Empathy and the lack of it...

I was just talking yesterday with a friend and we were lamenting the obvious lack of empathy on occassions in the SA... both of us can count the horror stories or recount conversations about 'them' and 'those people' and the incredible distance we have from the 'poor'. I was contemplating the causes of it and stumbled on this amazing article... check out this quote... "The global capitalist culture with its premium on accumulation and profits not only devalues an empathic disposition but produces a stunted character in which everything is transformed into a commodity, not only things, but individuals themselves. The very capacity to practice empathy (love) is subordinated to our state religion of the market in which each person seeks advantage in an alienating and endless commodity-greedy competition."

Read the whole article, NEUROSCIENCE AND MORAL POLITICS: Chomsky’s Intellectual Progeny
Are humans "wired for empathy"? How does this affect what Chomsky calls the "manufacturing of consent"?
An essay by Gary Olson