It’s a consequence of our cultural cocktail of Puritanism and capitalism. Those of us who are raised as “white”-an identity we really need to abolish, since it has no positive qualities that are not shared by all other identities-are trained, in this culture to believe that empathy is weakness and that the treating all with equal and mutual respect will somehow lead to our doom. We gain nothing of any value from believing and passing on these poisonous lessons, and none of us, despite what we have been taught, can only be “successful”, “prosperous”, or “free’ through living by their corrosive teachings.