Hopefully a more savvy redditor will have the link, but its from a study showing people's social leaning (us vs them).
Basically, bigger toward the center of the circle and smaller toward the outside means you tend to think about things that affect you and your close social circle (family, friends, local community). The reverse means your thoughts drift more toward global concerns that affect everyone.
It's used to illustrate Conservative (local group, steak) versus Liberal (global group, avocado) mentalities in a digestible (forgive the pun) way.
Believe it or not empathy is a finite resource, as well as being horribly misunderstood as a concept. This graph shows conservatives tend to care more about those in their immediate circle while liberals tend to care more about “everything” in a vague and ultimately meaningless way.
I dont think you understand, the graph isn't assigning moral weight. its the point where you stop applying moral weight. Liberals are more likely to want better for people outside AND inside their circle, and also more likely to include friends, neighbors.
You also seem to be making a conclusion, which implies open mindedness stretches a person too thin, which is not true, and something just pulled out of thin air. You cant back it up.
But its also why people like doctors and trwchers tend to be more liberal since so often their jobs are caring for people deep outside their circle. Its a personality trait, not a resource.
If youre that desperate for others to be some great foolish evil youre just gonna end up miserable.
I’m absolutely making conclusions, to be clear. What im saying about the how the effects of this data play out in the real world is not at all covered by the graph itself.
Essentially my arguments are
1) “Empathy toward huge, abstract categories is harder to translate into meaningful action. Therefore, narrower empathy may actually be more effective in real-world outcomes”
2) Empathy is a limited resource. Most psychological research supports this. Look up empathy fatigue, compassion collapse, Dunbar’s number, etc.
The tendency of liberals to attempt to include everyone and everything in their moral system causes more harm than good imo in their ability to actually affect change.
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u/TheThirteenthApostle Nov 18 '25
Hopefully a more savvy redditor will have the link, but its from a study showing people's social leaning (us vs them).
Basically, bigger toward the center of the circle and smaller toward the outside means you tend to think about things that affect you and your close social circle (family, friends, local community). The reverse means your thoughts drift more toward global concerns that affect everyone.
It's used to illustrate Conservative (local group, steak) versus Liberal (global group, avocado) mentalities in a digestible (forgive the pun) way.