Expanding Empathy

Whenever I come across the idiom drawing a line in the sand, I picture a giant standoff between two really rowdy groups of people . . . at the beach. I know that last part doesn’t make any sense, but in my experience, the beach is where the most sand is. Ridiculous as that sounds, I’m glad my brain connects that particular idiom with an image I find insanely silly (kind of a mashup of West Side Story and Beach Blanket Bingo) because in this society we draw way too many lines in the sand. I’m proud of the fact my brain subconsciously laughs at this.

Depending on where you stand on the spectrum of deconstructing (or getting the hell away from all things church, if that’s more your vibe) it can be really difficult to stop looking at everything as a confrontation. It can be especially hard not to view conservatives (evangelical or not) as hostile parties threatening our very way of life when . . . well, when they define their very mission as a crusade against many people’s existence and/or way of life.

So, if there exists a group who insist on making everything from marriage to M&M’s a battle against everyone who doesn’t fall in line with their ideologies, how do you avoid a neverending us vs. them worldview? Does it even make sense to try to escape a confrontational mindset when a large, influential, hostile faction wage a constant attack on the most vulnerable members of society? Don’t we have a duty to defend these people? And doesn’t defending them require standing toe-to-toe with their attackers on the opposite side of those aforementioned sand lines?

Okay, hold on, that’s a lot of questions. Answering them might require a few subheadings.

Call of Duty: Defending the Margins

We absolutely do have a responsibility to protect the rights of our society’s most vulnerable people. Just being quiet or “ignoring the bully” is not a viable option. But that doesn’t mean confrontation is the only way to stop the bully.

I won’t say confrontation is never necessary . . . and if I did, anyone who’s ever seen me on social media would recognize the hypocrisy right away. I’m pretty confrontational, but not always in a way that serves anyone all too well. My immediate point, though, is that we absolutely should defend all people: poor, disabled, LGBTQIA, women, children, people of color . . . anyone targeted or purposefully neglected by the most powerful people in our world and all who hope to benefit by aligning with that power.

I don’t think the urgency of our duty is a point I need to work that hard to make with you. But, as someone about to advocate for universal empathy, I thought it worth establishing that I recognize that responsibility and have no intention of abandoning it.

Empathy for the Christian

This brings me to the topic of the day: empathy. It’s a concept I think we generally misunderstand (ironic, since empathy is essentially the effort to understand someone else’s perspective and experience).

For some reason, we tend to equate empathy with validation, and it seems like that might be a reaction to a common evangelical misconception about empathy. Perhaps you’ve come across that weird Desiring God post about empathy being an enticing sin. It has to be exhausting constructing strawmen (complete with horns and pitchforks) for everything in existence, but hats off to evangelicals for never giving up. And when I say a) it’s a weird post and b) conservatives create confrontations for a living, it’s because this grotesque collection of words writes about empathy from the POV of one of Satan’s minions trying to trick otherwise good-hearted people into feeling compassion for or understanding one another. So, in case you wonder if I’m creating a strawman argument by saying evangelicals demonize empathy, I assure you the entire case being made in that article is that empathy is the work of demons.

You could write a whole series of lengthy books about the damage evangelicals wreak on humanity by treating every possible thought and emotion as a battle between good and evil, so I will attempt neither to explain nor to sum up. I’ll just point out this one thing: by treating empathy as the enemy, evangelicals make it appear as though having empathy implies friendship or fraternizing with the enemy.

Reacting to this from any kind of enlightened viewpoint gets complicated, because a) marginalized people (with whom evangelicals fear actual demons will trick them into empathizing) are enemies to no one; and b) it is entirely possible to empathize with someone’s perspective without agreeing with a lick of it.

So that knee-jerk reaction to just do the opposite of whatever evangelicals do might lead you to say, “They don’t want me to empathize with trans women, so I will empathize with trans women (but I won’t empathize with Christians).” I think it’s more appropriate, however, to say, “I will empathize with everyone, and then I’ll evaluate their claims, beliefs, etc. based on some more critical thinking. I just want to sure I’m evaluating with an accurate understanding of where they’re coming from.”

