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Single Group Empathy is Self-Defeating Bigotry [1]

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Date: 2023-12-07  

When empathy isn't mutual, it enables hate and then violence. Single group empathy is self-defeating bigotry.

As a Jew, the growing incidence of antisemitism terrifies me. So does mindless mob violence. Acquiesce to state-sponsored mass murder terrifies me the most. The Holocaust is unique because it represents all of that at an unimaginable scale. However, from the massacres of the Crusades to the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, it's a repeated phenomenon. U.S. history is replete with hate-driven ethnic murders of Native-, African-, and Asian-Americans. So, the rise in hate and violence against immigrants, Muslim, Asian, and LGTBQ people terrifies me too. We should each know that when any hatreds get a pass, "I could be next!" Our humanity demands both empathy for and defense of one another. No exceptions!

The long arc of history teaches us that people– either in blind rage or organized premeditatively–are capable of inconceivable brutalities. Hamas's October 7 mass murder falls into that continuum. Retributive wars that collectively punish the innocent do as well. Of course, unequivocal condemnations are in order. But denunciation is insufficient to end the persistence. Sometimes, the perpetrators must be stopped with force. But, when we fail to ask how, when, and under what circumstances war is required, we risk becoming the monsters we condemn.

Any hope to contain our worst tendencies must start by asking collectively, “What conditions and ways of thinking promote or curtain the human capacity for inhumanity?”

One of the most meaningful quotes for me, not just as a Jew but as a human, comes from Rabbi Hillel in the 2nd century:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?

Ancient in origin and contemporary in import.

Ethnic and religious hatreds and divisiveness are not constants. They ebb and flow. For a time, the images of Nazi death camps caused many in the world to shrink back from the horror. But, not for long. The death of Nazi refugee Henry Kissinger, an architect of all manner of realpolitik murders in the name of asserting American power, highlights just how short the ebb in state-sponsored slaughter lasted.

In the post-WWII period, the United States gained credibility as a defender of democracy and human decency in its leading role in defeating fascism. Quickly, the U.S. relinquished its legitimacy by overt and covert support for dictators and suppression of struggles for human rights at home and abroad. Not without strident, frequently violent resistance, the U.S. civil rights movement and movements for national self-determination gained moral traction in the wake of the defeat of Germany’s ideology of murderous ethnic cleansing, and aggression.

Lessons learned? Too many took away, "I must only be for myself because no one else will be." Others learned the lesson of interdependence and common struggle: “I am not free or secure as long as others are not. My freedom cannot be contingent on depriving others of theirs”

Here we are again. Cheerleaders of Hamas’s ideology or terrorism, or spouters of antisemitism are not for freedom or democracy. Neither are those who spew Islamophobic or anti-Palestinian tropes. Defenders of Israel’s by-any-means-necessary-war on innocent Palestinian civilians don’t stand for freedom or democracy either. Those whose empathy is ethnically circumscribed are not for freedom or democracy.

Authoritarians calling on ethnic hatred are once again gaining purchase on the public’s thinking and allegiances around the world. Here at home, Trump’s demonizing ethnocentric calling card: All that matters is strength, winning at all costs, and unwavering loyalty to the leader, gained broad, divisive attraction. The absence of deep, widespread support amidst social and economic disruption and growing inequity provides the fertilizer for the ideological appeal.

While many supporters of Israel’s war on Gaza and efforts to shut down its denunciation by declaring any critique antisemitic may strongly eschew Trumpism, they are unwittingly promoting its core values.

I know the stories of Israeli’s profound personal loss at the hands of Hamas and the day-to-day insecurity of living with the threat of terrorism. I also know the stories of Palestinians who must shoulder the unbearable loss of countless family members at the hands of the IDF bombing and continued theft of homes and violence from West Bank settlers. I know the stories of the indignities of occupation. Actual empathy cuts both ways.

The slogan “From the River to the Sea” has become a strawman in defense of narrow ethnocentric empathy. I have marched with Jews, Christians, Muslims, and atheists chanting the slogan. I know unequivocally that they did not call for the death to the Jews, denial of their rights, or pushing Israelis into the sea. Rather, they called for empathy not with Hamas but a hopeful demand for justice too long denied to Palestinians.Do those supporting the effort to enact laws to taint and delegitimize any demand for freedom for Palestinians realize that many in Netanyahu's right-wing coalition intend to depopulate–ethnically cleanse–Palestine from the river to the sea of all non-Jews? Is their empathy that constrained?

Ethnocentric empathy, the inability to see the world through another's eyes and then identify with it terrifies me. When empathy isn't mutual, it enables hate and then violence. Single group empathy is self-defeating bigotry.

Arthur taught and led science professional learning and curriculum and assessment development projects for 50 yrs. He writes about education and social justice. He loves spending time with friends and family, hiking, and gardening.

Follow him:

Substack: https://arthurhcamins.substack.com/

X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/arthurcamins

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