I have lived for 66-plus years on this planet. And I think I only just now found out what makes relationships with other human beings harmonious, tolerable, and bearable.
Took me long enough.
It’s called empathy.
The mysteries, confusions, and disappointments in life continue to abound, as well as do the wonders, certitudes, and even pleasures.
Like most of you, I sit back in gobsmacked amazement at the dangerous, perilous, and deep divides I am seeing around the world and especially here in America. People whom I thought would never EVER harbor hate, prejudice, and bigotry towards their fellow world citizens and fellow Americans blast it out as easily and effortlessly as they seem to breathe.
Like perhaps many of you, I have lost lifelong friendships and even familial relationships due to the geopolitical events that have been ravaging our society since roughly the election run-up in 2015, but surely initiating way back in 2008 with the ascendance of America’s first black President and First Lady.
As my wife, Bonnie, says in reference to those we have been forced to discard and jettison out of our lives because of their noxiousness, “I don’t understand what they don't understand about (fill in the blank)…" the plights of people of color, other ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQ people, physically and psychologically challenged people, women, and a whole host of others who were not privileged enough to be born straight, white, Christian, and male.
This precipitous divide in America is now particularly acute. It simply may not be fixable. Disequilibrium abounds. It is deadly.
Will we reap The Whirlwind?
You know, if you meet someone you thought you used to know, you can generally tell in about 30 seconds which side of this terrible chasm they stand on.
And then what do you do?
Trying to “discuss” (1) why Black Lives Matter; (2) why gun control makes sense; (3) why banning books is generally bad; (4) why teaching the unbiased truth of the racial and religious and ethnic cultural history of America in our schools is generally good; (5) why voter suppression and pernicious gerrymandering are bad; (6) why recognizing that women deserve reproductive decision rights over their own bodies; (7) why the new names of the Major League Baseball team in Cleveland and the NFL team in Washington D.C. are good; (8) why embracing the precepts of diversity, equity, and unity makes our schools and whole country stronger; and, lastly but hardly least, (9) the incontrovertible fact that this last U.S. presidential election was the largest and most secure in American history all seems to lead to nothing but the most bitter bile, rancor, and disharmonic discord. Indeed, it has tortuously savaged marriages and otherwise laid waste to professional and personal relationships in numbers never before even imagined here in the United States.
"Agreeing to disagree” is a fine platitude, but let’s also remember that THAT is precisely how every rape and war also begin.
It seems to be an exercise in futility to try to find common ground with someone who resides on the opposite side of this enormous cultural, political, ethnic, racial, and religious canyon.
As I said earlier, I have found one common denominator that seems to predict which side the people I know are on; EMPATHY, or the lack thereof.
Look, here’s the bedrock truth of my personal experiences: those who count themselves in the “MAGA crowd” simply do not seem to have any. PERIOD!
Honestly, when I look closely and carefully at them, they seem stunningly bereft of any semblance of empathy!
There are always exceptions in this analysis of course, but by and large the dearth of any recognizable or cognizable empathy seems to me to be the most effective predictor of why these people believe, say, and do the things that they do.
Is my sample size big enough? I don’t know but I have traveled these roads long enough and this is what I now believe to be true.
The lack of the human ability to actually sympathetically FEEL and APPRECIATE how another person is suffering when that victim is innocently afflicted by hated, bigotry, and prejudice is the ultimate, key predictor for me at least.
My experience has revealed to me that only about half the people I interface with have the requisite empathy to appreciate this type of civil and human rights suffering. A smaller percentage of even that empathy-abled group is willing to sacrifice anything meaningful to come to the aid of those who are unjustly targeted for this hateful abuse.
I’d like to hear from you readers out there, please. Have you experienced these same thoughts and does this ring a bell or am I alone out there in the Disunited States of America universe?
As you kindly think this over, I’ll leave you with a beautiful quote from the renowned physician and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer:
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.”
