Fascinating…this is where you hope to have close friends who can shake you out of these traps. I’ve got a few, thank god. But maybe their friends are just as trapped in a similar set of values—and they feared losing face by letting the dog go.
Yeah the social pressure thing is strange - honestly though if you ever lost a friend bc of that that was never a real friend to begin with. If all your friends must share 100% of precisely the same values with no deviation you are actually in a cult not a liberal society.
The irony is that Glass built his career on dissecting the gap between how people think their story will go and how it actually goes. I absolutely loved This American Life, and listened religiously. Piney was him living that gap in real time—except the story he was telling himself (rescue hero) and the story everyone else saw (hostage situation) never reconciled. Having been in docs for two decades myself, I can say for sure most documentary subjects don't realize what their subject actually is. They are too close to it.
It's a sad story, but I think you're pulling the lesson out of it that you want to see. Instead of a parable about exploited empathy, it's a story of a struggling marriage where the dog was a symptom?
Or perhaps it's a story about how attempting to help someone does not always succeed, but we can celebrate the attempt?
Generally speaking, this idea of "empathy exploitation" seems like a poorly formed way of criticizing the fact that some people choose to be in service to others and not themselves. That doesn't make them not "fully mature adults", it means their priorities are different than yours. If we were all rugged individualists like you recommend, the world would be a sadder place.
Yes many lessons here, I shared it because I thought it had several.
Professor Gad Saad is writing a book on this topic - he calls it "Suicidal Empathy" - that as an academic will be researched to your liking. I'm sure I'll review it and hope you'll read when it comes out.
And being an individualist that doesn't mean you don't have empathy or want to collaborate. You just are thoughtful about it and a lot of "trust but verify" type work. I think in modernity we all really have to guard against exploitation of our emotions, esp in the internet age many are taken in by scammers and bad actors more than happy to exploit this. Politicians of course we know do this all the time too.
You're assuming exploitation as if there is no agency in it. There are many people who choose to put others ahead of themselves even if it's to their detriment. People don't become social workers for the pay. My wife is a teacher and that is most definitely not because it's lucrative.
It isn't about trust, it's a choice about whether you choose to live for someone other than yourself. I don't see that as something to criticize.
Yes of course, and being a teacher or social worker is great (I even think we should compensate teachers more so more people have incentive to go into that).
The dog example is just empathetic behavior taken to the extreme. A violent animal that repeatedly bites others but they still think they can help and so keep in their home could easily be argued as pathological. Vs, someone spending time volunteering to help at an animal shelter, which would be a healthier example of empathy. Some people just need a limiting principle in their life - this can go the other direction too btw - with some having so little empathy they don't even have friends etc. Not healthy either. I'm just arguing for balance. Hope this clarifies, enjoy this debate btw.
Seems like a hard line to see, when it's time to give on something vs keep going. There are plenty of stories about how it took just a little bit more to help them, and others where it was a hopeless case.
My point is that it's an individual decision and it's not our place to judge how people make their own decisions.
You're right it's not always clear, particularly not for everyone and in a culture with a lot of different perspectives.
The last part of this is interesting and could be inspiration for another whole post because of what it means in the internet age. I think for normal private citizens who aren't breaking any laws you are right. But people in the public eye who go on record to talk about their lives are certainly doing so because they are interested in public discourse and act as avatars or the classic term of role model for others to aspire to.
We certainly take inspiration from their success and learn from their mistakes. We unconsciously or not judge both, and the people we love the most, at least most of the time, earn it through their actions. And we are a very redemptive people so there's a lot of grace I think in modern times if one is capable of showing growth.
Such is really part of the social contract of being a celebrity or voice in the world - setting a good model for others. I think people who post to the internet publicly should know what they are opting into here (I always sense many don't, but that's basically what happens, the court of public opinion is real).
On a less serious note, did they try feeding it dog food?
All dogs love Costco dog food easy answer there
Fascinating…this is where you hope to have close friends who can shake you out of these traps. I’ve got a few, thank god. But maybe their friends are just as trapped in a similar set of values—and they feared losing face by letting the dog go.
Yeah the social pressure thing is strange - honestly though if you ever lost a friend bc of that that was never a real friend to begin with. If all your friends must share 100% of precisely the same values with no deviation you are actually in a cult not a liberal society.
The irony is that Glass built his career on dissecting the gap between how people think their story will go and how it actually goes. I absolutely loved This American Life, and listened religiously. Piney was him living that gap in real time—except the story he was telling himself (rescue hero) and the story everyone else saw (hostage situation) never reconciled. Having been in docs for two decades myself, I can say for sure most documentary subjects don't realize what their subject actually is. They are too close to it.
It's a sad story, but I think you're pulling the lesson out of it that you want to see. Instead of a parable about exploited empathy, it's a story of a struggling marriage where the dog was a symptom?
Or perhaps it's a story about how attempting to help someone does not always succeed, but we can celebrate the attempt?
Generally speaking, this idea of "empathy exploitation" seems like a poorly formed way of criticizing the fact that some people choose to be in service to others and not themselves. That doesn't make them not "fully mature adults", it means their priorities are different than yours. If we were all rugged individualists like you recommend, the world would be a sadder place.
Yes many lessons here, I shared it because I thought it had several.
Professor Gad Saad is writing a book on this topic - he calls it "Suicidal Empathy" - that as an academic will be researched to your liking. I'm sure I'll review it and hope you'll read when it comes out.
And being an individualist that doesn't mean you don't have empathy or want to collaborate. You just are thoughtful about it and a lot of "trust but verify" type work. I think in modernity we all really have to guard against exploitation of our emotions, esp in the internet age many are taken in by scammers and bad actors more than happy to exploit this. Politicians of course we know do this all the time too.
You're assuming exploitation as if there is no agency in it. There are many people who choose to put others ahead of themselves even if it's to their detriment. People don't become social workers for the pay. My wife is a teacher and that is most definitely not because it's lucrative.
It isn't about trust, it's a choice about whether you choose to live for someone other than yourself. I don't see that as something to criticize.
Yes of course, and being a teacher or social worker is great (I even think we should compensate teachers more so more people have incentive to go into that).
The dog example is just empathetic behavior taken to the extreme. A violent animal that repeatedly bites others but they still think they can help and so keep in their home could easily be argued as pathological. Vs, someone spending time volunteering to help at an animal shelter, which would be a healthier example of empathy. Some people just need a limiting principle in their life - this can go the other direction too btw - with some having so little empathy they don't even have friends etc. Not healthy either. I'm just arguing for balance. Hope this clarifies, enjoy this debate btw.
Seems like a hard line to see, when it's time to give on something vs keep going. There are plenty of stories about how it took just a little bit more to help them, and others where it was a hopeless case.
My point is that it's an individual decision and it's not our place to judge how people make their own decisions.
You're right it's not always clear, particularly not for everyone and in a culture with a lot of different perspectives.
The last part of this is interesting and could be inspiration for another whole post because of what it means in the internet age. I think for normal private citizens who aren't breaking any laws you are right. But people in the public eye who go on record to talk about their lives are certainly doing so because they are interested in public discourse and act as avatars or the classic term of role model for others to aspire to.
We certainly take inspiration from their success and learn from their mistakes. We unconsciously or not judge both, and the people we love the most, at least most of the time, earn it through their actions. And we are a very redemptive people so there's a lot of grace I think in modern times if one is capable of showing growth.
Such is really part of the social contract of being a celebrity or voice in the world - setting a good model for others. I think people who post to the internet publicly should know what they are opting into here (I always sense many don't, but that's basically what happens, the court of public opinion is real).