权力与同情

最近，我越来越感觉到，世界各地议会选举的结果在一定程度上反映了仰慕权力/金钱的人口比例和拥有权力/金钱的个人比例。 对权力的渴望和对拥有权力者的崇拜是人类的生物本能之一，而这种本能往往与移情本能相冲突。

For a long time I struggled to wrap my head around the fact that most people on Earth seem to ignore blatant lies, abuse, corruption and lack of ethics in their leaders, and continue to follow them and vote them back into power even when they have better options. I was raised in a family that rejected and condemned greed and violence, and, on top of that, in a socialist country that (at least theoretically, within the school system) promoted solidarity, fairness, equal rights and equal respect for everybody, regardless of how they are born, the type of work they do, or how much power and money they have. The importance of those values was obvious to me even as a child, and it’s still difficult to comprehend how many people don’t seem to share them, especially in light of all the violence and injustice throughout human history.

后来，这一制度分崩离析，人们把选票投给了一个表现出惊人的贪婪、腐败和公然犯罪的政党。但人们继续投票给他们。随着选举的一次次胜利，执政党表现出更加无耻的腐败和黑幕。但人们还是把选票投给了他们。该党善于操纵民族主义情绪（也许更重要的是，操纵不应有的社会福利），并得到腐败的宗教领袖的大力提倡，因此我一直希望人们大多是信息不灵，被人操纵才投了他们的票，如果他们的信息灵通一些，就会投出不同的票。

Yet I can see all over the world that, even when corruption and lack of ethics become blatantly obvious, it doesn’t seem to matter enough. Too many people still not just vote for, but 钦佩并为犯罪头目寻找各种理由, as long as they show enough confidence and hunger for power (or as long as people perceive them as members of their “tribe”). No “red flags”, no obvious lies, arrogance, violence and lack of compassion is enough to deter a significant number of people. I found this difficult to even acknowledge, let alone accept as reality.

然而，我们可以看到 urge to seek/follow power already in children’s playgrounds and schools, where a fair number of children either seek power, or follow and suck up to popular kids and bullies, just because they have some external power.  Seems that many adults are not so different after all.

无论我们寻求的是超越他人的优势，还是增加安全感和保护，这种态度都会带来 因此需要蔑视更多善良和温暖的人类情感包括同理心（通常与女性气质相关的情感，因此也是厌恶女性的情感），以及 咎由自取而且，他们常常以荒谬的借口和公然的虚伪来搪塞。

唯一说得通的解释是，有许多人寻求权力的本能强于他们的同理心本能，无论这种本能是与生俱来的还是文化强化的。这些人很可能寻求并追随权力、 即使他们遭受其追随的权贵的无情剥削. They might create and believe justifications even for lies and abuse they themselves are exposed to (and even more if it’s somebody else rather than themselves who is abused and hurt) and may feel visceral discomfort and threat if their values or the power they follow are threatened. This is also 反映在邪教中，往往也反映在个人关系中.

对安全的需求和为自私辩护的意识形态

Worse, it’s not only the need for power itself, but the 权力/追随权力的安全需求 that makes people follow predators. The need for safety is perhaps an even stronger instinct, or at least more common than the need for power.  It can feel like a 名正言顺自觉或不自觉地忽视同理心和人文关怀。

说到邪教，似乎 为贪婪和不团结辩护的意识形态 正变得和共产主义一样极端，并可能造成同样大的破坏，也许更加隐蔽。因为 大自然讨厌不平衡 and strives towards balance, every extremist ideology sooner or later collapses – but usually not before it reaches its peak and creates enough damage that people are forced to abandoned cherished beliefs.

部落本能、贪婪和自私是强大的冲动, some of the basic biological instincts, and people will easily embrace and enjoy any ideology that enables justifying them, especially if their parents and their culture keep telling them it’s not only OK but actually ethical.

即使不是大多数，也是很多、 追求权力的人视同情心为软弱 (这甚至会成为文化的一部分，比如美国保守主义意识形态就可笑地声称团结会让人变得懒惰和依赖）。当然，就像地球上的任何事物一样，同情和团结也可能被用于不健康和极端的方式（有时，是的，对方也可能试图利用它），但只要有一定的平衡感，就很容易避免这种情况。健康的本质、 同情心是人类的重要力量.它使人类得以度过数十万年的危险岁月。它是使世界变得更加美好的主要力量。它还 显示精神力量.

