One of the things that has me baffled is how we got to the point where vast swaths of society have far more empathy for animals than for human beings.
Historically, humans "had dominion over the beasts of the field". Dominion is an interesting word. It is much softer than "dominate" and certainly not on par with "equality". Humans cared for the animals and the animals existed to feed, clothe and protect the humans. It was a reciprocal and mutually beneficial arrangement but the two parties were not equal.
The current thing, at least for many humans, is where they project their feelings onto the speechless animals and then claim to act on the animal's behalf. Somehow, the "innocent" animal is granted equal or higher value than a human.
And it is not just domesticated farm animals. I know of one very-woke young woman who was extremely distressed when she learned that chickens "scratched" to find worms and bugs to eat. She identified with the worms! She thought that chickens scratching was barbaric. She was horrified. Surely, civilized people didn't allow that to happen. Surely, civilized people only fed chickens manufactured foods that were cultured in factories.
Now here is where it suddenly warps into the twilight zone: These same vegans and super-woke people are virulently pro-choice, i.e. pro-abortion.
The verbal convolutions that justify the dissonance are epic.
Vegan views on abortion often hinge on whether fetuses feel pain when aborted, and it’s commonly believed that they don’t.
A human fetus is not suspected to feel pain before 20-24 weeks of pregnancy...
Nociception, the body’s reaction to harm, is not necessarily the same as feeling pain. So if a fetus recoils from the tools being used during an abortion, for example, that does not necessarily mean that they are consciously experiencing pain. Source
Using their own logic, it is now morally permissible to euthanize a vegan as long as you shoot them when they are passed out drunk, sleeping or if you shoot them at the base of the skull so they are dead before their brain can process "pain". Or, it is permissible of your method of killing them allows you to "suspect" that they did not feel any pain.
Empathy
Cluster B Mental disorders are the ones that give most of us "the ick".
They are characterized by the person with the disorder having a stunted, warped or completely missing sense of "empathy".
In the proto-typical, arch-type small village, it only took a few Cluster B personalities to make life very difficult. It was important to identify them early in life and fire-wall them off or to use a modify the rule-set when dealing with them.
Prime evidence of "Cluster B" personalities was animal abuse: Pulling the wings off of flies (a literary trope), kicking dogs, torturing cats, deafness to cows bawling to be milked and so on.
Social conventions being what they are, some Cluster B types learned to mimic empathy. The best mimics appear more empathic than the best non-Cluster Bs* because the high functioning Cluster B types made a high intensity study of what it LOOKS LIKE to be empathic.
From where I stand in BF rural Michigan, the woke-wannabe-cool-kids are aping the high-functioning Cluster B types. Due to the entirely synthetic, virtual ecosystem they now exist in, everything is upside down and clown-world crazy.
That comes with a price. More than 40% of Gen Z in the US have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. Thumbing one's nose at reality is expensive.
*Bill Clinton is an example of a world-class empathy mimic.
Isaiah 5:18,20,21,23
ReplyDeleteAh! Those who tug at guilt with cords of perversity, and at sin as if with cart ropes!
DeleteAh! Those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness to light, and light into darkness, who change bitter to sweet, and sweet into bitter!
Ah! Those who are wise in their own eyes, prudent in their own view!
Those who acquit the guilty for bribes, and deprive the innocent of justice!
Therefore the wrath of the LORD blazes against his people, he stretches out his hand to strike them; The mountains quake, their corpses shall be like refuse in the streets. For all this, his wrath is not turned back, his hand is still outstretched.
I added Isaiah 5:25 to complete the thought for the other readers.
My generation has been so blessed to live a mostly wonderful life. Growing up in small town America, on 40 acres before mental illness was celebrated.
ReplyDeleteNow we indeed live in interesting times.
You are trying to make sense of leftists and the way they act. That's a waste of time and energy. Insanity makes no sense and leftists are insane. The problem with them really started developing steam when we stopped locking them in asylums and allowed them to roam...then breed.... and now vote.
ReplyDeleteAmen! If you could reason with commie liberals, there would be no commie liberals (democrats).
DeleteThe people that prefer animals to human life are thinly-disguised self-loathing nihilist sociopaths, who are simply too chicken to commit suicide, but happy to let someone else slaughter infants by the millions.
ReplyDeleteThis is how some cultures get boxcars, gas showers, and ovens.
Dear Aesop, how does this comment fit into Russiaphobia and raging that Putin needs a 9mm in the ear.
DeleteOthering folks is how you demonize so it's easier for honorable (Non Sociopathic) people to Dresden them.
SNIP Sociopathy is a form of ASPD, characterized by a lack of empathy, disregard for others and persistent breaking of rules
I like/love my dogs more than most people. They have never, any of them, ever, tried to stab me or harm me. They are always eager to please. Also they keep the evil hoards of, opossums, armored pillows (armadillos), skunks, raccoons, turkeys and, likely, deerses at bay from eating our precious scrub, simulated grass yard. The bunnies and squirrels get a pass, something to do with a 100% failure rate on catching them, I believe.
