Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.
—Dire Straits, “Industrial Disease”
We’re a little too sure of ourselves these days. Some call it polarization. I call it laziness. It’s easy to have opinions, harder to be informed.
“I’ve done my own research,” is a common rebuttal when confronted with an uncomfortable truth. There is little point insisting that reading around on the internet until you find opinions or “facts” you agree with is not research. They know that. They don’t care. It’s not so much that they believe the absurdities they’ve dug up, it’s just that they don’t want to think about it. They know what they believe, and that’s that.
So we’re not talking about the isolated views of a drunk uncle at a family gathering. This is half of us.
We’ve been here before: the sixties, both of them, in two centuries. It wasn’t pretty either time (the first far worse, of course), but we recovered. We’ll recover from this paroxysm too. Survival is a basic driver of all species. I thought we’d evolved beyond survival of the fittest to something more communal, but maybe not. Maybe only the most brutal will come through this crisis. Maybe the weakest will have to die, at least politically. We’ll see.
The root of the problem we’re having once again (or still) isn’t ideology, it’s a lack of empathy and humility. Empathy helps us see things from the points of view of others. Humility helps us accept that we don’t know what we don’t know…and that we may be wrong about what we think we do know.
In a life or death struggle, empathy and humility probably aren’t going to defeat your enemy. Maybe that’s why they don’t seem to be as deeply programmed into our behavior as fight or flight. They are the idle pastimes of philosophers, pointy-headed pedants in ivory towers, not the stuff of doers who make things happen.
That may be true. The problem is that without empathy and humility, the doers are making the wrong things happen.
Today we assert rights, but not our responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing empathetic, nothing humble or selfless about that. Above all, we've cut ourselves off from our fellow man; relying on devices for communication, instead of personal interaction. This started long before COVID. It has allowed us to be less accountable, less honest with ourselves and others. In short, we've become less candid. And candor is the foundation of goodwill. We are losing our foundation. David
Wonderful insights here! Thank you, David!
DeleteThanks Harriet.
DeleteYes to the vital importance of empathy and humility --- qualities that appear increasingly rare, certainly in our political landscape, and even in our culture, where political divides (us v. them) are so strong and entrenched. I welcome your careful optimism -- the idea that we WILL get through this -- yet I am so worried about what will be our country on the other side.
ReplyDelete