Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It’s been scary but, yes, getting scarier. What’s hard to articulate properly (and get over) is the huge disconnect between the many who are out of work and those who are going about their day, largely unaffected with a regular salary in their pocket. Let’s all increase our empathy during this time, right? Help anyone who reaches out to you for help to get a job, volunteer at food banks, everyone humble ourselves.
This is the United States. We are not in a collectivist culture. Your last two sentences come across as condescending because they clash with norms in an individualistic society and lean toward a more collectivist mindset. In individualistic cultures, people value personal autonomy and the freedom to make their own choices without being told how to feel or behave. Phrases like “Let’s all increase our empathy” and instructions to help job seekers, volunteer, or “humble ourselves” sound like moral directives aimed at the entire group. That kind of framing assumes a shared obligation to act and feel a certain way, which is characteristic of collectivist cultures where group responsibility and social harmony are emphasized. In the U.S. though, such statements can feel intrusive or moralizing, as if you are positioning yourself as having superior insight into what everyone else should be doing.