If your hopes and wishes are confined to yourself, or your family, or your nation, or your class, or the adherents of your creed, you will find that all your affections and all your kindly feelings are paralleled by dislikes and hostile sentiments. From such a duality in men's feelings spring almost all the major evils in human life--cruelties, oppressions, persecutions, and wars.
Source： Bertrand Russell: A Philosophy of Our Time (1953)
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In any group of people, when they are living peacefully together, we tend to feel a sense of goodwill toward them, so long as neither we nor our family members are in a dire situation. Especially among those who are economically privileged, the absence of daily financial concerns often allows for a sense of inner ease, which in turn makes it easier for them to treat others with gentleness and tolerance.
Yet occasionally, we witness such individuals displaying unexpectedly cold or dismissive attitudes toward people from different backgrounds or social groups. Witnessing such behavior can be deeply disappointing.
At the root of this may lie an unconscious failure to recognize the "accidental privileges" they have benefited from, such as inheriting wealth from their parents or having been born with exceptional intelligence or physical abilities. Without this awareness, they may be prone to look down on those who are forced to live in more difficult conditions, saying things like "They're poor because they don't work hard enough," or making superficial judgments about others' appearances, such as "Their clothes look shabby."
When someone reveals such a view, often inadvertently, it can be startling to glimpse their underlying values or true attitude. Even people who once lived in poverty but later found success and wealth sometimes lose their former sense of empathy. When they repeatedly exclaim things like "So cheap! So cheap!" without considering the context or those around them, it can feel jarringly out of place, and leave others with a sense of disillusionment.
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