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<p>Nick -</p>
<p>I agree that empathy is a bit spontaneous and emergent for me.
But I *can* cultivate or subdue it somewhat. This is one of the
roles of my *morbid fascination*, which is to *allow* me to
cultivate empathy were my first impulse is revulsion or
vengeance. <br>
</p>
<p>Your image of Trump on Trial *does* trigger memories of the way
Saddam Hussein was pictured at HIS trials.</p>
<p> I fear this is not that likely to ever emerge, I don't think we
have the moral courage as a country to face our own rotten
parts... I could be wrong, and I want to hope we can face our own
(deep) failures in some way similar to what Rwanda and/or South
Africa and even Post WWII Germany was forced to (by circumstance?)
after their darkest years. I don't know that we have sunk low
enough yet TO be forced into that. And my instincts make it
really hard for me to root for the kinds of disasters I think Dave
and Marcus both flirt with (though I understand that kind of
collapse may be the most efficient path to any kind of sweeping
(and deep) recovery).</p>
<p>I was raised on the movie version of "Lobo" (shown in my
classroom every year of elementary school?) rather than "the
Terror of Corrumpaw" original. I think that version Lobo was a
more empathetic character, because Disney? I didn't know until I
looked it up that the movie *was* derived/inspired by Seton's
version.<br>
</p>
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<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Lobo">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Lobo</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
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<p class="MsoPlainText">Glen, <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">I don't think of empathy as something
that you gin up; it either happens to you, or it doesn't. And
then you decide what you want to do with your empathy. As a
child, perhaps,, did you ever read any of Ernest Thompson
Seton's (no relative) <b><i>Lives of the Hunted</i></b>? The
wolf, terror of the Corrumpaw (?), wily killer of sheep,
evader of traps, lies before you in a cage, wounded and
helpless. You feel empathy. And so you kill it. Anybody who
tells you that you <i>should</i> feel empathy lacks empathy
for your lack of empathy. I WILL feel empathy for Trump when
he's tried. I dread those trials. In fact, even watching
him twist and lie and twist and lie, watching him contort,
makes me queasy inside, like watching a man tortured. But
empathy, like rage, is just another emotion, and needs, like
all emotions, to be tempered with reason. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Nick<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Emeritus Professor of Ethology and
Psychology<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">Clark University<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Friam <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com"><friam-bounces@redfish.com></a> On Behalf Of
u?l? ???<br>
Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 6:54 AM<br>
To: FriAM <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:friam@redfish.com"><friam@redfish.com></a><br>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim</p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">A collection of people, who shall remain
nameless, recently tried to shame me for objecting to their
waste of empathy for poor lil ol Trump, in light of his
infection. One argument went something like "His father was
horrible." One primary argument went something like "empathy
begets empathy". Empathy is not zero-sum. Etc.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">I started my objection to all this
Trump-as-a-victim talk by listing several aspects of his
CHARMED LIFE, like the fact that he's lucky enough to have
lived to a ripe old age (when so many of us die young), he was
born wealthy (when so many of us live our entire lives dirt
poor), his stupid TV show was wildly successful (when so many
of us are serial failures), his weaponized litigousness has
benefited him throughout his life (when so many of us can't
even afford a lawyer). Etc. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">All that *privilege* has been bestowed
upon him. And it seems, to me, he's squandered it all. He
reminds me of those pitiful pictures of Saddam Hussein in
court and then prison and then dead. Oh boo-hoo, poor little
dictator being mistreated. Such sentiments are not merely
weird to me. If game theory and the success of simplistic
tit-for-tat has taught us anything, it is that the algorithmic
*depth* required to beat straightforward (poetic) "justice" is
academically interesting, but pragmatically degenerate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">So, no. I will not waste any of my
finite lifetime feeling sorry for poor lil ol Trump, our
Privilege Squanderer in Chief. If that magically limits my
ability to empathize in some other context, so be it. If it
implies that when I die pathetically, under some bridge,
eating partial hamburgers from the Wendy's dumpster, my
colleagues *rightly* avoid wasting their finite lifetimes
feeling sorry for me, then I'm ready for that day. Like it or
not, tu quoque is a fallacy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">--<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText">↙↙↙ uǝlƃ<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoPlainText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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