Standards

I asked him, “What are the standards for becoming immortal?”
He said, “So, we have wealth and achievements, which benefit society. Also, a member has to be a strong supporter of individualism. It is at the core of our heritage and our culture. The needs of the individual come before the needs of society. Self interest and ambition are the driving force of progress, so all decisions must be centered on individualism.”
“What else?”, I asked to keep him going.
“Being unburdened by empathy is an important quality. Empathy is an unnecessary illusion that keeps humanity from moving forward. Our members have to prove, in some way, that they are capable of sacrificing others for their own self interest. This could be as simple as firing a trusted employee, who may have transgressed our standards. Usually the closer the person, the better the standing. So, let’s say, if a person sacrifices their own child who does not conform to our standards, particularly in some public demonstration, they are given higher standing in our ranks. John is a good example, his son went all hippy vegan and tried to expose what little he knew of our plans. He died in a hunting accident. John’s son didn’t even hunt, he hated guns, and killing animals. It was a good way to discredit his reputation among his friends and followers, at the same time eliminating him as a problem.”
“I don’t understand how someone can do that to his own child”, I stated. I don’t know why I said it. Maybe it was the drink.
He responded, “That is why you will never be one of us. You can’t be trusted to do what is necessary to maintain the social order. Your empathy and emotions get in the way of what must be done in any given situation. You feel compassion for the son who tried to harm us. He had to be eliminated as a threat. He made his own choices that led to his destruction.”
“Long ago, humans evolved these emotions in order to survive as communities. They are necessary for humans to take care of each other in small like minded groups. To break free of groups and live as individuals we must shed these emotive responses. For the most part, these are genetic traits which must be removed from our gene pool. For centuries, we have worked hard to remove them. We have largely removed these traits from our own people through our culture and breeding traditions. The rest of humanity does not see the need to remove these traits, which is why they continue to be inferior.”
This really set me off. The idea that compassion and empathy need to be eliminated from humanity was the height of insanity and megalomania. In the face of global warming, self interest and individualism is not going to help anyone. It is what brought us so close to the edge of destruction. Now, I started to see rich people as parasites feeding off of all the poor people.
I remembered from my psychology courses in college, that people who lack empathy and compassion are known as psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. Classified as untreatable mental disorders, society largely does nothing about them. Despite their pervasiveness and obviously abusive qualities, these disorders are little understood. They are mostly inherited and sometimes triggered by conditions within a person’s environment. Often they are seen as good traits for business leaders and soldiers. Which is why they are tolerated within society and not seen as an abusive burden, which they are. I find it hard to believe that anyone would take these mental disorders as a sign of superiority. And yet, here we are.
I started to understand the differences between us. His version of humanity was entirely selfish. To justify his reality, humans needed to be self interested. They could not abide by humans sharing or caring for one another. They see it as a weakness or as a disease to be eliminated.
Poor people, to them, are weak and unworthy of evolution and existence, because we take care of each other and share. I have always felt that our compassion for others is our most human trait. The classes are truly separate, and not just by wealth.