Most appeals in the name of social justice rely on an underlying assumption of universal altruism. They assume that you care if something bad happens to anyone, anywhere, and advise you to take some sort of action to ease or prevent their suffering.
People react by questioning whether or not that stranger, somewhere, is really suffering, or if they are suffering any more than anyone else. They examine the circumstances of the alleged suffering and the motives of the people bringing the claimed suffering to light. They will argue about the details and the proportion of the suffering and point out their own comparable suffering or the suffering of some person who is supposedly suffering more.
Once you're arguing, they've already got you. Once you've started arguing, you've agreed that you could care, or would care - that you should care.
But what would they say if you stopped pretending to care?
There wouldn't be any point in arguing over details.
This is just manipulation, a plucking of a bit of human suffering from an unimaginable expanse of human suffering, all to serve an agenda of the person speaking to you. Some kid in Mexico probably had his chopped off with a sword today. Nobody cared because they weren't told to care.
If we cared about everyone, we would never register feelings or first world problems because our brains would be destroyed from watching the violence that happens constantly in the third world.
I don't care what happens to everyone, everywhere. I don't care what happens to strangers. It may sound barbaric and taboo. It sounds taboo because people have been conned into believing that they can do something they can never do - care equally about everyone, all around the world.
I care what happens to my family and my friends - my tribe.
"I don't care."
It's simple but powerful. Try saying it sometime, it's liberating.
I don't care.
These three words can end so many arguments.
Most appeals in the name of social justice rely on an underlying assumption of universal altruism. They assume that you care if something bad happens to anyone, anywhere, and advise you to take some sort of action to ease or prevent their suffering.
People react by questioning whether or not that stranger, somewhere, is really suffering, or if they are suffering any more than anyone else. They examine the circumstances of the alleged suffering and the motives of the people bringing the claimed suffering to light. They will argue about the details and the proportion of the suffering and point out their own comparable suffering or the suffering of some person who is supposedly suffering more.
Once you're arguing, they've already got you. Once you've started arguing, you've agreed that you could care, or would care - that you should care.
But what would they say if you stopped pretending to care?
There wouldn't be any point in arguing over details.
This is just manipulation, a plucking of a bit of human suffering from an unimaginable expanse of human suffering, all to serve an agenda of the person speaking to you. Some kid in Mexico probably had his chopped off with a sword today. Nobody cared because they weren't told to care.
If we cared about everyone, we would never register feelings or first world problems because our brains would be destroyed from watching the violence that happens constantly in the third world.
I don't care what happens to everyone, everywhere. I don't care what happens to strangers. It may sound barbaric and taboo. It sounds taboo because people have been conned into believing that they can do something they can never do - care equally about everyone, all around the world.
I care what happens to my family and my friends - my tribe.
"I don't care."
It's simple but powerful. Try saying it sometime, it's liberating.