Politics May Get in the Way of Empathy, Research Shows

[limpyhobbler]

5. It's simple evolution people

The bits of the human brain that govern empathy evolved to have us feel empathy towards those who were in the same family or tribe as ourselves, and to lack empathy towards members of other tribes. That's because humans and pre-humans whose brains worked like that were the ones who survived to have offspring. Tribal groupings were groups who worked together to compete for resources against other groups. Those who had empathy for people in other groups were killed off, and never had kids to pass on the genes for empathetic brains. Political parties/affiliations are modern-day groups of people that work together to compete for resources against other groups. The reaction of having empathy or not is still governed by the same bits of brain as it was thousands of years ago. If the brain's bits determine someone is not in our group, but in a competing group, empathy tends to disappear.