth and success (at any cost to others) is valued over kindness and the concerns of others.
This is true in the way the United States appoints its spokesmen, its interlocutors internationally and their statements of hubris, perceived self-importance and self-worth. Often this is so overt, that it is hard to not be repulsed by their behaviour.
Actions like those of Howard Lutnick and Pete Hoekstra.
But once a nation appoints leaders who are fuelled by narcissism and loathing for the ideas or concerns of others, —empathy no longer exists.
Empathy is seen as weakness, which leads to social Darwinism, where the weak should be left behind, and the strong dictate all futures.
This is America Today
What is happening in the U.S. today is a direct consequence of America’s lack of empathy, concern, caring and kindness.
The social safety net has begun to crumble.
Corporations care less about ethical obligations and line up to gain a place as supplicants to the King of Hubris, now in office.
Mental health worsens, and its degradation becomes increasingly obvious.
Extreme wealth inequality becomes permanent, which will ultimately lead to social unrest and societal collapse.
What has begun in relation to America and its actions, both internally and internationally is distrust, and a concerted effort by those inside and outside the U.S. to distance themselves from the positions taken by America’s Federal Government, its leadership and its institutional arms.
Fixing America, may well now be a generational project, that requires the complete involvement of educational institutions and the institutions that formerly constituted ‘governance’ and governmental responsibility, although these institutions have been concertedly under attack by those who are only interested in profit, self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment and in suppressing the interests of the unwashed masses, as they see it.
America, as a nation that once was seen as a ‘shining city on a hill’, is quickly becoming the slum above the sewer, where the poor, the diminishing middle class and the uneducated are simply collateral damage to the wishes of the ultra-rich and those without either the capacity or willingness to be kind, empathic, intelligent, emotionally competent or human, in the strongest sense.
If nothing changes, I fear America will either collapse, dissolve into civil strife or civil war in time. Meanwhile, it deliberately and with malice, steals, lies, coerces, extorts or threatens the world through its actions.
It is past time for the world to leave America to its own devices and defend democracy against the actions of the United States before they too dissolve under the stress of America’s influence.
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