WAR as a critical lack of empathy.

The heart and soul of the collective West are failing badly—no empathy and too much sociopathy!

We think wars half-way around the world don’t affect us. They do, in too many long lasting ways.

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em·pa·thy

/ˈempəTHē/ noun

“The ability to understand and share the feelings of another”. —Google

When British prime minister Margaret Thatcher(1979 -1990) stated “there no is such thing as society” it was regarded with moral revulsion. Some try to explain it away with a lot of intellectual bafflegab but it remains one of the most impertinent comments any politician could make. We will never know, it might have been a comment she would have liked to take back. It was a little too revealing of her ideological disposition.

There is a Spanish proverb that states …. tell me what you do and I will tell you who you are… Thatcher revealed a lot of herself in that one little statement. She was telling us society is no more than an amorphous collection of nuclear families. This may have been true in the era of the caveman but hardly true today as we live in complex societies where the study and analysis of them is a major industry with no shortage of academic disciplines involved.

We humans are social animals and and we live in societies-full stop!

The mischievous Ms. Thatcher

Thatcher’s comment deserves some context. She was a hard-ass right wing politician who regarded the electorate as a bunch of naughty children and she was going to tame their appetite for a fair and just society. She declared war on the social welfare state and then proceeded to establish the corporate welfare state which we have come to know so well today. She was a union buster and a privatizer of public assets which is the hallmark of neoliberalism. She became known as the “iron lady” and just as brittle as cast iron.

When I refer to her as being “mischievous” her comment may have been intended as paving the way for the Neoliberal ideology about to burst on the Western world. Her and US President Ronald Reagan(1981-1989) are considered god parents to the Neoliberal movement that has since come to full fruition.

Thatcher would never be considered an empathetic politician nor is the Neoliberalism ideology empathetic to society. In fact, it hollows and fragments society and is a direct assault on democracy and the values we hold as societies . Half a century of the Neoliberal ideology (along with quit a few other factors) has left the Collective West anti-empathetic to ourselves and the greater world community.

The attack on our Empathy

As psychology applies to individuals. It also applies to nations and societies. We can be empathetic or anti-empathic societies all depending on how the values to which we subscribe and more than ever today what dubious leaders impose upon us.

Living in societies of fear, endless propaganda, political dogma, along with the demands of every day living in complex modern societies we easily fall victim to being un-empathetic towards others and other cultures. Where there is conflict we want to block it out, and not get involved. We become prone to making snap uninformed judgments on complex situations. We become prime targets for propagandists who want to manage our perceptions. War and propaganda are attacks on our human values coercing us into giving up our empathy for others when it should be stronger than ever.

From social to sociopathy

“-soc-, root. -soc- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning "partner; comrade. '' This meaning is found in such words as: associate, association, disassociate, social, socialize, society, socio-, unsociable”-Google

It becomes an interesting exercise to look up the exact meaning of the words we use. We see that “soc” as is society means a partnership or comradeship. We are a long way for from that today as we are fragmented societies enslaved to the ill chosen-ideologies that dominate and control our existence.

Socialism as a political ideology has been eradicated in the West not because it lacks merit but it is a direct challenge to the fascist/corporatist agenda smothering the democracy out of existence. In other words our right to exist as holistic empathetic societies is being systematically undermined. Liberal democracies are dead in the water.

We have been systematically propagandized into believing socialism is and evil first step leading toward communism which it is not. Socialism is no more than an assertion of our right to exist in societies that serve our social rights and obligations — to all— which is empathy.

The fascist right in the USA spent the last half of the 20th century eradicating any semblance of socialism in their society. They were on the road to establishing their country as a purely capitalist warfare state hell bent on global hegemony. The McCarthy Hearings of the 1950’s were an essential part of this ideological sanitization. The threat of communism was conveniently used as a false pretext for endless global wars and interventions.

Signs of a Sociopath · Lack of empathy for others · Impulsive behavior · Attempting to control others with threats or aggression-Google

Socialism and our essential right to it is being suppressed and replaced with sociopathy. The sociopathy we are seeing now is the ideology of endless war, violence and exploitation which we are eye witness to now.

The very politicians who are supposed to deliver peace, order and good government, acting on our behalf, are delivering betrayal, endless violence and social chaos.

Today is nigh

War is the sociopathy of our leadership, internalized by populations where we are mesmerized by the diabolical forces unleashed and the appalling psychotic behaviors ever present.

In a world so highly integrated and so interdependent we see ourselves as impervious to the effects of war half a world away. Not realizing the bloody war in Ukraine is just one chapter in an all-encompassing global ideological war. This is not just another Cold War. It is World War lll unfolding before our eyes wide shut.

War now is omnipresent and the Collective West is being sacrificed in so many ways we don’t even realize. We are victims of sinister ideologies tearing at the fabric of our societies and our empathy for each other and the world we live in, is a first and conspicuous casualty.

Read more: Here and Here.