Empathy & Views

I watched Lion of the Desert today, a movie from 1979 about the brutal 1911-1931 Italian occupation of Libya.

It is interesting how we allow ourselves to experience empathy with those we sympathize with, and not the others. There is no rational reason for this, but may be a cultural and emotional one.
We are taught by our culture to split the world up in us vs. them, right vs. wrong, good vs. bad/evil, etc. In our perception, we split the inner world as well as the outer.

Some Examples

Most Norwegians experience a great deal of sympathy with ordinary Iraqis, partly since the Norwegian media show their suffering and takes it down to an individual and village level. There was and is predictably a great deal of opposition to the Iraqi war in Norway, and to the US international policies of violence in general. The views allows the empathy to come up, and the empathy supports the views.

In the US, the media typically does not show the immense suffering of the Iraqi people. Instead they focus on the de-personalized "war game" aspect. To the extent it is taken to a personal level, it is all about the soldiers and their families. Again predictably, there is a relatively strong support of the war in the US. To the extent the support is waning, it is more connected to the cost in money and dead/wounded US soldiers. The views block the empathy, and the lack of empathy supports the views.

Tools

Finding ourselves in this situation, where we are trained to open up for empathy with some and not others, what can we do? Fortunately, there are many and very effective tools. Some of these are Nonviolent Communication (seeing the valid/real needs behind the strategies), Buddhist mind training (expanding compassion to all beings as we all have the same basic needs and desires), and activities such as Bowing to our Adversaries.

These work surprisingly well, and the effect is lasting if we keep it alive. As we continue keeping it alive, we deepen our empathy and our ability to open for it in more situations.

But we do need the motivation to seek change. And this motivation comes from realizing the immense suffering we create for ourselves and others when we operate from a split view. One where there is a near absolute separation between them and us, where we allow ourselves to see only some as human and not others.