Wealth, ignorance, and empathy.

     From UCal at Berkeley research, the drivers of expensive cars are four times more likely to cut in front of drivers than drivers of cheap cars at 4-way stops. At city crosswalks, cheap car drivers respected the right of pedestrian's way, while 46.2% of the time expensive car drivers ignored the pedestrians. The same study was conducted by an independent research team in Manhattan, which substantiated findings. Other research ran a cross section of the population through a series of tasks and when leaving the testing area they passed by a big jar of candy that had a sign indicating that the candy was for the children who came there. The richer the person, the more likely he was to take the candy.

Yet another study showed that the more cash prizes a person won at a set -up game situation, as that person's winnings grew, the more likely that person would cheat. People with incomes under 25 grand gave an average of 4.2% of their earnings while people with incomes over 150 grand gave 2.7% The rich are more likely to shoplift, and so on. There are many more studies, but in short, the rich have a skewed sense of empathy. I am not suggesting that rich people are evil. It seems to come from the very act of getting or being rich. Those who earn their way to riches talk more about the journey than the money itself. A rich person getting even richer gains nothing, zip, nada, in happiness. But when they were asked how they felt now, and how much wealth they would have to gain to be happier, they all replied two to three times richer. Even though the acquisition of more wealth by the wealthy demonstrated no gain in happiness, they thought it would. It would come from acquiring the money they did not yet have. As an article in The New Republic pointed out, This gap “is not just bad for the poor. It's bad for the rich.”

      It is as though the rich develop an empathy sickness, or they become ignorant about how their attitudes might affect others of lesser fortunes. It is not a big step to examine the way a rich country, such as ours, particularly after WWII, might also develop an ignorance about how their free market capitalism is corrupting other society's culture and economy. Since the root word of ignorance is “ignore”, it is quite plausible to assume the attitudes of our nation while exploiting the resources of other third world nations lack empathy, or even notice, despite the preponderance of published articles describing the plights our system has helped to create around the globe. It works best for our own gains in wealth to have lost our empathy or have justified our “interests” for better lives. It has served us to remain ignorant, since that serves our desires. Desires which at some level of consciousness become justifiable “needs” as our advancements then outpace “others”. This could go on until world society and power become so unbalanced that those with no hope begin insanely blowing up anything that can be pinpointed as having put them in a position of utter despair.

Of course there is more to it than that, but I am willing to bet that this has a lot to do with the current state of affairs. Throw in religion that forgets the point of the stories it has passed down and claims ultimate knowledge and truth, and it is easy to see that ignorance works well with the root of all evil.