Empathy Twice Removed

I was thinking for several days now on how to approach this topic. The Supreme Court in the U.S. passed down a judgement that was met with considerable condemnation by the U.S.’s allies (rightfully so in my opinion).

Just to recap: after decades of coordinated effort by a very vocal minority, lobbying and stacking the courts, the current overwhelming Catholic makeup of the Supreme Court had its say on abortion. They did not only rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (which was the law brought to them), but decided to go a step further and overturn both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). And despite this being expected due to a previous leak of the draft, it still either made people extremely happy, or depressed.

The whole idea of life beginning at conception is deeply rooted in Catholicism and Christianity (but not present in Judaism as far as I know). Initially, I thought to talk here about organized religion and its far reaching consequences (the court has made it clear on several other rulings that they don’t care about the separation of church and state).

But as I was thinking about this topic, I started to realize that there is perhaps an even bigger issue at play here. And to me, that is the diminished empathy of our society.

To be clear: there are some people who don’t feel any emotions (psychopaths, or, those with antisocial personality disorders if you will). People like that have, to our knowledge, been present throughout human history and I don’t think we have any reason to believe their numbers have changed significantly.

Instead, the issue at hand is the wedge that technology is driving between us people, distorting our humanity and seeing each other as less than.

I think the most obvious example can be observed by looking at the history of warfare. The most extreme act that we people can inflict on each-other: killing. Human history is of course interwoven with violence, but for the longest time killing was a very personal affair. If one person wanted to kill another (for whatever reason), they had to come in close proximity of each other. Not only that, but with a lot of early weapons used through history, from clubs to spears and even swords, it was a very messy affair to say the least. Someone really had to put in a whole lot of energy for a decisive swing that fatally wounded the enemy. And if the enemy didn’t die, then the soldier would have to strike again, trying to kill them one blow at a time, amidst agonizing screaming and terrified look in their eyes.

Expanding onto that, most leaders were at the very least present on the battlefield with their soldiers if not outright fighting. In fact, a capable leader was able to rally the troops, boost their morale and turn the tide of battle. Also, contrary to the dramatization of historical battles in movies and fantasy, real life was way more boring. Sometimes armies would face each other for hours, nobody wanting to make a move. No heroic charging into the fray. That was not only suicidal, but also very inhumane. Killing one person is bad enough, but being faced with the prospect of killing dozens? No sane person would ever want to do that unless there was a firm belief in it being necessary. Even still, it was incredibly difficult to do so.

As the years rolled by and technology progressed, there were more ranged weapons added to the fry and in particular, with the invention of gunpowder (and its adoption in Europe), the killing became increasingly easier. Push of a trigger can mean a life taken, often from afar. In fact, going into even more recent times, the killing blows can be administered via remotely controlled drones – not risking the lives of the soldiers in the process. The leaders too increasingly issue commands from various hubs and control rooms, not having to personally expose themselves.

One last thing – the efficiency and creativity of ways to kill each other became so insane to where we had to set rules of war; what is admissible and what not and just collectively decide what type of weapons are just completely out of the question.

So the transition from up and personal to very far removed I think very explicitly shows how empathy can become a far away thing. Dehumanizing people before and during fights. And it is then only the aftermath of people’s actions (like PTSD) that lingers.

And so too is, in my view, the issue of abortion an example of it being far removed from our eyes and ears. The so called “pro life” people (in actuality, they are only pro birth – don’t care what happens after) are vehemently advocating for abortion to be illegal in any shape or form. It’s easy to have that stance if you don’t have to deal with the ramifications of it. But consider this: how many people would still have that stance if they were forced to hear all the horror stories? How many people would continue to support a “pro life” stance if they had to look a 10 year old girl in the eye and tell her that she’s to give birth after being raped? How many would tell a pregnant woman that it’s God’s will both she and her child die?

In case of abortions, it’s much less evident (and talked about) than with weapons. These are deeply personal decisions and contrary to what some people would lead you to believe, no sane person would ever just happily choose an abortion. It is a difficult and soul crushing decision which some (many?) end up regretting. So it’s only natural that people don’t openly talk about it and share. Often times, abortion stories are only heard decades later. It’s convenient and easy to think that by being “pro life” we’re saving innocent unborn babies while in all actuality, removing access to abortion is putting countless lives at risk.

And all of that doesn’t even take into account how forced and unwanted pregnancies completely fuck up the growing fetus in utero, predisposing them towards antisocial personality disorders. Those babies than in turn may grow up end up killing many other people. This, while in my view completely possible, does come more towards speculation and fiction.

Finally, addressing the court’s decision. The judges too are trying their best in detaching themselves from any consequences. During the confirmation hearings not a single one was honest about overturning Roe v. Wade (although everybody who was paying attention knew that was coming). They all claimed it to be “the law of the land”, refusing to straight up own to what they would eventually end up doing. Even in their court ruling, they don’t have the decency to admit what this is all about – taking away human rights and using the “states rights” as a convenient excuse.

In other words, over the years it has become increasingly easy to see people as just numbers, to average and approximate human behavior and offload hard decisions onto others. People will often say things like “well it doesn’t affect me, so I don’t really care” or “I didn’t do it”. Like I talked about in the blog last month, personal accountability is hard – much more so when we have to own up about our role in something larger than ourselves.

At the end of the day, there are many things that we people disagree on and that’s a beautiful thing. Discussion and compromise are important. However, there are some basic human rights that I hope we’d finally get to acknowledge and implement, much like the prohibition of certain weapon usage in warfare. Because here’s the crazy thing: most humans agree on at least a very basic understanding of human decency. It’s just that sometimes, certain issues get presented and talked about that obfuscates the truth and lets us forget we are all people and thus our empathy is twice removed.