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Students Show a Dramatic Drop In Empathy
MotorMachineMercenar writes "Several news sources report that today's college students show a precipitous drop in empathy (here's MSNBC's take). The study of 14,000 students shows that students since the year 2000 had 40% less empathy than those 20 and 30 years before them. The article lays out a laundry list of culprits, from child-rearing practices and the self-help movement, to video games and social media, to a free-market economy and income inequality. There's also a link so you can test your very own level of narcissism. Let's hope the Slashdot crowd doesn't break the empathy counter on the downside."
One of the questions asked if you feel protective towards people who are being taken advantage of. Apparently, whoever wrote this has empathizing with a victim confused with wanting to protect the victim. Sometimes, the best way to help in cases like that is with tough love. You stand back, let it happen and let them learn from the experience.
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So am I the only one noticing the growing trend to vilify capitalism and individualism in this country?
If you're only just noticing then you must have missed most of the last century when 'progressives' took over the US government to the point where even most so-called 'conservatives' today would have been considered far-left a century ago.
your really fucked in a survival situation aren't you. you just don't want to compete. all this hate against so called corp. culture is just hate from the losers on the outside.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Altruism exists in nature, so it can be a successful strategy.
No, I'm sorry, it doesn't. What you have described is actually enlightened self-interest, not altruism. Which, arguably, doesn't really exist at all.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I won't bother with the rest of your "Non-Christians Evil! + Christians Good!" (with a hint of "Americans good, non-Americans evil!") rant but the Mongol empire was multi-religious and Christians were represented in great numbers as were Buddhists, Muslims, Manichaeanists and others. Genghis Khan even went as far as to set up a special institution to keep strife between the various religions in his empire down. His Christian followers were responsible for much of the slaughters under his command.
And then of course is the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts, the pogroms of various Christian splinter groups by others etc etc etc. And things like "Gott mitt Uns" on the belt-buckles of Waffen SS (hint: they didn't mean Allah).
Religions all suck pretty much the same, Christianity and its followers being as bloody and vile as the rest of them.
And the American Empire is just as unjust and evil as all the empires before it. You see the problem is not with who does it, or under what "noble" and "glorious" excuse (usually to try to "pre-emptively" stop others from doing the same thing you are doing, i.e. attempting to dominate and control others) but with the very notion of an empire.