Empathy is needed now more than ever. Why is it so hard to do?
Atticus Finch with his daughter Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird
by Ken Futernick (December, 2023)
If you spend any time exploring the literature on depolarization and bridging our widening cultural divides, you’ll encounter some common themes, none more prominent than empathy. It’s the life lesson Atticus Finch taught his daughter in To Kill a Mocking Bird. “[I]f you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (1)
In a recent CNN editorial about the sharp divisions caused by the recent conflicts in the Middle East and the challenges they pose even among friends, Joan Lester writes, “At this terribly difficult time, empathy is a balm that may ease our collective anguish. It doesn’t make the war go away, but it may show a path to resolution when peaceful settlement appears impossible. Great leaders like Nelson Mandela, who practiced something extraordinary — forgiveness, even of his jailers — showed us one example. This type of forgiveness, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described it, is necessary to bring about healing in the Middle East.” She concludes her piece with these words: “Love may find a way, if not to move mountains, at least to allow space for durable resolutions. Peace is never easy. But it’s not as hard as war.”
Empathy is what I had in mind when I invited Bobbie Glass, a 72-year-old transgender woman from Kentucky, to be a guest on my podcast. I realized how few of us have ever had an in-depth conversation with a transgender person or can honestly say we have any idea what their lives are like. This absence of connection, despite the fact that many of us have strong opinions on transgenderism, and policymakers in state houses and on school boards have recently passed a flurry of new policies affecting trans students. My hope is that Bobbie’s story will lead listeners to feel some empathy for the extraordinary pain she and so many other trans people have to deal with, especially in a society like ours that often dismisses and shames them. Perhaps some empathy will lead elected leaders to pause and reflect before enacting highly consequential policies affecting transgender people and their families.
That is exactly what Utah’s republican governor, Spencer Cox, did recently after spending time listening to transgender youth. He reversed his position on his state’s anti-transgender legislation, publicly commenting, “When you spend time with these kids, it changes your heart in important ways.”
What I’m learning (and what some of my guests have told me) is that the views others hold and why they hold them are often not what we thought going into the conversation. I am also learning that empathy - being a better, more curious listener - is not just a kind act (although it is), but it often leads to the outcomes we’re looking for. We all want to be heard and understood. We want to be treated with respect. We enjoy discovering common ground when we assume none existed. Doing the opposite of empathy - ignoring, shaming, belittling, even arguing with our adversaries, almost never achieves these things. As the author Jonathan Haidt said to Monica Guzman in a recent interview, “In a culture war, you cannot win by attacking the other side. The harder you attack, the stronger they get.” (You will find this near the 41:00 mark in the interview.)
If empathy is such an effective bridging strategy, why is it so hard? Probably for many reasons, but I’ll point to four that have emerged from my own efforts to understand what’s at play.
We relish the conflict; we enjoy fighting the good fight. We get pleasure, as Monica Guzman says, when prominent figures on the other side say or do something so outrageously stupid that even their allies are forced to look away or to concede the transgression. It feels good - not from a sadistic place - but because it validates our own positions. We are right. They are wrong. The good news in all of this is that most of us also want to get along. We want peace, even as we want to fight. Amanda Ripley believes this is one of the paradoxes of “high conflict,” the kind of toxic discord that gets us in trouble. “We are animated by high conflict and also haunted by it,” she writes. “We want it to end, and we want it to continue.” (4)
In his book, Belonging - The Science of Creating Connections and Bridging Divides, social psychologist Geoffrey Cohen devotes a chapter to “the pernicious power of Us vs. Them,” noting that “we seek belonging by excluding others.” One can imagine why empathizing - especially when it’s directed toward people who are not part of our in-group - might be discomfiting. Attempting to see things from their perspective suggests that we care about them and opens up the possibility that we might actually discover beliefs, interests, or values that we share in common. And if that happens, then maybe they are not as much of an “other” as we thought and, therefore, someone we really want to exclude. Peter Coleman, also one of my podcast guests who has written extensively about polarization, refers to this as the “friend problem,” He writes, “When tight groups have formed around us-versus-them tribal conflicts, deviating from the in-group in any way—thinking differently, expressing opposition to your group’s attitudes and beliefs, or (god forbid) fraternizing with members of the out-group—can lead to harsh forms of in-group shunning and sanctioning.” (6) Empathy could, therefore, lead to a blurring of affiliations and allegiances and to a diminished sense of belonging. Unless, of course, one can find a way to satisfy one’s need for belonging by looking for opportunities to include, rather than exclude others.
