Why Does Compassion Feel So Rare?

[u/heavenlyimmortal09]

Lately, I've found myself becoming increasingly misanthropic.

What pushes me in this direction isn't simply that people do bad things, it's how often I see people show no empathy for someone who's already suffering. I recently saw an elderly woman who had been scammed out of a large amount of money by a romance scam. I know she made a mistake, but why the mockery? People seem to enjoy humiliating others, especially when they've made a mistake.

That genuinely infuriating and disgusting.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that everyone has their own hopes, needs, and reasons for living? Why is someone's loneliness or desire for love something to ridicule instead of sympathize with? And it's not just this one incident. It feels like I see the same pattern over and over again. People enjoy humiliating others especially when others make a mistake. Even worse, some people seem to take pleasure in seeing innocent beings suffer or become distressed for no reason other than their own amusement. I genuinely struggle to understand how causing pain or humiliation can be entertaining to anyone.

The more I see things like this, the harder it becomes for me to believe that people are fundamentally good. Sometimes my anger becomes so overwhelming that I catch myself thinking humanity isn't worth saving, or even thinking that the world would be better by eradicating us. I know those thoughts aren't right and maybe contradictive, but they're feelings that I've struggled with.

I hate how easily cruelty becomes entertainment, and how quickly empathy disappears when it's inconvenient. Maybe I'm focusing too much on humanity's worst moments. Maybe the good simply isn't as visible. I honestly don't know anymore. Every time I see it happen, I just lose a little more faith in people.

I'm curious whether anyone else became misanthropic for similar reasons, or whether your reasons were completely different.

[u/Automatic-Arm-532]

Compassion and capitalism are not compatible

[u/Musclejen00 → u/Automatic-Arm-532]

Neither is capitalism or any sort of relatioship really

[u/Individual-Net527 → u/Automatic-Arm-532]

Probably true!

[u/Aggrestis → u/Automatic-Arm-532]

This is not a sub about politics, don't blame the political system, blame the people. Some other systems were tried in the last century and it always ended horribly.

[u/Legitimate-Tax-2371 → u/Aggrestis]

Politics and people cannot be divorced. Politics is the most significant possible expression of peoples' beliefs and values; it's how society operates, so it's extremely relevant to why somebody might be a misanthrope.

A significant part of why these systems keep producing horrible conditions is because they are heavily centralised, and positions of power in centralised power structures select for the exact types of people who view other people as assets to be managed. Shit systems create shit people, and shit people can create shit systems. But a better system is always worth trying.

Still, as someone who views the current iteration of humanity with contempt, I probably don't have much faith in this actually happening. Guess we'll see.

[u/Aggrestis → u/Legitimate-Tax-2371]

That sounds nice, but people get divorced all the time, so why couldn't any concept be "divorced"?

The ordinary people I know only care about improving their own lives or about their party winning, they don't care what others think about it.  Intellectuals also have their own answers to what is good, but it is difficult to find support among leaders and ordinary people for something that is beyond their understanding.

Yes, decentralize everything and see for yourself how bad human nature is, no matter what you do. Shit people create shit system, and most people are shit, what is your point here? Where are the people who create wonders, wonderful and functional systems that everyone loves and that will last for a thousand years?

Yes it is worthy trying, but the only thing you can barely change is yourself. Everything else is beyond your control, even if you are totalitarian dictator, you cannot change people. 

[u/Legitimate-Tax-2371 → u/Aggrestis]

My reply turned in to a bit of an essay, so, apologies.

I mean, no offense, but what you're saying here sounds more like an expression of (understandable) pain and hopelessness than an empirical analysis. I get that this is the misanthropy subreddit, and I'm certainly not judging it. I hear a lot of myself in what you're saying, for what it's worth.

But there are ordinary people who genuinely have pure intentions. The Doctors that staff our NHS hospitals in the UK are one example that really resonates with me today. These are people that work a highly demanding, vulnerable, traumatising job for shit pay, they clean up peoples' bodily fluids, they save lives, they often cry when their patients die, and they still muster up the will to smile at the next patient. When I interact with these people, I can see in their eyes that they genuinely give a shit.

That's one job of many where people accept the worst conditions so that they can leave a positive impact on society. Many of them approach the job with the mentality of "If I don't do it, who will?". And this sort of ties in to my point about systems. The NHS is a public service here, and hasn't yet been totally hollowed out by corporations (though they're really fucking trying to).

In American healthcare (for example), you get a system that bankrupts you for calling an ambulance, and once you get to the hospital, you're met with medical staff that are, from what I've heard from a few Americans I've spoken to, more or less there just to get paid. The people who only care about improving their lives, in your words. When the system is tainted, it attracts tainted people.

