Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to The majority of Humanity

You might not notice...
Robert — (archived)

...but emotionally-healthy people would.

I think that what ails you, Lee, is a stunted faculty for empathy. You'd miss the people in your immediate circle if they were gone, but your ability to care drops to zero abruptly at the edge of your direct acquaintanceship circle. You possess only the innate primate instincts to care about your immediate tribe. Beyond that is only identification--you care about Caucasians only because they're like you, and all people only to the degree that they resemble you; a kind of roundabout self-interest.

For most people, though, the instinctive ability to care about other people falls off gradually with distance-of-acquaintance, and as it does, it's replaced by cultural values that say, in effect, that the instinct to care is so good and noble that it behooves a good person to extend caring as far as possible. And those are hardly "Liberal" values, but rather the ordinary human values taught in church, in schools, and in the home. They're core American values that belong to everyone, liberal or conservative.

At least, that's the impression a person would get taking your online cartoonish GooseStepping NeoNazi persona at face value. But I wonder...I have a hunch that if I could ask people who know you in the "real world", they'd describe you as quiet, polite, and well-spoken (I can't recall that you've ever cursed in a post, one of those facts often obscured by the aggressive persona). I'll bet people in the "real world" think you're a nice person.

I'm not saying that you're making up all the attitudes you express, but rather, that I think that you hype them for effect here. It sure gets you the spotlight, doesn't it? But there are other ways to be a member of this tribe, and I have this nagging suspicion that you could do better. I think you're holding out on us.

What a piss-poor excuse for a flame this is, eh?

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