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An Inability to See “The Other” As Human
Feb 15th, 2010 | 31 responses
Glenn Greenwald linked to this post by Digby in one of the updates to his post about right-wing hypocrisy in regard to the treatment of American missionaries arrested in Haiti, but I did not actually read it until just now.
It’s about the seemingly complete inability of the right in this country to identify with the humanity of anyone who isn’t exactly like them. This phenomenon is not about the legitimate distinction every reasonable person makes between degrees of seriousness when discussing criminal acts. It’s about something much more basic than that: the ability to empathize with someone caught in the nightmare of being wrongfully accused and denied all access to the legal means to make that known. The difference in the reactions by the American right to a Baptist missionary’s possible wrongful arrest and subsequent mistreatment and to a Guantanamo detainee’s possible wrongful arrest and subsequent mistreatment is at its heart not about the difference in what they are being accused of having done. It’s about the difference in the very ability to imagine the possibility, the very concept, of wrongful accusation — or even if the possibility is acknowledged, the ability to feel the injustice of that, to empathize with it, to put oneself in that Muslim prisoner’s place and imagine oneself to be him, or to be a loved one.
Here is one paragraph from Digby’s post:
For most of us, this all comes down to what I call the Count of Monte Cristo effect. I read that book as a kid and the horror of a system which would allow an innocent person to be locked up forever so seared itself into my psyche that I automatically understood from that point on what injustice was. I didn’t need to be a Frenchman in the Napoleonic era to relate. I’d been inside Edmond Dantès head, I’d been Edmond Dantès, and I’d felt, as a human being, what it was to be falsely accused and imprisoned.
Now go back and read the rest. And think about it.
31 Responses to “An Inability to See “The Other” As Human”
Yes anyone to the right of center is evil incarnate. Excuse me but I need to get in my quota of puppy kicking now Kathy.
It is so much better to put them in a blender and make smoothies with them.
It is so much better to put them in a blender and make smoothies with them.”
Straight out of Duckman. Fluffy and Uranus faced that fate. Feel free to recycle, it is the new new.
It’s about the seemingly complete inability of the right in this country to identify with the humanity of anyone who isn’t exactly like them.
I found this line and most of the post disturbing. Despite countless instances of people on the right exhibiting empathy, many by commenters on this site, Kathy takes the position that the right is incapable of empathy. The “evidence” is a difference in how the right treats the incarceration of a missionary vs the incarceration of suspected terrorists. This dehumanization of political opponents is common on the extreme right and left fringes, but luckily less so here at TMV.
I am against torture, but I do see the dilemma when holding a prisoner where there might be some urgency in extracting information. In the case of the missionary there is no dilemma, and to compare that case to someone like KSM is apples and oranges.
I'm also against indefinite detention and holding people without charge, but the existence of Guantanamo, Bagram and possibly Thomson isn't a demonstration that Bush and Obama lack empathy, it's a demonstration that these problems aren't as simple as some imply.
If the right did not have empathy for those that are not like them….
there would be no missionaries in the first place.
Lack of empathy and authoritarianism are the two key ingredients in the Right Wing mentality…
The total inability to see a bum on the street and say to yourself “But for the grace of God go I”…
Lack of empathy and authoritarianism are the two key ingredients in the Right Wing mentality…
Exceeded only by the left's authoritarianism and ability to empathize only with the people immediately in view.
Of course conservatives empathize with the bum on the street. They also empathize with the 20 more bums the wrong policies would create.
We know conservatives love seeing bums on the street in that their economic policies create bums by the train load…
Right wingers tried to keep Justice Sotomayer off the SCOTUS BECAUSE of her empathy. How soon we forget.
Right wingers tried to keep Justice Sotomayer off the SCOTUS BECAUSE of her empathy. How soon we forget.
Do you feel that is proof the Right is incapable of empathy?
In that case the debate was not whether empathy was a good thing, but rather would relying too much on empathy could possibly replace strict interpretation of the law. I supported Sotomayor's nomination and thought her responses to these concerns were fine.
“It’s about the seemingly complete inability of the right in this country to identify with the humanity of anyone who isn’t exactly like them.”
I agree entirely with this line. It should be followed by a line about how everyone else has the same problem. In the case the post deals with, however, we're certainly talking about the right. As US citizens in a predominantly white culture, we do tend to side with those we look like, and have a greater ability to see other white people (or Christian people, etc) as like us. This is entirely normal, and requires a great deal of effort to quash, if it can be done at all. In my opinion, it's always worth it to try anyway — personally, culturally, and especially legally.