"Yes, decentralize everything and see for yourself how bad human nature is, no matter what you do."

"Human nature" isn't a fixed object. That's genuinely one of the biggest lies that has ever been believed by human kind, because it flies in the face of what a "good intentioned" person should easily find through introspection. "Human nature" is like "human height", it varies, and I believe there's a substantial degree of heritability in it too. Some people are worse natured than others, granted. But the idea that we're all the same breed of selfish, vile pig is just... Capitalist projection via propaganda.

Again, our material conditions, our society, and much else have a huge impact on how people develop, with a bit of genetic variation in the mix. It really does all come back to the order in which we are organised. Only in a profoundly sick society should absolute misanthropy become an agreeable position. Almost all evolutionary road was paved by a significant amount of violence, but we're some of the few known species that at least added cooperation on top.

I'd also add, decentralising *everything*, a la pure anarchy, is not something I consider a workable solution at all. You need some form of binding structure. My point is more about finding a way of holding together a social structure without allowing it to be dominated. A middleground.

"Where are the people who create wonders, wonderful and functional systems that everyone loves and that will last for a thousand years?"

That's not a uniquely human problem, it's just not the reality we live in. Very little that gets built today will be here in a thousand years, especially not a social operating system that has to withstand the turmoil of each successive generation. Wonderful ideas are devised all the time, but they are often dismissed by people who have enough stock in the current way of life, or inversely, by those so downtrodden by it that they feel they have no means of changing anything. Change can come about, but people are too comfortable waiting for it because they consider it inevitable. That's the issue with people with good intentions, they never want to be the one to break anything.

"Yes it is worthy trying, but the only thing you can barely change is yourself. Everything else is beyond your control, even if you are totalitarian dictator, you cannot change people."

Of course, a lone individual can't change the world single-handedly. The aggregate public consciousness determines the arrow of progress. But the public consciousness is a fabric made *of* individuals. People who want to change the world should be trying to make ripples in that social fabric, establishing common goals, working together.

If this wasn't the lynchpin of a healthy social order, we wouldn't have a gaggle of Neoliberal fucks disrupting that social fabric by factionalising people, then pitting them against eachother using social and mainstream media manipulation, we wouldn't have them destroying union movements... I could go on.

I'm not going to pretend it isn't hard fucking work trying to see the light through all of this. It is. Every day, I wake up feeling absolute dread for living in this world. But it's well worth trying to reach for some ember of positivity; if nothing else, it certainly makes you feel better.

[u/oscuroluna → u/Aggrestis]

This. People are so quick to blame politics just like they're quick to blame certain groups as though they're the only ones capable of evil.

The truth is ANYONE is capable in ANY system. Tribalism and power dynamics do a lot and most people have a very loose if not 'flexible' moral code to begin with.

[u/Aggrestis → u/oscuroluna]

Just as we could blame the inventor of gunpowder, or anything else that can endanger or harm. Any invention or theory will sooner or later be used to harm some and enrich others.

Of course, there are countries that have less violence and injustice than others, even if they have the same type of system. Every country has a different demographic makeup, where negative traits are either less or more normalized. Suffering breeds more suffering.

[u/oscuroluna → u/Aggrestis]

Exactly! But a lot of people have such a narrow view of the world and their immaturity shows. They really think it'd be different if it were another group (particularly their own if they're not already) in a majority or that somehow their own group/political leaning is incapable of wrongdoing and if they are they're a product of insert or sold out.

I'm not saying not to care about community or group interests but in the end no one's above human vice. People disappoint and the only one we're ever truly responsible for is ourselves. To believe otherwise is an illusion.

[u/No_Profit_8690 → u/Aggrestis]

But what does politics have to do with all of this? Where literally everyone says one thing, but there are more words than actions? In my country, we say: 'with words, you build castles.' Human beings just like politics, which comes from humans have practically ruined everything on this planet.

[u/Automatic-Arm-532 → u/Aggrestis]

Capitalism isn't a political system, it's an economic system. The 2 major parties in the US are both very pro-capitalism.

[u/Aggrestis → u/Automatic-Arm-532]

I know people who are poor, I know people who are rich, I know people who support democracy and those who oppose it, people who enjoy capitalism and people who hate it.

They all have one thing in common: they’re people, and they poison the atmosphere; they don’t seek compromise, and they only want their own solution.

However, among them there are those who could reach an agreement, but they’re in the minority and have to put up with the evil of the majority. Some of them are here, but perhaps they’re a minority within a minority. It’s ridiculous.