A society in which it’s everyone for themselves, that refuses to care for one another, is no society at all. Then everyone acts shocked and horrified at someone who understandably snaps, like modern western culture doesn’t run entirely on schadenfreude.

That was the crux of the idea of a social contract, which is long dead in the US. Now people line up to revel in the suffering of their fellow citizens with “well you were stupid to do xyz in life, so you deserve your suffering haha.”

  • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    Now people line up to revel in the suffering of their fellow citizens with “well you were stupid to do xyz in life, so you deserve your suffering haha.”

    It’s not schadenfreude, it’s psychological defense from injustice. People don’t want to accept that bad things can happen to them if they don’t deserve those. They want to think that if they do everything right, nothing bad will happen, and if they make a mistake, then something bad will happen, and so there’ll be fewer and fewer mistakes and bad things as they go. It’s scary to accept that this is a lie and life isn’t fair.

    However, not attacking others or their property is not something you owe others, it’s normal behavior, and behaving otherwise you trespass. It’s not a gift on your part to not steal what belongs to another person.