Cultivating Compassion without Weakness

70% of experimental subjects will shock a person to death under the instruction of a man in a white coat. What keeps you from being one of them?

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Widespread lockdowns have triggered fears that the world is taking a turn towards authoritarian rule, a government system that’s marked by a lack of democratic and free elections, a codified hostility towards threat to the social order, a lack of accountability, and party loyalists at every turn.

The 20th century despots were very effective at playing on endemic frustrations during long periods of economic hardships. Hitler came to power during the interwar period where Germany was dealing with extreme social instability following reparation-driven hyperinflation. A damaged information ecology, where levels of mistrust and conspiratorial thinking go through the roof, reinforces a want to be ruled by someone who promises answers. They want an economic and social liferaft, not nuance.

Living in fear causes a cascading reaction that activates the fight-or-flight response at a constant level, which means that people’s brains actually change - we lose our ability to make well-reasoned, emotionally discharged decisions. Instead, everything becomes reactive, a panicked stormy attempt to get out ahead of the problem that they can’t get a clear perspective on.

Despite the novelty of your democratic experiment, it seems possible that you humans will live to improve it. Political tolerance is one way of finding your way to strength. There has to be an open exchange of ideas and interpretations. If you find that there are voices being silenced, you must fight to make room for their careful, public analysis, lest your satisfaction at their absence be the weakness in your armor.

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#Strongmen #Authoritarianism #Dictators