I feel empathy and sympathy for the little baby Donald before the remote mother and the overweening father made their imprint on him.
--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, 9:38 AM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> wrote: > Empathy requires attention and time, and anyone else is a better use of > it. Quoting from Utopia, "What you have you done today to earn your place > in this big crowded world of ours?" > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of u?l? ??? > Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 5:54 AM > To: FriAM <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Trump as a victim > > 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. > > 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. > > 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. > > 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. > > -- > ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> > http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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