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fucktoyprincess -> RE: Do republicans even have a conscience? (11/4/2012 5:04:23 PM)
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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl
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ORIGINAL: kdsub
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ME ME ME attitude
I think most feel, rightly or wrongly, that people must take responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their families.
Butch
Many people can't afford to take responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their families when it comes to health care. Republicans know this but they don't care as long as it's not about them personally. No conscience, no empathy.
I don't know about conscience, but I would like to comment on empathy, as you raise it.
People who study empathy don't just study its existence or non-existence, but do measure it. In other words, some people are more empathetic than others. I would say that conservatives might be people who are, in fact, less empathetic than other people.
Some other findings related to empathy. Some research suggests that people are more able and willing to empathize with those most similar to themselves. In particular, empathy increases with similarities in culture and living conditions. Empathy is more likely to occur between individuals whose interaction is more frequent.
Empathy is not a process that is likely to deliver certain judgements about the emotional states of others. It is a skill that is gradually developed throughout life, and which improves the more contact we have with the person with whom one empathizes.
Although controversial, some researchers have found that women (as a population) are more empathetic than men (again, as a population, this means that a given man could still be more empathetic than a given woman).
So, to the extent that people have different life experiences and are "wired" for different levels of empathy, I think their natural inclination to be concerned about others is actually different.
Ultimately, this means a portion of the population will always lack the necessary empathy to support things like social programs. Sad, but true. They are also people who lack the imagination to ever imagine themselves in need of help from others. (Although, I suspect they are the first in line when they actually need assistance). So it is left to those of us who have empathy to worry about the community as a whole, and not just ourselves. And to hope that those with low empathy do not become a huge part of the population.
Low levels of empathy may serve some other biological or evolutionary goal - I'm not sure what though. (I am not really addressing those who have no empathy as that is generally considered a disorder).
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