I struggle with your post. Yes, the pain is horrific, and there is goodness in a right community. Moreover, we should never gloat at others’ misfortune.
But the victims are not innocent, and more importantly, the populist strain in rural America is profoundly unempathetic towards the other. If we had been conquered by a foreign power and were all victims of fate, that would be one thing, but rural folk lined up behind Trump and relished him bashing brown people and transgendered.
If you seek empathy, show empathy. The plight of rural America is common with the plight of the rest of America - capital and the very wealthy have created a hellhole of unaffordability and non-choices.
An 8-year-old girl drowning at summer camp doesn't become less innocent because of the politics of the adults around her.
The point of this piece is that empathy shouldn't be transactional in the way you're describing. It shouldn't be a prize for political virtue. You can disagree with this premise, but if we only care about others when it's easy, what's the point?
I would certainly agree about the actual victims, and honestly, my heart hurts even for the people who drowned and would have been willing to fight to the death for their right to defund NOAA, because they are humans, and I love humans. That sort of care should never be transactional - people suffering and dying hurts.
We all need empathy, and I don't think anyone should be let off the hook for lacking it. If one is still a hard-core MAGA, they lack empathy, and having just spent time in a MAGA zone, it is still going strong.
I struggle with your post. Yes, the pain is horrific, and there is goodness in a right community. Moreover, we should never gloat at others’ misfortune.
But the victims are not innocent, and more importantly, the populist strain in rural America is profoundly unempathetic towards the other. If we had been conquered by a foreign power and were all victims of fate, that would be one thing, but rural folk lined up behind Trump and relished him bashing brown people and transgendered.
If you seek empathy, show empathy. The plight of rural America is common with the plight of the rest of America - capital and the very wealthy have created a hellhole of unaffordability and non-choices.
An 8-year-old girl drowning at summer camp doesn't become less innocent because of the politics of the adults around her.
The point of this piece is that empathy shouldn't be transactional in the way you're describing. It shouldn't be a prize for political virtue. You can disagree with this premise, but if we only care about others when it's easy, what's the point?
I would certainly agree about the actual victims, and honestly, my heart hurts even for the people who drowned and would have been willing to fight to the death for their right to defund NOAA, because they are humans, and I love humans. That sort of care should never be transactional - people suffering and dying hurts.
We all need empathy, and I don't think anyone should be let off the hook for lacking it. If one is still a hard-core MAGA, they lack empathy, and having just spent time in a MAGA zone, it is still going strong.