Depends on what kind of missionaries you're talking about, and their mission. If their mission is to convert people to their version of a religion, then I'd say that's not driven by empathy at all.
Da Goat:
It may not be true that the right is incapable of empathy with those who are unlike themselves. But, time after time, we have seen that their leadership are choosing stands that do not express it.
Key examples:
The Sotomaier nomination
Harsh stands on illegal immigration
Unwillingness to pass any kind of health care bill- no matter how many concessions are made to them
Rigid ideology which forces many of their candidates to sign no-new-taxes pledges, and vote unfailingly for tax cuts which favor the rich
Rigid ideology which leads their politicians to oppose civil unions,same sex marriages, and workplace protections for the gay community
unyielding opposition to any measures designed to help working Americans during a severe recession
opposition to overturning “don't ask don't tell”
“Despite countless instances of people on the right exhibiting empathy, many by commenters on this site, Kathy takes the position that the right is incapable of empathy.”
It's as if she's unable to see us, “the Other,” as human.
Do you feel that is proof the Right is incapable of empathy?
No, I see it as the usual Republican playing both sides of the coin. Heads I win, tails you lose.
We do tend to side with those we look like
It seems to be worse than that. Our moral reasoning simply goes off the rails when trying to grapple with large-scale problems that we can't viscerally feel. We tend to come to decisions that are, at best, mathematically questionable. For example:
Digby nailed it. Not everyone has developed the ability to experience empathy to an appreciable degree. In fact there are too many people who haven't developed the ability beyond their own self-interest. Even the simple and obvious examples pointing to the reasons for responsible and fair behavior are not simple or obvious enough. Of course the absence of empathy is sociopathy… a condition which unfortunately has it's defenders.
I am realizing now just how deranged the Left is getting.
Dehumanizing your political opponents, claiming that money and power is all they care about (literally, not figuratively), basically calling them sub-human, unfeeling semi-animals.
That is song that has been sung before, it it is ugly no matter what side of the aisle it comes from.
Well, I agree they are getting more deranged, but not because they are now trying to master the art of name-calling.
What is that saying….”those who can't do, teach”? In the case of the left, it might be apropo to rephrase it to “those who can't do, lecture”.
Rather than embarass me by regaling me with their countless acts of selflessness, bravery and charity, they are going to lecture me into submission? Yeah, right.
Have they gotten off their asses and protested in the streets to their own administration to expedite habeas corpus petitions, end rendition, end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan? No, they would rather lecture that “gee whiz, Bush started this you know……..we're too wimpy to do anything about it ourselves so we'll keep deflecting the conversation from our lack of ability lest someone realize how generally ineffectual we are.”
Did they believe so much in single payer healthcare that they went out and set up their own system to compete with the status quo? No, they said they can't do anything without conservatives being involved.
I say let them lecture because that is all they know how to do. It's the least we can do for them since they appear to have no other skills to employ.
I am against torture, but I do see the dilemma when holding a prisoner where there might be some urgency in extracting information.
The connection you make between “some urgency in extracting information” and torture is inherently illogical. Torture is the least efficient, least reliable method of extracting information. I mean, assuming you want the information to be reliable or true. That there are still ordinary, normal people (iow, as opposed to sadists who enjoy torture) who don't understand this is completely inexplicable to me.
I gave you your first Like on that one, roro.
Actually, not at all, DLS. If you were accused of a crime or an act of terrorism, whether it was kidnapping children or blowing up a federal building, I would not assume your guilt just because the government told me you had done such and such. I would not support your being thrown into indefinite detention without charges or access to an attorney. I would not support your being interrogated with the use of torture or locked up forever without a trial, just on the government's claim that you had kidnapped children or blown up a federal building.
Yet the right does support assuming the guilt of Muslims, U.S. citizens or not, whom the government tells them are terrorists. The right does support calling such individuals “terrorists,” thus taking it for granted that they are terrorists solely by virtue of having been accused of terrorism by the government. The right does support locking up such individuals forever with no need to prove that they are terrorists, because the concept of being wrongfully accused of acts one did not commit either does not exist for the right, or it doesn't matter. And I'm not sure which is worse. But the truth of it is not open to question because we've seen it demonstrated on the right over and over, including on these boards.
I think the issue is not with the majority of conservative voters, it is with the leadership that seems to spout the rigid ideology instead of reaching for their humanity.
But conservatives must demand empathy from their leaders and stop making Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney the loudest voices in the GOP.
Well said. We see far too much reflexive apologism from “conservatives”, when what they should be doing is demanding higher standards. It's no accident that in the minds of so many people, the GOP is represented by Cheney, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and similar ilk.