Amanda Ripley, whom I interviewed for my podcast, writes that if we want others to take our perspectives seriously, we have to make ourselves “hearable.” When we encounter people and perspectives that confound us or even threaten our moral sensitivities, our initial impulse is often to turn away, push back, or even fight. Why would we want to do the opposite - to listen, to be civil, to jump inside their skin, as Atticus Finch advised? Because we might discover (a) that our take on their perspectives or why they hold them were off the mark, or (b) that it might lead them to want to learn more about us and our perspectives. But even with those benefits, empathy is not easy, as Ripley notes. “It’s very hard to get outside of our own heads and speak the other side’s moral language. It is counterintuitive. It requires discipline, humility, education, and empathy.” (2) I can speak first hand to the formidable challenges that I, myself, have faced in becoming more empathic not just with some of my podcast guests but with acquaintances in my own community whose views don’t jive with mine.
Empathy, listening to others, suspending judgment, and having civil conversations with “others” can feel like we are compromising our principles - giving oxygen, even “platforming” bad ideas (especially when the conversations are made public on a podcast). Not calling them out can seem like we are condoning views we oppose and might even find abhorrent. The podcaster/author Dylan Marron has an important take on this problem - one that has enabled me to overcome my own doubts about some of the views that are expressed by my podcast guests. In Marron’s own efforts to reach out to and engage with the small number of podcast listeners who have expressed hate toward him (he’s liberal and gay), he’s come to realize that “empathy is not endorsement.” “Empathizing with someone is the simple acknowledgment that they, like you, are a human,” he says. “Empathizing with someone does not suddenly permit them to say and do awful things…[It] doesn’t turn their beliefs into a contagion.” (7) But it still begs the question, Why would Marron want to empathize with a person like Josh who posts the following message? “You’re a moron. You’re the reason this country is dividing itself. All your videos are merely opinion and an awful opinion I must say. Just stop. Plus, being Gay is a sin.” Why should any of us want to empathize with people like Josh? In Marron’s case, the motive was a nagging curiosity. He really wanted to understand why Josh and others would post vile things about him simply because of his political views and sexual identity. He also wondered what might happen if he had face-to-face conversations with them and didn’t fight back. Surprisingly, some of his haters agreed to speak with him, and some would eventually empathize themselves and apologize to Marron after hearing how their vitriol and accusations affected him. Some conceded that they lashed out at others because of the bullying and shaming they, themselves, had endured. Others pointed to the anonymity of social media where cathartic, hateful messages are often rewarded with “likes.”
Empathy is hard but it’s worth overcoming the challenges if we value better relationships and a less-polarized world. As Marron sees it, “[E]mpathy is more than just a consequence of conversation; it’s the necessary fuel that conversation needs to keep going. It is the signal of safety that allows two people to continue opening up to each other. It is the insulation that makes my guests feel safe enough to share things with me. When any of us feel attacked, we naturally put up our defenses, but when we find our rhythm…see past the labels we’ve placed on each other, and avoid debate, we begin to finally open up, to show ourselves...Empathy gave my guests a more loving space to explore why they had written to me what they did, and, in turn, it gave both of us a window into another experience.” Elsewhere Marron writes, “Conversation, I have come to believe, is activism. And with the support of my listeners…I am ready to evangelize the good word of dialogue across divisions to all of the internet’s billions of users.”
Never before did I view my podcast as a form of activism, but perhaps it is. Perhaps that is exactly the kind of work that the people mentioned above - Marron, Ripley, Guzman, Coleman, and countless others like them (including so many teachers!) - are doing as they promote empathy and dialogue. Not all of us are activists, of course, but their insights into the benefits might be a reason for all of us to consider this approach over the alternative.
(1) Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harperperennial Modern Classics, p. 33). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
(2) Ripley, Amanda. High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out (p. 203). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
(3) Guzmán, Mónica. I Never Thought of It That Way (p. 39). BenBella Books. Kindle Edition.
(4) Joan Steinau Lester, “The unwelcome topic at this year’s Thanksgiving table,” CNN, November 17, 2023.
(5) Ripley, Amanda. High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out (p. XII). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
(6) Coleman, Peter T.. The Way Out (p. 120). Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.
(7) Marron, Dylan. Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers. Atria Books. Kindle Edition.