So according to new research, today’s college students are 40 percent less empathetic than kids their age thirty years ago.
The students are now less likely to agree with statements like, “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective,” “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me,” and “Greg Gutfeld’s new book, ‘The Bible of Unspeakable Truths,’ is supersexyawesome.”
But look, the study is half right. Empathy has taken a hit, but it hasn’t evaporated – it’s just been misplaced. Empathy has shifted from people who matter, to abstractions that don’t.
I blame parents and teachers who let toxic strains of feel-good self-esteem and phony sentimentality invade their homes and classrooms. The end result: people thinking it’s cooler to care for strangers than their own families. It’s okay to divorce your wife of twenty years, as long as you volunteer at the homeless shelter. You owe thousands in rent to your roommate, but no worries: you helped build a latrine in Peru. This new self-love created a driving hunger for recognition – and your caring soul lets you be a jerk to the people who matter.
And now it’s egged on by the web and it’s infectious blanket of social networking – which creates an illusory sense of intimacy that was once sated by the real intimacy of a neighborhood.
You have people paying more attention to a stranger across the globe, than their aging mother. Thank God her nurse isn’t on Twitter, or granny would have no one to talk to.
In the new egalitarianism, you must forget the concentric circles of real people around you. And you shouldn’t love your parents more than any one else. And, really, why should your money go to feeding your offspring, when the world’s a mess? We’re all in this together!
Even if I’ve never been to Greece.
Although I loved “Mama Mia.”
And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe made of cat poop.