Hat tip Chris M.
Guest Post by Paul Rosenberg
Politics makes people mean.
We always knew that, but if ever we said it, people passed it off as a trite complaint about one political party or the other. But now, thanks to a couple of researchers at the University of Michigan, we can prove it.
This new study was very cleverly set up so that the researchers could measure the empathy of Republicans and Democrats for each other, without using political questions. Here’s how they did it:
In their first experiment, the researchers recruited subjects on a cold winter day (some of them were outside, waiting at a freezing bus stop). They said that the test was on reading comprehension.
In one version of the test, they gave the subject a story to read about a left-wing, pro-gay-rights Democrat. This Democrat was, in the story, hiking through the woods on a cold winter day. In the other version the story was the same, except that it was about a right-wing, anti-gay-rights Republican. Only after the experiment did they ask the political leanings of the subjects.
In the second experiment they did the same thing, but they used thirst instead of cold. They fed the subjects salty foods and gave them no water; then they told a story about a man walking across a parched desert. Again, one version of the story featured a Democrat and the other a Republican.
You’d think that a thirsty guy would feel some level of sympathy for another thirsty guy, right? And normally, that would almost always be true, but it turned out that politics killed that natural sympathy.
Democrats felt sympathy for a Democrat in the story 100% of the time. Republicans felt sympathy for a Republican protagonist 96% of the time.
But when the freezing or thirsty person in the story was from the other party, sympathy died almost completely: The sympathy of Democrats fell to 0% and the sympathy of Republicans fell to 9.5%.
WORSE THAN MEAN… EVEN MONSTROUS
Mean is a non-specific word. Even though it always refers to something negative, it can refer to many different types of negative things: grumpiness, outbursts or malice, for example.
The meanness uncovered in this experiment was of a specific type: the killing of empathy. And that is a very dangerous thing.
Empathy is the root of morality and cooperation. People without empathy are called sociopaths, and they are by far the most dangerous people on the planet. Every genocide features sociopaths; every mass atrocity and every continued abuse requires them. So, when a study shows empathy being almost entirely crushed, it should be jarring. To put it clearly and simply, this study showed something very scary, which is this:
When people are under the influence of politics, they turn into sociopaths.
That is not hyperbole. Go back and re-read the explanation above. If you think I might be over-stating things, read through the study for yourself.
Such people do not become permanent sociopaths, of course – they are able to experience empathy in other situations. But when politics comes to their minds, they lose all empathy for someone of the opposite party. And that is a very dangerous thing – especially considering that politics is the obsession of the age, the mass addiction of our age.
This is no longer a subject of debate; it is fact.
We always knew that politics made people mean. This study showed us how completely politics crushes empathy… and shows us how toxic the political obsession really is.
The crack addict needs to walk away from his pipe; the alcoholic from his bottle; it’s time for us to start walking away from politics.
Paul Rosenberg, a periodic contributor on cyber-security to InternationalMan.com, writes the Freeman’s Perspective newsletter. He is also the author of many books, including the highly regarded A Lodging of Wayfaring Men. When not reading or writing on history, philosophy or science, Paul is the CEO of Cryptohippie USA, a company that provides the crucial link in online security: protecting your Internet traffic. What’s the point of protecting your computer with a firewall if you send all of that data, unprotected, through the thieves’ paradise that is the modern Internet?
The cremation of care.
Yet both main parties claim to be moralistic and righteous…demagogues.
Paul Rosenberg -Such people do not become permanent sociopaths, of course .
No, but they do become usefull-socio-idiots long enough to do their collectivist duty and snuff out a few million of fellow human beings….and when they’ve got that outa’ their system , it’s back to Dancing with the Star on Saturday night.
no truer words ever spoken…
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay
Thus, the “magic” of Fox news. All sociopaths welcome, so long as you’re a republican sociopath.
This is what the path to a second civil war is paved with.
Dude, you are effected by that same virus…Westcoaster says:
Thus, the “magic” of Fox news. All sociopaths welcome, so long as you’re a republican sociopath…..Hello Earth…Save Us All….mike in Ct
indifference is man’s greatest weapon against all stupid …not matter the source….and the make no mistake,l the vote of the femi-nazi one of the greastest sources of stupid that has ever been unleashed on mankind.
