THEY JUST DON'T CARE

SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION
Johann Wagener 10-07-13

Why else would they oppose food programs for the poor or affordable healthcare for the not so well off? Why would they look down their noses at the 42% who they call "losers?"

Why build a $100 million monstrosity and call it a home and oppose paying a few hundred more in taxes to help those who are homeless? Why rant and rave about not picking themselves up by their boot straps when they can't even afford a pair of shoes?

That kind of attitude is nothing more than a "social dysfunction" much like "wealth psychosis." Both afflictions usually found in the 1% class who seem to live in another world completely disconnected from reality.

Rich People Just Care Less

Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at Berkeley, and Michael W. Kraus, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, have done much of the research on social power and the attention deficit.

Mr. Keltner suggests that, in general, we focus the most on those we value most. While the wealthy can hire help, those with few material assets are more likely to value their social assets: like the neighbor who will keep an eye on your child from the time she gets home from school until the time you get home from work. The financialdifference ends up creating a behavioral difference. Poor people are better attuned to interpersonal relations — with those of the same strata, and the more powerful — than the rich are, because they have to be.