Two Views on Empathy

At left are opposing views on the subject of human empathy, including one from German-American historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt, one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

What Elon Musk says on the subject is reminiscent of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who really was a “thing” in the mid-20th Century until people realized that caring for one another was an essential part of what it means to be a human being, as opposed to, say, a tiger shark.

Sadly, we’ve seen a resurgence of this “mentality,” at least in the last decade here in the U.S.  Almost half of American voters favor the dismantling of our government’s capacity to deal with disease, hunger, environmental collapse, ignorance, and corporate criminality.  It appears that 250 years of government of, by, and for the people is no match for the Musk/Trump machine.