An Open Letter to Empathy

To Empathy:

An interesting question was raised in one my classes this week. It asked, "Can you have too much empathy?" This question was proposed in the context of politics, specifically in reference to our empathy for people on the other side of our political spectrum.

My first response to this question, the answer that I offered in class, was no. I argued that we can be empathetic to someone's perspective and still be critical of it. That is, we can still debate while being respectful and while still recognizing that our opponent is a human being.

As class went on, however, I started to doubt what I had said. Sure, I said that I would be empathetic to others, at least enough to recognize their humanity. But then I started to think about the people who don't see humanity in others. People who judge others based on their skin color or sexuality or religion or gender or nationality. People who are hateful and intolerant. People who sit by with the ability to alleviate some of the wrongs of this world but choose not to.

Am I supposed to feel empathy for these people? I can understand where their beliefs originate, at least from a historical perspective. I can understand why their viewpoint is different than mine because of where they grew up or what religion they follow or what news network they watch. I know that we all have our own biases based on the lenses we use to view the world.

I also know that many of these people - because of their biases - will not feel empathy for me as a liberal, Jewish, young woman. Therefore, why do I have the responsibility to feel empathy for them?

And to push it further, what about the neo-Nazis and members of the KKK? If I try to empathize with them, does that only validate their opinions? Does that mean that I'm considering hate as an option?

Is it right to tolerate intolerance? Are there really good people on both sides?

I don't have an answer to this question. I'm being pulled in two different directions here - one in which I want to believe in the humanness in everyone, that no human could hate another so much as to invoke violence. But the other side of me is cynical. That side watches the news and reads its articles. That side has studied centuries of history in which human beings that were different from one another simply do not get along. My cynical side does not even want to hear what my opponent has to say because of this. That side wants to label them as the enemy, as a blockade to progress, as hateful, racist, cruel, uneducated, and ignorant.

I feel both sides of this so strongly that I simply cannot make up my mind. I don't want to tolerate hate, but does forbidding it make me intolerant and, therefore, a hypocrite?

Liberals are often accused of this hypocrisy by conservatives. Sometimes when I am in the mood to feel angry, I scroll through Kaitlin Bennett's Twitter feed. For those of you who don't know her, she is an outspoken gun enthusiast who rose to prominence after her graduation photos (of her touting an assault weapon at Kent State as a campaign for campus carry laws) went viral.

Kaitlin Bennett's viral graduation photo.

Everything she tweets makes me groan. She's everything I am not: a climate change denier, an anti-feminist, a wall builder, a pro-life supporter, and an extreme gun enthusiast. However, whenever she interviews liberals, who often yell at her because of her beliefs, she retorts that they are being intolerant of her perspective because she is a conservative.

Most recently, she posted a video from the Women's March. When the women there criticized her, she labelled it as "Toxic Feminism" because they did not support her as a fellow woman.

Of course, I disagree with Kaitlin on ALL fronts (and hate that I am even furthering her platform by mentioning her here), but there is some truth to her statement. Are we supposed to extend our empathy to people like Kaitlin for the sake of acceptance and tolerance, or do we not because she rejects those very principles?

These are questions worth asking ourselves, especially right now as this 35-day government shutdown has just come to an end - a shutdown that only occurred because of animosity between the parties.

So, what do you think? How empathetic should we be? Where do we draw the line?

Yours truly,

P.S. Current mood: