Posted on 02/01/2017 9:23:37 AM PST by mark_interrupted
I’ve spoken at great length on the matter of Weaponized Empathy. It is the primary weapon of the modern Left. Indeed, it so completely dominates their tactical thinking that everything else in their arsenal pales in comparison. Defeating this weapon ought to be the foremost on the mind of any opponent of the Progressive Left.
Almost nothing else matters, at this point. Any victory achieved without defeating Weaponized Empathy will be hollow and Pyrrhic. You may succeed in lowering taxes for a time, or passing some military budget items you want. But the Progressive steamroller will go on, slowly, inexorably, swallowing entire civilizations in the old Fabian manner. The war will be lost unless the weapon is destroyed.
What is Weaponized Empathy? It is the deliberate hijacking of your own moral standards, your ability to empathize with your fellow man, in order to force you to serve someone else’s narrative. It is, in essence, a highly sophisticated form of guilt-tripping designed to turn you into a slave.
You might consider it an evolution of the Alinsky tactic of forcing the enemy to live up to their own moral standards. But it goes beyond that. It forces an enemy to embrace your moral standards or suffer tremendous peer pressure and socially-engineered “justice” at the whims of the mob.
Here is a practical example:
C3TspVOVMAAtXSN No, no… the position of the dead child’s body is all wrong. For maximum propaganda value, it needs to be over there…
The idea, of course, is to manipulate you into supporting certain Progressive policies by showing you the picture of a dead child, carefully positioned to elicit maximum sympathy. It’s like the TV commercials showing starving African children, covered in maggots and flies. I’ve no doubt that the cameraman deliberately engineers the scene for maximum effect.
Donate or else you’re a bad person who hates the starving Africans. Support Syrian refugee resettlement in your country, or else you support dead children.
The tactic is used for everything from welfare policy, to Social Security disbursement, to immigration and even climate change. Support climate change legislation, or else you want the poor residents of some tropical island to drown. Support Black Lives Matter or else you’re a racist who hates black people.
Meanwhile, of course, they’ll show pictures designed to elicit maximum sympathy for one person, and maximize anger toward another. We all remember this case:
george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin-collage Make sure to pick the picture of Trayvon as a child, not a teenager flicking off the camera, for maximum narrative spin.
And so those who most easily succumb to peer pressure are quickly convinced to become rabid Progressives, because it’s intellectually easier to say “oh, I’m helping” regardless of whether or not you’re actually doing anything constructive. It’s easier to be seen supporting the poor, innocent child over the mean-looking white guy. It takes no particular courage to take the position the media talking heads tell you to, for if anything goes wrong with the narrative, you can always say “well, I was just trying to help.”
Weaponized Empathy is everywhere. Healthcare policy is not judged on how efficient it is, or the quality of care provided, or even the cost of that care. It is judged solely on how it helps the poor. If it cost a million dollars per person, per year, but the poor didn’t have to pay the bill, Progressives would deem it great success. Non-Progressives would be pointing out that it’s expensive, the quality of the product was poor, and it was bankrupting the country. The response from the Progressives would be simple. They would pull out a picture of a child on Obamacare, or whatever government program they were promoting.
The picture would be carefully staged for maximum empathy. Perhaps the child would be crying, his face down, covered in carefully-enhanced sores. Maybe photoshop in a little blood and grime. Turn down the lighting a little, just so.
Now, if you oppose Obamacare, you want this poor child to die of plague.
Weaponized Empathy isn’t just employed to win easy converts, however. It is also used to mobilize the converted against the unconverted. To use threat of force, of financial ruin, and peer pressure (even within families) to silence the unconverted. To make them afraid to speak. It can even make it permissible to commit violent acts against you.
Everyone has that one relative who guilt trips everyone else in the family. If you don’t do something he wants, you must want him to suffer. A false choice is presented, either obey or you’re a bad person. No other choices are presented.
The key to defeating Weaponized Empathy in yourself is understanding that more choices exist than are presented by the wielder of the weapon. Opposing Obamacare may, for instance, mean you want healthcare to be better for everyone. Saying no to a guilt-tripping relative may be because he is guilt-tripping you, instead of asking for your help with no such strings attached. You may be helping him to become a better person by not allowing him to blatantly manipulate you. Or you could just say “you’re being an asshole.” That can be remarkably effective (and true), also.
But this, of course, does no good on the world stage. The Right-wing has been replying to this weapon with logic and reason for decades, and it never works. The Left almost always succeeds in sculpting the narrative against them. Pictures of poor, bloodied children will circulate on Facebook, and the only alternative to being racist scum is to admit as many people into the country as the Progressive leaders want.
The answer is to call them out on the lies. To rigorously tear apart their stories. When the picture looks staged, it probably is staged. Point out that the folks manipulating the bodies of dead children for political gain are assholes. When there is a shooting, and the media posts a picture of a darling little child to try and steer blame away from the perp, find and post the picture of the fully-grown thug flipping off the camera. Then call the propagandists lying assholes. After all, what kind of dickhead puts a deliberate, calculated political angle on a tragic death?
Forget what they want you to do. It doesn’t matter what they want, if they are being lying assholes. You don’t need to consider the opinions of liars. What does it matter if they want you to bring in 100,000 Syrians? They are dishonest scum, using cynically-manipulated pictures of dead kids to do it. Their opinions can be dismissed without moral reservation because of this. Say so, openly, and without fear.
You have the moral high ground, because you’re not a cynical, lying, asshole.
You may have empathy, and may wish to do right by other folks. That is a fine and good thing. A noble trait. But never allow yourself to be manipulated and deceived into doing a liar’s bidding. That isn’t doing anybody any good, except the liar. And that’s the end of it. Charity is supposed to start with truth, not lies. Repeat it like a mantra, until the Progressives understand that you cannot be guilt-tripped by dishonesty.
It really is that simple.
Well, when statistical and practical understanding are present, the irrational “appeal to emotion” fallacy has less weight.
What a brilliant turn of phrase: weaponized empathy. It has been used to entice good people into doing nefarious deeds throughout history.
Till we takeover the networks and make them hire conservative staff, we are just spinning our wheels on the countering propaganda front.
Trump and his supporters are standing in the way of the left's utopian dreams ...... to overthrow the US govt and install themselves into a govt of THEIR choosing using Muslim muscle.
Evil Hillary tipped her hand and revealed the left's plan, stupidly saying Trump-style America doesn't exist anymore.....something she desperately planned to make come true.
MUST DO---it is mandatory that we reconfigure the political language and archive the "code words" these evil people use to foment the overthrow.
Code words include..."Racism" "diversity" "Inequality," "zenophobic" "homophobic" "Islama-phobic" "globalism" "tolerance"......
The left's overthrow MO routinely dehumanizes those they disdain....as when Hillary called conservatives "deplorables."
All code for the lefties overthrow of the US govt----used incessantly to launch the overthrow.
I’d like to send this article to my judgmental Christian friends who are useful idiots for the Gramscian communists, but the unnecessary foul name-calling essentially defeats the well-reasoned arguments. Too bad.
This is the club that the left uses to guilt people into submission.
Awesome article. We must destroy the compassion pimps.
The overthrow of the Government has already been launched by the Left. The Police in the Cities such Portland have been neutralized as far as enforcing the law regarding riots and felony crimes committed by the rioters and anarchists are concerned. One only has to watch the action, or to be more honest, the lack of action by the Portland “Riot Squad” upon their arrival at the airport. The police were more cowed by the rioters that the rioters were cowed by the police. I believe that they were doing their walk through to get to the men’s room to clean their pants. I understand that one Officer fired some rubber bullets. When I was growing up, we hurt each other more when we shot each other with bb guns playing war or cowboys and Indians than the rioters were hurt.
Just saw the Paul Muni flick. That guy is the most intelligent actor I’ve ever seen.
Gory videos and stills will be used by the left to break the Trump blockade.
"If breaking the blockade saves one child's life, it's worth it!"
Good article.
Also note that Obama and Hillary created the refugee crisis.
Shouldn’t they shoulder the blame?
Just say, Propaganda, next.
They are also adept at the use of guilt as a technique for control, and artificial righteousness.
They hate the bible unless they are using it to advance their agenda.
Yes, I refuse to give to cancer charities because I believe in natural therapies over toxic chemicals or lethal radiation, and I know that such charities are exclusively devoted to money-making approaches that are inherently unnatural (and therefore patentable).
I also refuse to donate to Goodwill because I know too much about their operation (and therefore prefer Salvation Army).
I am the same way. I wouldn’t be able to share this because of the vulgarity. I will keep the ideas in mind, though.
“Not very good advice, what little there is of it. Better advice is to seize the means and equipment the left uses to broadcast it’s propaganda, and turn those weapons back on to the left.”
Unless you tell us HOW you’re going to do that, your solution isn’t much better than his.
Though, I thought he did a great job defining the problem. “Weaponized empathy” was a particularly effective and descriptive phrase.
The guilting industry is like the TV preacher on steroid and a thousand times more dangerous.
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