I don’t think it’s due to evolution or material conditions. I think it’s cultural and goes back to the rise of Christianity...
I think basically every time someone has a story like this it’s wrong. I don’t understand why people seem so eager to blame cultural forces for ubiquitous behavior in this fashion. I guess it makes humans seem more interesting.
I’ll try defending his view: We’re rewarding victimhood and humility more than ever before, and in the west, the main reason behind this change in values has been Christianity.
The leap from “We’re rewarding weakness” to “We see others as stronger than they are” is not trivial, but:
Humility makes us underestimate ourselves, which makes others seem stronger in comparison.
Valuing weakness makes us more wary of signs of power.
Weakness breeds resentment, and we can only be evil towards others by dehumanizing them or by overestimating them (remember how the internet used to treat Justin Beiber? It’s because he seemed so powerful that people didn’t think their words could really hurt him). So we overestimate that which we deem enemy, we must in order to be cruel towards it.
I’m not saying this view is necessarily true, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable either. It’s also my understanding that strength was much more valued in the past, but I don’t know enough ancient history to judge the extent to which this is true. It might fluctuate or vary between continents.
I think basically every time someone has a story like this it’s wrong. I don’t understand why people seem so eager to blame cultural forces for ubiquitous behavior in this fashion. I guess it makes humans seem more interesting.
I’ll try defending his view: We’re rewarding victimhood and humility more than ever before, and in the west, the main reason behind this change in values has been Christianity.
The leap from “We’re rewarding weakness” to “We see others as stronger than they are” is not trivial, but:
Humility makes us underestimate ourselves, which makes others seem stronger in comparison.
Valuing weakness makes us more wary of signs of power.
Weakness breeds resentment, and we can only be evil towards others by dehumanizing them or by overestimating them (remember how the internet used to treat Justin Beiber? It’s because he seemed so powerful that people didn’t think their words could really hurt him). So we overestimate that which we deem enemy, we must in order to be cruel towards it.
I’m not saying this view is necessarily true, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable either. It’s also my understanding that strength was much more valued in the past, but I don’t know enough ancient history to judge the extent to which this is true. It might fluctuate or vary between continents.