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Is empathy a learned emotion ?
If not taught that violence is wrong, i wonder what our true nature would be.
I think back to how cruel that children can be to one another, and especially to animals, such as cats. One fellow i work with killed a cat by placing it in a microwave.
The other day, a random lady at my other (unpaid intern) job whipped into the parking lot and didn't see a light post. She smashed right into it, and badly crushed the front end of her SUV.
My co-workers were just a few feet from her as it happened.
Rather than rushing to see if this woman was alright, they all began to laugh out loud at the woman. She hear everything, and was extremely perturbed.
I'd like to say that I just work with a bunch of jerks, but more and more, I have encountered this lack of compassion for others.
My sister saw a bird in the road once that was flapping around with what she thought was a broken wing. As she she got closer, she could see that someone had cut the birds wings and left it bleeding there.
As she tried to help this bird, she looked up to see that a man was videoing here.
He quickly drove off, and she came to the realization that he was the one that had done this.
I was thinking of why it is that empathy is looked down upon in society, as a feminine trait.
Perhaps it is because in order to survive and thrive as a male ages ago, you couldn't have empathy.
It was survival of the fittest, with brother killing brother.
Manliness is defined as being violent.
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