I normally don’t like these Lewis Black segments, but I have to admit that in this one he’s pretty funny. He also discusses at least three things which I’ve blogged about in the past:
- Absurd comparisons of anything and everything to the Nazis.
- Charisma
- Empathy
Black basically says everything I’ve got to say about the first issue. On the charisma thing, he makes a rather important observation: Hitler was charismatic. I cannot stress enough the fact that charisma is independent of morality or character Anyone–even a genocidal, racist madman–can have charisma. And when you’ve seen the power of charisma being, if anything, heightened nowadays compared to the 1930’s, that’s simply terrifying beyond words.
Now, while Black makes a good point about the absurdity of Glenn Beck’s comments on empathy, I have to say I sort of disagree about empathy being an inherently “positive” thing. As I have said before, it’s just the ability to know what other people feel, not the desire to act on it necessarily. Empathy does not imply sympathy.
