California philosophy professor
Troy Jollimore wrote, “These abilities are associated with the humanities and
the arts: the ability to think critically; the ability to transcend local
loyalties and to approach world problems as ‘a citizen of the world;’ and,
finally, the ability to imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person.”
And that makes it easy to
see why the contemporary American right wing loathes higher education almost
instinctively.
The GOP base is frightened
of any unfamiliar ideas that might threaten their world view, and their leaders
prefer them ignorant and therefore easily manipulable. The right herds its
angry base through jingoism and tribalism, by making sure they continue to fear
“the Other.” They must never permit
tribal loyalties to be transcended. Empathy must be crushed, because it would undermine
the public’s willingness to wage unjustified wars and indifference to crushing economic
inequality.
Empathy, by the way, is
the actual basis of ethics and morality. One of the most elemental tests of
ethics is how you and your society treat the stranger. The American right,
hostile to empathy, must instead base its morality on unquestioned and contradictory
Daddy-in-the-Sky rules that, after sufficient cherry-picking, finally reflect
nothing but their own petty prejudices and power-lust.
And what moral parable from the Bible does the American right wing therefore hate on sight? The Good Samaritan.
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