I was at an event recently, with no expectation whatsoever. I went there because it was a mix of culture and art – poetry, singing, and an art expo. While I was chatting with people and talking about all kinds of things, I met someone.
She was thinking of herself as an idealist, who was struggling to live in the current society, because of how disconnected people are.
We kept chatting and chatting and I kept asking her questions about her idealism. And because she kept sharing her vision, instead of being pragmatic about reaching the ideal she was sharing, it made sense for me to ask the following question:
“What do we do about those who want to commit suicide?”
I was trying to understand how, in her views, we can reach that ideal world pragmatically and what we can do to help those who are not idealistic.
“Let them.” was her answer.
As in, let them commit suicide.
Her answer made me remember a problem that we, as a society, have. A problem that we won’t be able to solve anytime soon. A problem so deep that it will take an entirely different approach to how we educate children and 10 new generations to make the change happen at a large scale.
The problem of selective empathy
We don’t want to help everyone. We only want to help those whom we believe deserve help.
That’s fucked up. And it’s so fucked up that you don’t even care.
It’s so fucked up that, as soon as I tell you that you should learn to love and care for the people who hurt you the most, you can’t even accept the idea of doing that. Not to mention actually doing it.
When we select who deserves to be loved, we create a society where we focus on whom to hate.
“Everybody deserves to be loved except for [those people].”
And because you know what “everybody” means, you’ll focus more on defining [those people]. And instead of focusing on loving those whom you would actually want to love, you end up paying more attention to those whom you would have to hate.
The problem of selective empathy is everywhere.
We tend to care about those whom we can identify with. If there’s nothing that we can relate to in the other person, that’s our first reason to not have empathy for them.
Again, very fucked up.
Just because you don’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Just because you can’t see that everyone around you is part of the same source and you’re the same family, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
But you’ve been blinded by all the bullshit that society’s been feeding you.
“He makes more money than you. Hate him!”
“She has bigger boobs than you. Hate her!”
You are this. Not that.
You are this. And that. You are all the things that have ever existed. You are all of them at once.
You’ve lived more than you know.
But the problem is you don’t accept what you don’t know. That’s the root of selective empathy – you can only care for the things you know about.
In a perfect world, this topic would make no sense
But this is not a perfect world.
The idealism that we experience is a part of us that we should explore. But we can’t fully do it because of how we’ve been educated.
We are constantly educated to focus on what’s missing, on what’s wrong, on what’s not perfect, on what’s… different. And we focus on that through personal filters, which disconnects us.
But we can use this as awareness.
Let’s go back to the conversation I had at the event I was telling you about.
As soon as she said “let them (commit suicide)”, that could have been her moment to become aware of how this belief was limiting her idealism.
Was it?
I have no idea.
I have no idea if any part of our conversation meant anything to her. I have no idea if she went home thinking about how her idealism is deeply rooted in selective empathy. Or if she didn’t care at all about what I was sharing with her.
If I ever meet her again, I’ll ask.
On the bright side, some countries seem to be addressing (at least) one aspect of the problem.
Since 1993, Denmark has required all students between 6 and 16 to take a weekly and mandatory class on empathy. The purpose is to build a supportive community where they treat kindness and collaboration as skills that are as vital as math or science.
That’s great news. Let’s focus on that and, hopefully, more countries will follow.
With love and optimism,
David
Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash
