Many Americans suffering from Empathy Deficit Disorder
It turns out that the Zika virus is not the problem we once thought. In its place, nearly half of all Americans have succumbed to a dread disease known as Empathy Deficit Disorder (EDD). EDD manifests as inexplicably high levels of arrogance on the part of people who appear to have little to be proud of. It constructs a steel-like cage around the brain which eventually snaps permanently shut. The virus then muddles the wiring of the frontal cortex so that the distinction between truth and lies becomes indistinguishable to the sufferer. Medical experts can confirm the EDD diagnosis when facial spasms cause the patient’s mouth to shout incoherently about his (or her) superiority to the rest of the human race and his/her disdain for decency and civility.
EDD’s treatment remains a mystery. Countless lab hours spent injecting doses of reason and humility into rats’ brain casings have proven ineffective. NIH and the CDC have put their top scientists on fourteen-hour shifts to stem the outbreak but it continues to metastasize. It has been observed most frequently at political rallies where raucous demonstrators bellow their love for an orange entity which stands ululating on a dais. As the entity growls, “I am the most wonderful of all the wonders you ever wondered about, majorly” the EDD victims respond ecstatically, “And it’s no wonder.” Researchers are deeply troubled by this phenomenon.
Friends of the victims who enjoy partying with them claim that their sociopathic behavior is understandable in these black days when poor people have health care, there are still several regulations on the books, and the top one percent are forced to pay attorneys to assist in their humble tax-avoidance efforts.
The most astounding of the EDD sufferers’ behavior patterns is their incessant repetition of a chant that goes, roughly, “Forget friends and family. Forget luck. Forget the church. Ignore my public schooling. Pay no attention to social programs I took advantage of. I am self-made and no one never helped me one time in my entire life and damn those who falsely accuse me of having received help, and everyone else, for that matter.”
Common among EDDers is their resistance to help from the government. Despite their malady, They insist that they neither need nor want federal assistance. Discouraged researchers are reluctantly weighing that request. To date, experimental implants of empathy have also failed to correct the problem.
The writer lives in Pawleys Island.
This story was originally published November 26, 2016 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Many Americans suffering from Empathy Deficit Disorder."