I don't think that its a developmental problem, but a leadership one. When voters see their leaders appealing to their basest instincts, it sometimes brings out the worst in them. We saw this during Governor Palin's 2008 campaign rallies.
The GOP's leadership bears a moral burden that they have largely abdicated.
A judge shouldn't let their personal feeling impact their judgements on the law. They are allowed to have empathy as people, but as judges they should stick to impartiality in applying the law.
I think this is an example of a blogger linking to a very good article concerning an extremely important political issue and then offering a less than satisfactory analysis of both the original post and as well as the political issue itself.
I read Glenn Greenwald's article and largely agreed with his argument. From what I know of the facts, Greenwald's criticism seemed fair, though I gather than not all of the facts regarding thethis case have been revealed. While the targets of Greenwald's accusation of hypocrisy happened all to be conservatives (a National Review columnist, former members of the Bush administration), Greenwald does go to the effort of giving credit to (and even commending) conservatives who he believes have been intellectually consistent (i.e. the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention).
I believes Greenwald's argument that certain conservatives have been hypocritical with regards to human rights is ironclad. However, the assertion one could use this argument to make the much broader argument that “the Right” itself is hypocritical on the issue of human rights is a more dubious one.
For one thing, the label “the Right” is extremely vague. It does not differentiate between social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, nor does it differentiate between antiwar-leaning paleoconservatives and pro-war-leaning neoconservatives. And for another, making broad accusations of the entire “Right” based upon specific instances of hypocrisy from only handful of conservatives is bound to result in criticizing a large segment of “the Right” who do not necessarily agree with their fellow conservatives and therefore are not deserving of this particular criticism.
I would strongly urge TMV members to read Greenwald's entire article before reading Kathy's and then to compare the two and decide for themselves which elements of each that they agree with. Greenwald's article need not be accepted as an accusation that “all/most conservatives are hypocrites on the issue of human rights.” It does, however, make a strong argument that certain people who have been strong defenders of Guantanamo and of holding foreign nationals in prison without charging them are now trying to employ a double standard when it comes to the holding of Americans in Haiti.
ADDENDUM TO ABOVE COMMENT:
I have to admit that I, myself, have used the terms “The Left” and “The Right” on a number of occasions. In many of those cases, I was simply using the words of a commenter had commented before me, and in other cases, I was employing the terms in order to purposely be all-inclusive of everyone left-of-center and/or everyone right-of-center.
When using political labels, I find it helpful to ask myself specifically “What group of people am I talking about?”
I don't think we necessarily need to define the words “left”, “right”, “liberal”, and “conservative” every time we use them. However, I thinks it is important to distinguish between certain groups.
Are we talking about liberals (people who adhere to a particular political ideology) or are we talking about Democrats (people who adhere to a particular political party)?
Are we talking about conservatives (people who adhere to a particular political ideology) or are we talking about Republicans (people who adhere to a particular political party)?
Are we talking about people who are socially liberal or are we talking about people who are fiscally progressive (two very different political philosophies)?
Are we talking about people who are socially conservative or are we talking about people who are fiscally conservative (again, two very different political philosophies)?
In discussing foreign policy, when we mention “liberal” and “conservative”, do we really mean “antiwar” and “pro-war” (which are not necessarily synonymous with the previous terms given that there are plenty of pro-war liberals and plenty of antiwar conservatives.
I think the use of modifiers would go a long way in preventing us from making overgeneralizations. The terms “liberal”, “conservative”, “Left”, and “Right” have become so broad and so vague that their usage often does more to muddle debate than to clarify it.
I don't know every person on the “Right” and there is no way for me to know them all, but I can see who their spokespeople are, and who their political leaders are, and using just that standard, I am not impressed… If people on the “Right” want me to believe that they are not pro-torture, they should drop Cheney from their roles as spokesman and fire all the torture apologist who write for their magazines, they haven't, therefor I an only assume that they approve of torture…
” the truth of it is not open to question because we've seen it demonstrated on the right over and over, including on these boards”
If you imagine and insist, and say so, Kathy. I wouldn't be surprised.
Great point DQ.
If the right's leaders chooses stances that do not display empathy it doesn't mean every conservative lacks it– it means they should be demanding new leadership. The movement's leaders represent the members so— the members need to voice their opposition to some of these policies instead of being apologists for them.
Not many conservatives want to admit that they listen to and agree with Beck, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, et al– but these commentators have huge audiences in the conservative community– so there must be MANY who either agree or who don't have the guts to protest.