She was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.
…she is best known for those dealing with the nature of wealth, power, and evil, as well as politics,…
Her name appears in the names of journals, schools, scholarly prizes, humanitarian prizes, think-tanks, and streets; appears on stamps and monuments; and is attached to other cultural and institutional markers that commemorate her thought. In 1933, Arendt was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo for performing illegal research into antisemitism.
She was stripped of her German citizenship in 1937…
It’s definitely more nuanced than the out of context quote sounds, but not by much. He stated that he believes human empathy is being exploited so that people act against their own interests, which he believes will lead to a societal collapse.
He is a shitstain who is justifying hatred behind pretty standard white-supremicist talking points (the illegals are destroying our country, and we’re letting them do it because we’ve been taught to care about others!), but the argument is nuanced enough that we should consider it’s context. Let’s not sink to their level of engaging with headlines taken out of context. Let’s be angry about the problems with what he actually said, as opposed to the grossly simplified headline.
the “context” of the quote sounds like a bunch of doublespeak bullshit, attempting to dress up the core message as a “nuanced” not-so-reprehensible mindset.
excuse me, but fuck that shit. “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” is plenty enough to judge by, without wasting time analyzing “context”
based reply.
No, it’s not nuanced.
The context is what you said, that he thinks empathy is being used to allow too many brown people in the country. Why are you trying to act like there’s a deeper meaning or nuance?
It’s also patently dumb. The US built a huge portion of it’s empire and hegemony using empathy. USAID is the perfect example of it. By spending relatively small amount of money on humanitarian aid in poorer nations we secured land, treaties, and support that locked us into power and other nations out.
Empathy is a powerful weapon for a world power to have and use.
What’s dumb is throwing out empathy and instead saying “Actually, fuck every other nation, we will take care of ourselves”. That is what will lead to the collapse of “western civilization”. What’s dumb is eliminating empathy in terms of social services all in order to enrich a small powerful lordship. That collapses western civilization.
The lie that is being perpetuated is that the US is in danger of going bankrupt any minute now because of empathy. There is a huge mountain of wealth waiting to be tapped that isn’t because of bad economics policies of the 80s.
Empathy brings stability, prosperity, and wealth. Ditching empathy is the fast path to destroying a civilization.
i agree we have talk about why this is absurd to reach the people falling for this shit, but i don’t agree this is more nuanced. the article is correctly summarizing what he’s saying. and what he’s saying is horrific. first go around with trump, i was struck by that everyone treated him as a joke, when looking directly at his rallies i realized he was even worse. his messaging was exactly as dangerous as the media was saying, but he sounded exactly like the kind of politician his foolish base always votes for. this go around was even more concerning. his foolish base was no longer listening to what he had to say while the rest of us tuned him out. this time they tuned him out while the rest of us focused up. it’s hard to explain, but his propaganda campaigns have been extremely precise. meanwhile the democrats have given nothing but performative activism. it’s bleak times