Our society is dying from a deprivation of empathy.
As our hearts harden, the state of our hopeful, unified futures dissipates. It is seen in the way people have shared more empathy to AI chatbots and more outrage from The Stranger Things finale than to the real 5-year-old children being detained by ICE.
We scroll on our feeds to see news of the start of a war sandwiched between “Punch” the Monkey and his mother from IKEA and the recent trailer for the long-awaited season three of Euphoria.
What really matters gets buried under fluff and distraction – our empathy along with it.
The news of undeniable footage of unlawful arrests ignited the nation. The new realities for many across the United States inspired voices that have been equally as loud as they have been suppressed. Podcasts and commentary videos are polluted with back-and-forth debates arguing who owns what land and who cannot be human simply because of the borders we made up ourselves.
But injustice does not need a label for validity. It’s blatant, happening right in front of our faces, yet everyone still turns a blind eye while keeping their mouths busy and fingers pointed at each other.
We have become so desensitized to tragedy and violence that we have lost ourselves in fighting each other, winning arguments, and satisfying our superiority complexes. We’re fueled by competition and a fear of being inferior. No one holds themselves accountable anymore. No one wants to be wrong.
And a growing sentiment that plagues our society is the unspoken complacency of privilege through the idea that we, as individuals, have no power; therefore, we should just feign ignorance and remain in apathy, an attitude people mask as staying neutral and “considering all sides”. Often, people’s outward indifference hides their internal, truer stance, what they hide behind an easy word. Really, it is a disservice to them as much as it is to others. Why would you not want to speak out for what you believe?
Turning a blind eye comes with a privilege to be able to decide whether or not you save others, a privilege to be unconcerned as long as it doesn’t affect you; a privilege to say, “Not everything is political”; a privilege to pick and choose whose blood is lighter to bear.
Whether you notice it or not, we have all conditioned ourselves to care about being correct and superior. But in this chase for recognition and moral validation, we lose sight of what really matters; human decency, unity, compassion, empathy.
The “correct side” of it all will always be the acknowledgement of the hurt and the understanding of those whose voices have been taken away. The superiority of being human is having empathy.
Since society leans into selfishness more and more, we can explain empathy as a tool of power, a means of self-gain. That seems to be the only way empathy might sound appealing in our political climate.
Empathy is self-beneficial. To recognize and acknowledge another is to see yourself because humanity survives on reciprocity. Your tears are our tears. You laugh and we laugh. Imagine the world deprived of tears and laughter because none of us have the heart to return them.
Selfishness and empathy are two sides of the same coin. Our growing radical tendencies–the extreme opinions on both sides–however, have stuck the coin on its side.
People think empathy is to give, to share, to donate. It’s not. Empathy is a trade. As we give, we are given so much more in return than what we had before. It is an all-rewarding human exchange. Empathy is what selfish people should crave.
Despite the routine atrocities we learn of through the news or even witness just across the street, considering the growing locality of it all, so many of us have turned numb and dormant, out of fear, out of complacency, out of hopelessness, or out of social, academic or professional reprimand.
And, ironically, those who watch without empathy internalize the darkness they witness. How can they see with their eyes and hearts closed? Imagine being trapped in such a body, how lonely it might be to feel only yourself and be so unaware of others to never fully be aware of your own.
So wake up silent majority. Stop arguing with the person standing next to you and give a hand to the person beside them who has been knocked down; maybe then you’ll finally realize that you too lie eye-level with the fallen and look up at the person provoking you.
This is not to say stop talking about the important things; do spread the word, yell about it, advocate for it, but just make sure you aren’t forgetting what truly matters. Don’t be so absorbed in yourself as you fight for others. Don’t call self-gain activism.
Educate yourselves. Think for yourselves. Truly, deeply care. The world, humanity, depends on it, on you.
Within such an overwhelming state our world currently lies in, every single one of us needs to self-reflect. Differentiate our selfishness from empathy, knock over the coin stuck on its side. Start noticing, start caring, start feeling.
It doesn’t matter if you wave red or blue, because partisanship blinds us from impartial compassion. Simply care for others no matter who they are. That is the side we should all be on.
