A few weeks ago I wrote in You’re Not Meant to Carry the World that “every one of the world’s problems isn’t yours to solve.” See, part of being a normal grown-up is recognizing that there is great suffering in the world-always has been, always will be.
Today we’re exposed to more suffering than any human nervous system evolved to process. Yet there are many among us who would suggest it is your responsibility to care and, more importantly, to have an opinion on everything.
Every one of the world’s problems isn’t yours to solve.
The Great Sorting
The irony is that most Americans— are just trying to pay the mortgage and keep the kids from killing each other. Those same Americans believe we have more in common than not. But the loudest voices, the angriest voices, the most extreme voices? They’ve taken over the stage. And the rest of us have slowly backed into the shadows. Like trying to avoid the bar fight that you can sense is brewing.
We are naturally empathetic people. Empathy allows you to understand another person’s inner state. We want to care and we want to “feel your pain”, but only up to a point.
The Wit & Wisdom Newsletter: Clear thinking for the second half of life.
See, empathy today has been hijacked. It’s been turned into a weapon. Empathy doesn’t require that you surrender your capacity for judgment. To be empathetic does not mean there is only one acceptable moral conclusion. Yet many use empathy to back people into a corner.
Phrases like “speaking your truth” have come to function less as invitations to understanding and more as tools for shutting conversations down. See I can respect your feelings and still draw my own conclusions. To be empathetic does not mean there is only one acceptable moral conclusion.
It is your responsibility to care and, more importantly, to have an opinion on everything.
For some, these beliefs become part of their identity-as permanent as the color of their eyes. And their identity becomes fused with a sense of belonging and a moral righteousness.
Let me give you a fictitious example that will help prove my point. It is time for me to finally speak my truth: my mother abused me almost every evening between the ages of 7-12 years old. The most vulnerable time in a young boys life. I was forced to do unspeakable things against my will. My voice and frequent objections were ignored
To be more specific, I was forced to eat Broccoli which is child abuse. I’m allowed to feel that because I lived it. Further, no child should ever be put in a situation where they have to experience the same kind of cruelty and trauma. No one ever came to rescue me which is clearly a failure of our system. I’m clearly a victim.
Okay, that was clearly a fabrication to make a point. But, my statement is made with a sense of authority. I’ve made up my mind I was a victim and there is no wiggle room for arguing on behalf of broccoli growers or my mother’s nutritional decisions. That’s what I mean by hi-jacking empathy. I left you no room for you to draw your own conclusion. You are either with me or you are wrong.
Empathy doesn’t require that you surrender your capacity for judgment.
The same goes today for discourse. As if the more aggressive approach takes the moral high ground. A discussion becomes evidence of your lack of morality. Because today your positions come with an identity and identity is fused with moral worth-or lack thereof.
Connection needs soil—places where people bump into each other, talk, linger, laugh, maybe even disagree without combusting. Those places are disappearing. Note how many churches grappled with gay marriage over the last 20 years. Instead of working together to find common ground, many major denominations split in two. As if each side was morally unfit to worship with the other. How sad.
I was forced to eat Broccoli which is child abuse.
You can have “your truth” if you want one. It’s your lived experience eating all that nasty broccoli but it’s rude to claim that child abuse an objective fact that applies to everyone. My truth is that I was “abused”. Your truth might be that you like broccoli. You can be empathetic to me and my lived experience and have your own truth about broccoli. We should be able to co-exist and still be friends.
To be empathetic does not mean there is only one acceptable moral conclusion.
This hijacking of empathy leads to polarization along broccoli lines. It’s the reason why neighborhood trust is down. Close friendships are down. Conversations with friends are down. We’ve divided ourselves into pro/anti broccoli factions.
Empathy doesn’t remove the need for discernment or context.
We didn’t end up here by accident. We ended up here because of a thousand shifts—economic and political, cultural and technological, personal and collective. And if a thousand small shifts got us here, a thousand small shifts can get us back
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