That's Not Empathy, That's Post-Maturity

Democracy is a miracle, considering human psychological disabilities (Eli Sagan, in Landes).

I'll go one step further: considering human psychological abilities. In fact, Landes implicitly says as much:

[I]n the twenty-first century, some of the most determined, even dogmatic cognitive egocentrics come from the most progressive, empathic circles of warm thinkers and activists. For there are two major variants to cognitive egocentrism: the unempathic projection of ill-will and the overly empathic projection of good will. 

In reality, neither variant is truly empathic, because neither recognizes the actual thoughts and feelings of the other person or group. At best, the second variant is presumptuous or condescending.

It is also self-evidently immature, since genuine empathy involves the ability to place oneself in the other fellow's sandals or under his soiled keffiyeh. Pretending a jihadi psychopath is just like the rest of us makes one clueless at best, not empathic. 

Likewise pretending Islam is a Religion of Peace, or that jihad doesn't exist, or that the Koran doesn't mean what it says about Jews and Christians, pigs and dogs. Empathy is not masochism. 

I'm also reminded of something Ogden says:

In the paranoid-schizoid position, everything is what it is (i.e., events speak for themselves), whereas in the [more mature] depressive [AKA historical] position, nothing is simply what it appears to be (events do not have intrinsic meaning).

At the extremes this implies on the one hand immaturity, but also something like "post-maturity," or overshooting the mark -- for example deconstruction, whereby everything means anything (e.g., the "living Constitution"). 

In fact, Landes refers to the latter as eisogesis which involves "aggressively reading outside meaning into a given text," or "imposing meaning" onto it (in contrast to standard exegesis).

Recall the odious Rashida Tlaib, who claims that From the river to the sea is just "aspirational." Never mind that it is the aspiration to genocide, precisely. 

Elsewhere Landes defines cognitive egocentrism as "projecting one's mentality into others," and properly speaking, projection is an immature defense mechanism, not an indication of maturity. 

In fact, Landes uses the term "demopath" to describe "enemies of human rights invoking them in order to destroy them." Thus, there's a whole lotta demopathology going on, especially among the young and immature.

Again, that's not empathy. It's not even Stockholm Syndrome. Nor is it even standard issue Jew hatred, rather, the same pomo or poco (postcolonial) stew of factors that motivates older progressives, which is to say, some combination of ignorance, stupidity, indoctrination, status anxiety, conformity, mental illness, and diabolical influence. 

That's what progressives are made of, and there are no other ingredients. For example, their smugness -- their facial punchability -- is really a reflection of status anxiety, while their bizarre characterization of conservatives is just projection (which is in turn a reflection of psychological immaturity). Likewise the ubiquitous intellectual dishonesty.  

The Golden Rule is a fine thing, but it only works with one's psychological cohort -- in other words, with people at roughly the same level of emotional maturity. To take an extreme example, it wouldn't have worked for the Jews vis-a-vis Hitler -- Gandhi's idiotic advice notwithstanding (speaking of insane demopathy). 

Regarding absence of empathy, 

People raised in cultures that are predominantly organized around cooperative rationality cannot imagine any other rationality: So when people use violence it must be that they are driven to it by desperation or searing injustice, and they will stop when given justice. No one, we think, could possibly prefer war (Landes).

Think again. Or rather, for the first time.

What is a little odd about progressives is how they assume the best of our enemies, but imagine -- to the point of delusional ideation --  the worst of conservatives, e.g., racism, sexism, fascism, et al. 

The former fails to see what is obviously there, while the latter sees things that aren't -- or, as was said above, the overly empathic projection of good will and the unempathic projection of ill-will, respectively.

Oh well. Life's Rich Pageant.