ReplyDeleteThen, sometimes they stay on the deck to register their disapproval of somethings out there. Sasquatch? Big cat? Dunno, they won't say.
Tennessee has all those critters and more.
I'm sure this is going to get much worse. I'm glad I'm at the end.---ken
ReplyDeleteIt is a direct result of women ascending to power in our society. Its their sympathetic nature. That's why they are better at raising kids, and men are better at feeding them. Women will worry that their kids won't understand that the worm felt pain when the chicken ate it, while men have to butcher the chicken to feed the same kids. We are not the same. Not meant to be, but that's the longer conversation, and people think I'm looney for saying some of the things I do.
ReplyDeleteI think a large part of these types of 'manufactured problems' are a result of society eliminating a lot of our more traditional issues. The real problems of life (food, shelter, reproduction) are not really existential issues anymore. We have social safety nets galore, you have to try to starve yourself to death, if you want to starve to death in this country. 200 years ago it was a foregone conclusion unless you worked your ass off to stop it.
People have to create problems in their lives, because they don't have real ones anymore. Our bodies don't know what to do in the modern world, we were built for something different (through evolution and thousands of years).
To me its akin to the border-collie. They are so intelligent and high energy if you get one and make it live a sedentary lifestyle, it will literally go crazy (we observe this as destructive behaviors around the home like chewing on table legs, etc.) But if you give it the life it was bred to live, despite the fact its cruel and difficult by todays standards, the animal thrives and lives a life of absolute joy!
Now apply that same logic to humans. Society is pushing these changes and calling it 'progress', while the individuals living through the progress deem it a step in the wrong direction.
Something tells me the world has always been this way.
Every human has the ghost of the original righteousness left over after The Fall, and the witness of others and of all the rest of Creation. We have the blueprints for righteousness and authority, and are inherently and completely unable to fulfil the one or exercise the other, yet the urge to do both; in the worst cases, consumingly so. So we know what is right, can't do it, and invent new ways to satisfy the urge. It is works religion....lefties, and all pagan religions, and most of what calls itself Christianity nowadays is based on this. Be careful, they will sacrifice you to their god....which is themselves. Call it free will if you like.
ReplyDeleteStefan v.
"More than 40% of Gen Z in the US have been diagnosed with mental illnesses." Sounds like a fabricated diagnosis to be used as an excuse for bad or immature behavior. I'm sure Big Pharma will have a pill for it soon.
ReplyDeleteBTW I do tend to like my pets better than most of the people I read about or come in contact with.. The critters do not have hidden agendas or delusions of grandeur with the possible exception of the current house cat.
This video at about the 1 minute mark is what I think of when I see misplaced empathy. A cuckoo chick hatches in a reed warbler's nest and the reed warblers attach to it and simply watch as the cuckoo chick ejects all the warbler eggs from the nest.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/lgIL8dbSMUA?si=MCvhxzpNInkuej_0
If you want to look at lack of empathy look at Conservatives. That is their brand. They elected a psychopath twice to prove it.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason John W. Dean called his book Conservatives Without Conscience which looked at RWA's.
Animals are treated as child surrogates. It is nothing new. The Nazis had strict anti cruelty laws to protect animals and the other extreme for people. Lucas
I see it as tough love.
DeleteSuppose you had a nephew who had been raised by a permissive mother. You invited him to visit for the weekend, maybe to hunt turkeys or go fishing.
On Monday, he refuses to leave. You let it skate.
On Tuesday, he starts cooking meth. You let it skate.
On Wednesday, he starts selling meth out of your house...what do you do? After this kid has been mis-parented for 20 years and after you became complicit by not enforcing "the rules"?
To the kid, you are going to look like a psychopath who is breaking the social contract.
Love has little to do with Conservative's lack of empathy.
Deletehttps://theconversation.com/magas-war-on-empathy-might-not-be-original-but-it-is-dangerous-255300
MAGA's 'war on empathy' might not be original, but it is dangerous
This turned up a couple of days after the post and adds background.
It is my first-order approximation that there are two-degrees-of-separation between the drivel I write and what appears in the mainstream media.
DeleteAs "parents" become a minority in the population, it becomes more difficult to articulate that what people NEED to hear is often in extreme conflict with what the WANT to hear.
As biological dead-ends, the never-will-be-parents are incapable of understanding "tough love".
There is nothing new under the Sun. Judgement will come.
ReplyDeleteRemember we allowed this to happen, others like to blame someone else.
Regarding fetus feeling pain. The year was 1980, working in the pediatric ward I was able to overhear a chief resident demonstrating a circumcision to new residents. He confidently assured the new residents that you don't use any painkillers because babies that young can't feel pain. The baby had views of his own regarding the chiefs expertise and stated them as loudly as he could.
ReplyDelete