nazi's didnt do shit yo.
the allies killed more jews when they bombed the supply lines then the germans ever killed directly
I had some additional thoughts on this topic on my way to work today. I was remembering the claim Ana made that most men would rape women if it were acceptable within their society. While I did not agree at first, her and Ret cited the example of how it's the norm in some of the dangerous parts of Africa. And I reflected today that ISIS's society is another good example of how rape can be culturally acceptable.
Right now, ISIS fighters are raping en masse captured Yazidis. One Yazadi girl who managed to smuggle a phone with her pleaded for the U.S. to bomb where she was at, saying she'd been raped 30 times already—and it wasn't even lunch time. Several girls that were with her killed themselves, and she vowed that if she ever escaped, she would commit suicide. In the minds of these ISIS fighters, they are doing no wrong. The women are infidels, subhumans.
This ability for social units to see other social units as subhumans is not uncommon. Think of the Nazis with their genocide of the Jews, and of the Israelis with their recent blitz of Gaza that set the Palestinians back 10 years. There were even Jews who sat out on lawn chairs to enjoy the spectacle of the siege of Gaza.
Social conditioning can make the constituents of a society find acceptable the rape, torture, genocide, and general schadenfreude against other societies. What we see here is herd mentality at work. The phenomena of herd mentality is how Germans under the Nazis felt exterminating the Jews was 'just,' just as herd mentality is the reason the West is predominately Christian, and the Middle East predominately Muslim.
People generally and unquestioningly assimilate the culture and traditions of their society, and they often do this unconsciously. Going against the cultural norms of one's society can be taboo. Perhaps this is why we have yet to see one openly agnostic or atheist U.S. president.
It seems that not only are many people looking for hope in their beliefs, but they are also exhibiting the natural human phenomena of socialization. It seems that often a culture being established is sufficient grounds for those who live in that society to blindly and unquestioningly follow its mores.
There's a very good film about that, called City Of Life And Death: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Life_and_Death (about the "rape of Nanking", 2nd Sino-Jap war.) Not something i'd want to watch again in the foreseeable future, but once is an absolute must. A really good film.
I've seen parts of that, pretty harrowing stuff.
Not in a welfare country, but in a sufficiently corrupt & oppressive regime with the resulting poverty, yes. See all revolutions across the Eastern bloc, from '56 to '89, & etc. *
Collective empathy also starts things like the Holocaust, so you gotta tread extremely carefully with anything collective. "Collective" has the effect of eliminating individual guilt and personal responsibility/conscience, so even impeccably upstanding citizens start burning Mr Kohn their grocer in the gaschambers cuz everyone & their maiden aunt is at it, therefore it has to be the right thing to do.
Hive mentality is a good way to put that. In many ways, the average citizen is a "drone" to the prerogatives of the leaders.
In short, 'society' at large is better handled with due suspicion. When "collective" breeds with ideology (of any kind) that's invariably bad news.
I don't agree or disagree, but I do wonder, why do you think that?
I think i've read somewhere that it's in the USA constitution that the president has to be Christian, no? (I remember laughing in disbelief at the time, i mean for fucks sake... )
Honestly, I don't know. But I do know you'd have to be a Christian to win the next election. There's lots of religious tension here in the States, and Christians are the majority at the moment in a polarized environment.
Technically rape is a warped reflection of survival of the fittest. It still allows for the chance of procreation, pushing their genes into further generations.
Yes. Some believe that is part of the reason why psychopathy persists.
What I find interesting is that the concept of rape is demonized. Where do you think that started?
Around the time humans began to domestic animals and farm, settling down and civilizing. As humans began to live more collectively, pro-social characteristics became naturally selective. Recent studies have shown that testosterone levels today are much lower than our pre-civilized ancestors. The reason likely why in my mind is that testosterone = aggression = upsetting civilized balance.
I thought that was more of a numbers game. The movie Jesus Camp might have biased me a bit.
What do you mean by that?
Because people can go from individually feeling 'empathy' to avoiding all conscious responsibility merely because they're, to put it nicely, being sheep.
I do love how so many people have the mentality of 'people without empathy are fucking dirt, evil, monsters, whatever whatever', when there are moments they too are void of all affective empathy.
Our brains are made to make us feel good about ourselves no matter what wrongs we perform, as long as others are doing it too.