Empathy is not the same as validation. Empathy is not the same as justification. Empathy isn’t even the same thing as accepting every person’s claims at face value. But in the context of culture wars, I frequently see people of all affiliations make the mistake of equating empathy with any or all of those other actions. I try to empathize with conservatives even while recognizing many of their arguments are made in bad faith. I try to empathize with conservatives even when their speech is tantamount to violence against marginalized people. I do this, not because I think it’s possible there may be some truth to their attacks—on the contrary, the more ridiculous their logic, the more acrobatically advanced their mental gymnastics become, the more aggressive we need to be in exercising empathy.

Professional wrestling isn’t fake; it’s scripted

Wait, what? Stay with me, here. In addition to growing up in Christianity, I also grew up really liking professional wrestling. In insisted as a kid they were both 100% genuine, but my read on both genres changed. The thing is, yes, wrestling isn’t genuine competition. The athletes involved are putting on a show, cooperating with one another to make it seem like they’re at war with each other. But they’re really doing that stuff. It definitely does hurt when they get slapped, and it definitely is dangerous when they jump off ladders. The emotion might be fabricated, but the violence is real . . . and so is the reaction from the audience. And the audience? Their cooperation in the gag occurs with varying levels of understanding. All of them have some disbelief to suspend, but not all of their mental bridges bear the same load, you know what I mean?

The same is true in Christianity. Some evangelicals know full well they are putting on a show to get attention, reaction, popularity, and wealth. A lot of Christians at every level understand the bit and go along with it. A lot of them know it’s probably not 100% true, but they feel represented nonetheless and are happy to play along without putting too much thought into it. But there are a ton of people who buy the whole production, hook, line, and sinker. Empathy helps me know which category someone is in. When I don’t employ empathy, the problem isn’t that I’m too mean to Christians, it’s that I wind up debating the things Hulk Hogan said to the Undertaker. It’s nonsense.

The whole “Christianity is pro-wrestling” is not a perfect metaphor, so I don’t want to take it any further than that. (I do, but I’m deciding with great reluctance to move on.) The key takeaway, though, is this: there’s no point in debating some things with conservatives, because they refuse to do it outside of their arenas. Empathy keeps you out of a lot of unnecessary, performative conflicts, and it saves you a lot of wasted time and energy engaging with bad-faith discussions.

Listen to what they’re not saying

Real empathy puts you into the shoes of another person. (This next part is going to sound like an insult, but I promise it’s driven by empathy and even a touch of sympathy.) When someone’s acting like a clown and you put on those clown shoes . . . and that clown makeup, the painted-on smile, the exaggerated facial expressions, the nonstop theatrics . . . you realize the last thing you want anyone to see is the real you. It would be the greatest breach of circus etiquette to speak from the heart or to remove your mask. Okay, metaphors aside, the words said out loud and the actions done in public do not represent what conservatives truly believe.

Those incendiary bloggers and right-wing media types? They’re weak-minded rejects who got sick of bullied and cast out and who discovered they could appear powerful and popular by rushing to the defense of the most powerful people groups in society. If you’re the bully’s number one defender, well, you must be a really big deal. Attacking the patriarchy is a lost cause, but defending it? That gets you a front-row seat at Patriarchy Con 2023, woo hoo!

Empathy leads you to see that. Empathy also helps you realize that online showdowns aren’t just not threatening to rightwing nutjobs, they make up the currency on which their business depends.

So when you think about confronting a bully, give empathy a try. You might find that confrontation needs to come in a very different form. You may find that challenging their talking points serves only to amplify them. Work to find the fears and insecurities that are driving the nationalism and racism and misogyny. It may not lead you to be nicer to these people (fine by me).

But empathy will help you see more effective strategies for cutting their mission down at the knees. (Just don’t yell at me if being nicer to some of them winds up being one of your tactics.)