Last week I wrote about how we’re going to have to find some empathy for people we disagree with, and then a couple of people messaged me with some follow-up questions. Okay, it was actually just one follow up question:
How?
Hmm. Indeed.
I am fresh off a bout of silent car-raging at an unmasked man escorting his two unmasked adolescents into a gas station this afternoon, so first let me say that I am not sitting astride an empathy high horse here. Most days it’s a miniature donkey.
However, I do try to work toward being more empathetic, even if it’s not always my first reaction, and I can tell you a few things that have helped me.
I’ll start with psychology.
I’ve always found it helpful, empathy-wise, to understand what makes people tick. Psychology reminds me that we’re all just down here together, piloting these machines programmed by people who resolved conflict with femur bones, and that the moronic tendencies I observe in other people belong to me, too.
In recent months, I’ve found some empathy in understanding why people cling to certain beliefs, even in—perhaps especially in—the face of opposing evidence.
The short answer is that we believe our opinions are part of our identity.
That may seem obvious, because what are we if not a collection of our own thoughts and ideas, right? Well, that’s a deeper spiritual question, but for now, I’ll say that by identity, I mean something a bit more precious to you than your career or your political affiliation or whatever handful of words you put in your Twitter bio. Your identity is your psychological ego—your perception of your very existence.
For the vast majority of humans, the only proof we have that we are alive is that we have an ego. It’s that whole “I think; therefore I am” thing. Our identities are our singular tether to the known, the only thing that can keep us from floating into the existential terror of whatever is the opposite of being a person.
You have a SIGNIFICANT interest in protecting your identity. In fact, most people will do anything, including overriding their own judgment, social skills, and most other goodies of the prefrontal cortex, to protect it in the face of threat.
Soooooooo…. If opinions are a key part of our identities, and our identities are in fact THE key to our existences, what do you suppose we’ll do when someone challenges our opinions?
Behold the Facebook feed.
Social media is ablaze in part because of self-affirmation theory. We will fight for our opinions like our lives depend upon it because, well, we believe that they kind of do.
There are also some variables that can make our reactions even worse. Long-held opinions are more likely to be integrated to your identity, so you’re going to fight for those harder. Publicly aired long-held opinions doubly so. Oh, and if your opinion (or action) conflicts with a core moral value you hold, you’ll burn the whole platform to the ground before you’ll reconcile that pesky contradiction within yourself.
Dark? Yes. Bleak? You bet.
But also helpful, because this isn’t just something those idiots over there are doing. This is something we are all doing.
And that helps me find some empathy in our current situation.
Let’s say you threw your weight behind a certain political candidate, for example. Over time, it became clear that this political candidate was something of a nightmare as a human and as a politician. However, whilst said nightmare was unfolding, you engaged in many angry family arguments defending said candidate. You posted memes supporting this candidate on your social media account. You affixed signage supporting this candidate to your vehicle. And, AND! You have always considered yourself a person who values integrity in others, while said candidate demonstrated little to none.
To admit now, today, that the candidate sucks? After all of this?? That’s going to take nothing less than a complete destruction and reconstruction of your conception of yourself as a person.
Not a lot of people have the emotional wherewithal to do that. In fact, emotional health is an inverse corollary: the worse you feel about yourself, the less likely you are to accept new opinions… which makes sense. If opinions equal identity, and your sense of identity has been eroded by trauma, insecure attachment, or any number of other negative psychological events, taking off that bumper sticker is going to feel like the snap of Thanos.
Teachers have this saying, you know. We post it on Pinterest, print it on mugs, write it out on sticky notes for our planners, desks, laptops, and foreheads. It’s the most counterintuitive, emotionally challenging truth of our profession, and we all know that if you don’t plaster it on every surface within your line of sight, you’ll reject it in a heartbeat:
Those who need your love the most are often those who appear to deserve it the least.
Yep. And it’s not just true for the kids pressing their stale gum into your new permabound copies of The Giver. It’s true for adults, too.
So, that’s where psychology can help me find some bits of empathy in my occasionally frigid and tribalistic heart. And while it’s not our job to fix anyone else’s self-esteem issues (not that that is even possible, anyway), I do think this knowledge gives me an added shot of warmth with which to interact with people, and that doesn’t hurt our chances at civilized conversation.
Most importantly, I think reaching for empathy doesn’t necessarily have an end point. Maybe you’ll never change that person’s mind, no matter how compassionate you are. Maybe you’ll never even see your Facebook-crusading second cousin again. The practice of digging around for connection—especially with those who make connection most difficult—is the whole game, I think. It makes us better people, and better people put better energy into the world, and we could use a bit more of that at the moment.
I’ll post Part II next week, but in the meantime, wear a mask at the gas station, will you? It’s a PANDEMIC.
THANKS, LISA.