Quiet Frontier

Family, Friends, and Politics: Will Empathy Survive the Ideological Divide

Video (07:06): As a society, we seem to have traded empathy and understanding for outrage. This reflection is about how political and ideological divisions have turned ordinary conversations into battlefields. What happens when empathy feels out of place, or even risky, among people we love? Watch the video above, and if it resonates, consider subscribing for more Quiet Frontier reflections.

Transcript

00:00:23 So I thought I’d get out here in the woods

00:00:25 a little bit today, just take some time to

00:00:27 reflect, get away from the work and the

00:00:30 stress of daily life and just get out here

00:00:34 and take a little bit of time to think

00:00:36 about some things. And one of the things

00:00:38 I’ve been thinking a lot about is how

00:00:41 easily people that I have known in my life

00:00:45 have so easily turned against each other

00:00:49 in recent years. Family, friends, people

00:00:54 who once would laugh together and have a

00:00:57 good time, get together for dinner, get

00:00:59 together for meals, they can’t even sit

00:01:02 down for an hour together without tension

00:01:04 starting to creep in. And it’s really not

00:01:08 anything about who they are. It’s not

00:01:11 about what defines them as people. It’s

00:01:14 typically over politics. And it’s this

00:01:19 growing sense in the world that everything

00:01:23 we do, if somebody disagrees with us, they

00:01:26 must be wrong. Not just wrong though,

00:01:29 they’re bad. They’re somehow evil or

00:01:33 somehow deficient in some way. Watching

00:01:39 this unfold over the past couple of years,

00:01:43 especially inside families, it really does

00:01:46 something to you. It’s kind of like seeing

00:01:49 the foundation of something that’s really

00:01:53 steady beginning to crumble. So somewhere

00:01:56 along the way, we’ve all stopped talking

00:01:59 to each other. And we’ve started talking

00:02:01 at each other. Or worse yet, we started

00:02:03 talking past each other. And our

00:02:06 conversations, they become battlegrounds.

00:02:09 It’s where empathy goes to die anymore, is

00:02:13 in these ideologically charged

00:02:15 conversations. It’s strange because most

00:02:19 of us claim to value truth, and we claim

00:02:21 to value kindness, and we claim to value

00:02:25 open-mindedness. And yet, when politics

00:02:29 comes into the picture, all those values

00:02:32 are the first things out the door. And

00:02:34 it’s a real shame. We sacrifice so much in

00:02:40 the name of ideology. So I don’t think

00:02:43 that most of us really mean to be cruel

00:02:45 either, or unkind. It’s just that outrage

00:02:49 has become easier than understanding. And

00:02:53 that says something about our culture. It

00:02:57 feels really good to be right. Everybody

00:02:59 likes to be right. We like to be right,

00:03:00 and we like to be accepted. They’re

00:03:02 probably two of the primary driving

00:03:04 motivators of human beings. We at least

00:03:07 like sounding right anyway, especially

00:03:11 when we have an audience. People like to

00:03:14 perform. We like to perform our moral

00:03:16 righteousness and our theater of goodness.

00:03:21 But that constant need to prove that we’re

00:03:25 on the right side of things has turned

00:03:28 political identity into some kind of

00:03:31 faith. And it’s not boding well for us as

00:03:36 individuals or us as a society. Every

00:03:40 disagreement with somebody feels like some

00:03:43 kind of heresy, not just a disagreement.

00:03:46 I’ve seen people refuse to talk to each

00:03:48 other, to their own brothers, to their own

00:03:51 sisters, to their own parents, to extended

00:03:54 family members, to lifelong friends. I’ve

00:03:58 seen this happen. And it’s not because the

00:04:01 people hurt them. It’s because they

00:04:03 disagreed. So think about that. Love

00:04:07 undone by a different perspective. There’s

00:04:11 something wrong with that picture. And I’m

00:04:14 not standing above this either. There’s

00:04:17 been moments when I’ve caught myself

00:04:19 trying to figure out the best way to get

00:04:22 the better of somebody in an argument,

00:04:24 preparing ways to dismantle their logic.

00:04:28 And as if winning the conversation could

00:04:31 make the world right again. And it never

00:04:34 does. It just leaves you feeling tired.

00:04:36 And it leaves you feeling smaller. So I

00:04:40 think deep down we’re all really just

00:04:42 tired. We’re tired of politics, but it’s

00:04:45 not really just politics. It’s how to use

00:04:51 the space that we used to fill with love

00:04:53 now that we’ve filled it with anger and

00:04:56 hatred. So maybe the answer isn’t really

00:05:01 to argue anymore or to argue harder or

00:05:04 even to withdraw completely. Maybe it’s to

00:05:07 start listening again. Like really

00:05:11 listening though. Even when it’s not

00:05:14 comfortable just hearing what somebody

00:05:16 else has to say. Empathy used to be

00:05:19 something that we practiced. Now it’s

00:05:22 something we preach. Maybe that’s what we

00:05:25 need to rediscover is that ability to

00:05:28 understand others and to at least

00:05:32 understand their perspective, their

00:05:35 worldview in order to better understand

00:05:38 them. And maybe that’ll help us understand

00:05:40 ourselves better as well. So at the end of

00:05:44 the day, opinions, they come and go. But

00:05:48 the people we love, they’re not

00:05:49 replaceable. They’re always going to be

00:05:52 there and their absence will always be

00:05:54 felt. So if understanding has become a

00:05:58 battleground, then choosing compassion,

00:06:02 choosing understanding, that may be the

00:06:06 very best resistance that we have left.

00:06:12 Thanks for checking in. This is Quiet

00:06:15 Frontier. Take care.