复杂思维和平衡与过度简化

也许人类的关键问题在于，无论几个世纪还是今天，都是 instinct to seek power doesn’t require work. It also enables one to feel “above” others, which is tempting especially for people who didn’t get enough love and reassurance by their early families (i.e. most of us). 再加上对安全的需求和部落的本能，它需要的工作就更少了 – it can be a strong automatic response.

而移情和团结则需要付出努力、自我克制、自我质疑和一定的牺牲。 这需要你抛开自己的部分兴趣，认同他人，并将其视为同样的人类和有价值的人。它要求你 认识到长期后果 of selfishness, not just on the individual, but on the global scale. Empathy also brings pain and sadness, often sense of helplessness in face of others’ suffering. Many people habitually avoid painful emotions, and that can include empathy. Yet the key to inner strength is to be able to feel such emotions.

You can recognize how people’s lives are influenced by their upbringing, environment, and others around them, while also recognizing one’s own responsibility. You can help people while preserving your own boundaries. You can give them some wind in the back rather than be a crutch. You can be fiercely self-reliant, and yet recognize the importance of empathy and solidarity. That requires wisdom and complex thinking. Yet 简化思维要容易得多，而且往往更容易获得情感上的回报。

文化和环境影响

我目前的印象是，本能地追随权力的人大约占 25-40%，这取决于国家和文化，在某些社会，尤其是人们安全感较差的不发达社会，这个比例可能更高。我还注意到 rational intelligence and exposure to information in adulthood don’t seem to influence 这些数字并不重要。这是因为问题出在价值观层面，比个人信仰或信息匮乏要深刻得多。

好消息是 家庭教养和文化影响 但文化需要发展到足以认识到同理心和团结的价值，不仅仅是在言语上，而是在行动上。通常情况下，人们越是感到不安全，无论是现实中的不安全，还是因为不健康的家族史，就越需要追随有权势的人。

随着自动化程度的提高，缺乏安全感的情况可能会越来越严重就像 18 世纪的工业革命带来了暂时的手工生产就业损失和社会动荡一样。 就像失业救济金在今天起到了避免社会动荡和减少犯罪的作用一样，我相信迟早有一天 guaranteed minimum income (GMI) will have to become a widespread practice to offset the effects of automation. In the meantime, though, the quality of social and political life will probably decrease – as it’s already happening – as more people turn to powerful predators in futile hope to be safer. 

您能提供什么帮助？

You can’t do much for already formed adults, except to provide a different perspective when possible, which might hopefully sway those people who are somewhere in the middle between empathy and urge for power (make sure that such a different perspective is not expressed in oversimplified, prejudiced ways). You can donate to NGOs which promote education, science and human rights. You can encourage people to feel safer or to find ways to make themselves safer.

It’s particularly important to find and work against faults and hypocrisy within your own tribe你所属的群体，无论是天生的还是后天选择的。常识和研究表明，与来自不同群体的人相比，人们更愿意重视和考虑来自自己群体的人的批评和论点。因此，如果你想做出积极的改变，首先要努力让自己的群体变得更好、更有道德；指出他们思想中的夸张、虚伪和偏见，并提供不同的观点。

男人需要努力改进男人，女人需要努力改进女人，保守派需要与保守派合作，自由派需要与自由派合作，爱茶人士需要与爱茶人士合作。 lovers… you get my point. Few people have the integrity to do so, though, and more often than not, tribalism encourages extremism. Extremism from one side encourages extremism from the other. 你越能帮助自己的团体变得更温和、更平衡，就越容易推广其价值观.

我们的许多基本感受，包括缺乏安全感，都源于我们的 主要家庭, my hope lies in the fact that more and more young parents are aware of children’s emotional needs and child development stages, and so they are more likely to 给孩子们带来基本的安全感. Something similar, I believe, was the result of the invention of the contraceptive pill: it enabled parents to love their children more and give them more, because people who could plan for children could be better emotionally and otherwise prepared. This enabled the new generations to create (slightly) more tolerant and compassionate societies. (Truly, I think the inventors of The Pill should have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize.) Sadly, there are many groups lately that try to promote unwanted births by reducing education about and access to birth control. Let’s hope reason will eventually prevail.

最后 教育父母，促进成熟的父母之道 可能是增强全球同理心的最重要方法。孩子们通过自己的经历，尤其是父母的经历来学习。

最后但并非最不重要的一点是，不要忘记成为人们的榜样，当他们拥有健康的同情心和健康的界限时，他们就能成为什么样的人。在我们生活的这个世界上，这样的人就是明灯。