A page from The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley
I guess it’s not exactly surprising, but it seems to explain a lot of things I’m witnessing in my later adulthood. I’ve always felt deeply impressed by selfless heroes, but I never really pondered the profile of heroism.
Empathy being a sign of privilege isn’t the truth I needed to read today :/
In a weird way, having emotionally available and supportive parents is absolutely a privilege. People are able to develop empathy in spite of bad parents, and good parenting isn’t a guarantee to a good person, but parenting is a major factor for life success. I wish it weren’t, and I hope we can build a society that could guarantee every child full opportunities.
When you are fighting to survive, it’s only normal to have less bandwidth to care for others.
The opposite I feel, we are stronger as a group and my instinct when shit hits the fan is to make sure everyone involved is ok and ready to face the challenge together
That’s the irony of it. I’m by no means a scholar of Thich Nhat Hanh, but I remember reading an account from his early life as a Vietnamese monk during the conflict with imperial France in which he had basically nothing and was himself barely surviving, but still found a way to feel peace and express compassion for a young French soldier suffering from malaria who desperately raided the monastery at gunpoint.
Luckily, it is the kind of privilege you can pass on to your children.
You don’t have to have any other privileges for that. Just patience and love (yep, not easy, but doable by all means)
You can break the cycle
How is it privilege?
My parents were fucking great. Not the best but damn it they did the best they could with what they were handed. I can see how it could be considered a privilege.
Not everyone has good parents