Rock that vote.
http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-belated-discovery.html?showComment=1431459872857#c4613945110397648357
Cadders said…
Feminism is already a dead man (woman?) walking.
All feminism has is shaming language and the state (ironically, ultimately other men) to keep men to the feminist line.
But now, increasingly, the shaming doesn’t work. And men are dis-engaging from society in general to avoid entanglements with the state; if you don’t get married, you can’t be divorced, if you don’t co-habit you can’t have half your stuff appropriated, if you don’t have children, you can’t be on the hook for child support, if you don’t enter the corporate world you can’t be be accused of ‘harassment’ and if you don’t date you drastically reduce your chance of a false rape accusation.
These are genuine threat-points for men in the modern world that didn’t exist before feminism. It speaks to the feeble minds of feminists that they would think that men will simply carry on as they did when these threats did not exist. For the last 50 years men (mostly) still did. But that’s over now.
So men are doing what they have always done, survey their environment, understand it, and behave rationally according to it. Which means, increasingly, living their lives without regard to what women want. This does not mean living without sex, relationships or female company. Just that the investment men make in all these areas is being dramatically reduced.
As feminism reduces the value of women (in men’s eyes), so men are reducing the amount of time, effort, attention and money they are willing to spend for the declining ‘benefits’ modern women now bring to their lives.
But the real news is that the true cost of feminism, firstly born by men, and then children, is now being passed on to women. Record numbers of women are living alone, record numbers of women are childless, record numbers are on psychiatric medication, record numbers are facing a life-time of wage slavery in grinding jobs that they can never leave. And still feminism spins these outcomes as the conscious choices of these women and as ’empowering’.
And yet, women’s self reported happiness, across all classes, all races, all demographics is lower than ever since records began 50 years ago. Tellingly, for the first time ever, they are also now lower than men’s.
But you do not need to read ‘The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness’ to know this. Just talk to the increasing number of 30 and 40 year old childless spinsters one on one – not in a group – to get the REAL story.The REAL effect of feminism in the REAL world. These women don’t give two hoots about feminism, they are just wondering where all the good husbands, hell ANY decent man, went.
Mostly, disgusted with what feminism has done to women, he walked away.
For the truth is that men don’t want to fight women, it goes against the core of what it means to be a man. But feminism thrust men into a fight that they neither started nor wanted. To the point that feminists are reduced to crowing about ‘winning’ battles that men never turned up for.
And even now, as feminism pushes and pushes and pushes to ever more absurd levels, as ever more restrictions are placed on normal masculine behavior, ever more insane definitions of ‘rape’, ‘assault’, and ‘aggression’ are drafted into law in increasingly desperate attempts to somehow, anyhow, cast women as perpetual victims – even now – men are still refusing to be drawn into a real battle.
That’s how deeply men do not want to fight women.
The sound of the final battle between the sexes will not be heard in the streets or legislatures. It will not be televised or reported. There will be no flags hoisted or victory parades.
Because it is already in progress. It is happening all around us in plain sight, for those with the eyes to see it.
And men are deploying the most devastating weapon of all – indifference. In this final battle who cares least wins.
The time has gone to reap the harvest of feminism, and for women the fruit will be bitterest of all.
May 12, 2015 at 12:44 PM
We need to share our empathy with one another.
Flash- That was a damn good post. As a veteran of 45 years of marriage, I can tell you it is a real plus to have a woman who has nothing but disgust for feminism and believes men should be allowed to be real men. I have noticed this to be true in older couples where the women still cling to old school social morays.
Feminism has accomplished what TPTB set out to do, destroy the family unit. And as you pointed out, that has driven men away from marriage and looking for meaningful careers to support families.
“This is no longer a subject of debate; it is fact.”
Hogwash. empathy is an individual thing. we will lament poverty in our presence, but it becomes abstract far away. a democrat/republican is not an individual, but an abstract character with one attribute – ideology. people lack empathy for the opposite ideology and naturally so. anyone who draws absolute conclusions from abstract studies is simply a dolt. Paul Rosenberg = simpleton.
I share the same love of justice toward Leftist that they have shown me and I crave to return it full measure. .