Why Now?

Scientific American has tackled a subject near and dear to my heart--empathy.

Allegedly, empathy is quickly vanishing from society. That little voice of guilt, pity, or concern you feel towards others--the understanding of their emotions. In an earlier post I referenced Ayn Rand and Objectivism, which goes hand-in-hand with this article, however, it's difficult to believe that such a philosophy suddenly implanted itself in vast numbers of people. No, my guess is this has more to do with the changing nature of the socioeconomic conflict and the growing gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. A common misconception is that in modern American society, the "rich," or the top 1% of wealth holders. In fact, since 1983, the top 1% has only gained 1.6% of national net worth, while the 19% below that has gained 6%. In reality, the poor appear to be getting poorer, while that lost wealth diffuses throughout the upper ranks fairly evenly. The loss of wealth in the poor, then, has caused even further contempt from he upper classes. Children at institutes of learning where these types of studies are conducted, such as San Diego State University, tend to be of more advantaged homes, and due to the American culture that instills the sentiment that if people are of a lower socioeconomic position, then it is a result of their own doing, or rather, inability to do enough to prevent such a status. Thus, these surveyed students have faced waning empathy for the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

This theme is not unique to modern America, however. The study claims that empathy has declined only over the past 30 years, and that earlier generations can not be accurately tested because “you can’t randomly assign people to a generation.” I predict, however, it has been declining since the 1950s, a period during which affluence was widespread and the distinctions between socioeconomic rankings were more blurred--the era of the Brady Bunch and the nuclear family, when vacuum advertising was a lucrative career. During the Great Depression, however, the divisions between social classes were even more clearly defined, and the working class was hit with tremendous adversity. In the face of this adversity, those who continued to live in relative comfort appeared to hold only the occasional shred of empathy, as seen in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

(Commentary on the Class Struggle)

The current recession, while dwarfed in comparison, may have inspired a similar effect on the same dwarfed scale.