There are growing calls lately for people to be more compassionate, understanding and empathetic, among other things — and it’s easy to understand why; humanity is only just beginning to emerge from our relatively cold, brutal, fractured roots.
But are these calls genuine, and are they supported by concepts, notions and positions that stand the realistic chance of actually producing that which is being called for?
Or, to take a more pessimistic approach, what are the chances that these calls have been hijacked by malicious individuals and ideological causes in order to claim moral superiority and to demonise and dehumanise anyone who dissents from the acceptable views?
The reason I feel the need to ask these questions is because I’ve observed a common tendency of people to behave in ways that are contrary to what it is they claim to want, especially when it comes to matters of society and the world at-large…
Compassionate people imposing their perspectives on others and enforcing them with violence. People of understanding acting out in rage and ignorance when disagreed with. Empathetic human beings celebrating true carelessness towards some who lose their livelihoods, or even their lives, because they don’t like the person or because they don’t belong to the same in-group or perceived identity group.
What strikes me about most of these cases is that the people who engage in these behaviours don’t seem to be aware of any of the contradictions between their theoretical calls for peace and the behaviours which manifest the exact opposite. To them, these things are either completely justified with some loose rationale, or just something to overlook and laugh off.
Examples of this are replete throughout social movements that are hyper-focused on identity, where many who claim to be victims of oppression and violence will often initiate violence as a means of silencing dissenting viewpoints, offering up vague justifications of how the peaceful dialog they moved to censor was actually “violent speech,” and that they had to resort to violence to “protect their community.”
“If any assent is to be reached in human affairs, it must be by the result of the whole common consciousness; that is, by the linguistic process, or it will not be reached at all” — Charles Ernest Merriam
If what we want is any kind of civilised world, which is what many people claim to want and is a world I’d personally like to be part of, then we need to recognise the truth behind Charles E. Merriam’s words above and put a hell of a lot more emphasis on the need for respectful communication. We can use this to our lifelong advantage, and it would serve a great deal more in leading us towards any kind of peace rather than acting out like some kind of emotional wreck because someone’s words, or just how we perceive those words, makes us feel uncomfortable.
If people are not genuinely interested in a civilised world and are instead focused on scoring points for their ideological agendas, using actual violence and oppression to fight perceived violence and oppression, all the while claiming to want peace, compassion, empathy and understanding, then they run the very real risk of having to live constantly stressed and anxious at the state of the world that they are helping to create in realtime.
Beyond that, they will remain forever ignorant of and constrained by their glaringly obvious contradictions, or at least they will until something pushes them into the painful position of having to undertake the monstrous task of reconciling them.
Effective communication is one of the most powerful tools we humans have to bridge our differences and to prevent violence and oppression, and, like Jacque Fresco said in the context of us growing up, “we need to learn to disagree with each other without getting angry.”
20–25 years ago, before the rise of social media and the relatively free flow of information that the internet has made possible, a great majority of the conversations the public are now having were not being had. They were mostly confined to specialised, designated areas and professions, and, when they were had, they were largely hampered and restricted to what people remembered about what they had heard.
And what they had heard, when it wasn’t word-of-mouth, was decided and delivered primarily by the corporate media.
I remember being a teenager, being “woken up” to certain things about the way our world was heading, and being endlessly stressed that I couldn’t find anyone to talk about these things with. Now, that has changed. A lot more people are becoming interested and aware than there were before, and they are talking openly.
My concern now is that, as divisive ideologies co-opt a great many people’s energy and attention, they will find in them endless reasons to encourage censorship and oppression of speech, expression, and educational interest.
After all, it has always been for the purpose of some grand ideological goal that oppressive tendencies have been leveraged and rigid concepts of what is acceptable have been superimposed on people — not as genuine attempts to promote peace, compassion and empathy, and certainly not to foster understanding, as real understanding will generally threaten the stranglehold that ideology has over people’s awareness.
If unity, peace, or civilisation is what we want, then I suspect that we need more communication, not less, and we certainly don’t need a disconnected team of distant bureaucrats deciding what’s acceptable or not for us to discuss.
We are damn fortunate to be in this position and to have the capabilities we now do, and it’s time we start to appreciate that and using it to our benefit.
“The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men — cries out for universal brotherhood — for the unity of us all.” — Charlie Chaplin
