I was doing research for my socratic seminar. I knew what I wanted to write about. The question was, “Is having empathy at odds with American Values?” so of course, I said yes. In my mind, America = Capitalism = sociopathy and oppression. I was looking for ted talks, studies, articles, or anything that could help me to get proof of the reality I knew so well. I found a scientist names Paul K. Piff who does a lot of research on the association between empathy and privilege. Throughout his career as a sociologist at University of California Irvine, he has found that, “as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases.” So as a person climbs up in capitalism, they become less and less able to care about the needs of others. This also works in the reverse way. Capitalism can actually reward and work better for people who experience sociopathy. The whole system is based on self interest. It encourages independence and self reliance, one of the exact ideas that Piff found as a major quality that allow a person to forget about the needs of the greater community. He said, “Wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others. The less we have to rely on others, the less we may care about their feelings. This leads us towards being more self-focused.” This process of researching and reflecting were very helpful to me because it allowed me to gather more evidence on a subject I feel a large emotional connection to. However, something I could have done better was to look at resources that did not come from a perspective I was necessarily looking for so that I could broaden my perspective on the complexity of the issue.
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What is this?Hi everyone! This is my junior year blog. Here you will find weekly reflections up until the completion of my junior internship. I hope you enjoy this inside look on my learning! Archives
June 2018
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