The Power of Political and Intellectual Empathy
Philosopher Kevin Dorst what a great blog post called “A Plea for Political Empathy”. Many people believe that American politics is broken because of polarization. Dorst makes the distinction that polarization is not the real problem, rather its the demonization that comes out of political differences. If you don’t believe that people demonize each other over political and ideological differences try Twitter or watch cable news. Dorst uses the example of religion for which many Americans have different beliefs but don’t typically demonize each other for those beliefs. At least not as much recently.
But Dorst says the solution is not getting different sides to agree, but “what we need is to recover our political empathy: to be able to look at the other side and think that although they are wrong, they are not irrational. Or biased. Or dumb.”
Empathy is important for living in a kind and generous society. It’s also important not to see the people we disagree with as irrational because it gives us too much intellectual credit and too harshly judges are critics. On average, we should all be more modest about our beliefs and intelligence. And it is not to say people you disagree with are not ever irrational, biased, or dumb, but this shouldn’t be your starting point. Even if they are any of those three adjectives it is typically best to attribute their convictions to good intentions rather than malice. Just as you would want them to do the same to you.
Empathy should not devolve into relativism. There are better and worse ideas and policies. But if we try and be persuasive from a position of arrogance and dismissal towards the opposing side we demonize and alienate. Of course it’s very hard to persuade anyone against their deeply held beliefs, but it is possible to open their perspectives if it comes from a place of mutual respect. A lot of political debate is about raising your status and lowering others status. People code this as a threat and it just makes the cycle worse. Of course, gaining power is a part of government and politics, but it is up to the open-minded center to support the few politicians who do the right things for the public good. Citizens must start from a place of individual responsibility before castigating politicians. Individuals and even more so groups can collectively have more agency over politics than the average person thinks.
Again empathy is critical for our daily interactions, but it’s just as critical for improving our political institutions. There’s a difference between being a critic and practitioner. And as much as we should criticize politicians who act selfishly, immorally, and ineptly we need the empathy to realize that we are not the ones in the arena. It is easy to blame elected leaders and they should be blamed when they make mistakes in a democracy, but empathy should be compatible with forgiveness. And solely pointing the finger is in ways an abdication of responsibility. Again, lack of engagement in politics is an underrated part of the problem of our inept institutions.
Empathy fits in with economist Tyler Cowen’s strategy of not devaluing and dismissing other’s ideas. It is easy to devalue and dismiss liberals or conservatives because they have beliefs that are seen by the opposing side as inexplicably wrong. But if you really carefully analyze ideology, policy, and character on both sides they both have similar levels of right and wrong. Liberals ideologically are right a lot of the time when they believe that big change and progress are needed. But in different situations conservatives are equally right when they believe we need slow and measured change, and respect for ways of the past. I’m sure this isn’t the primary lense people look at the liberal-conservative divide but it is more practical to be somewhere in the middle and apply different beliefs for different situations.
Empathy and intellectual humility are two steps towards a better politics.
