Empathy and Its Limits

Prior to October of last year, two central values of mine were:

Stories shape our lives and help empower people across differences to develop empathy and justice.

Community is the space and time we create for care and justice in our lives.

I no longer believe in either of these statements. Part of my emotions over the last six months is morning the loss of these beliefs–and the sense of betrayal that accompanies their loss. Now I am also starting to lose my belief in empathy as well. I will try to explain, though it may be beyond words.

The past two days, Emma and I have met people on our walks. People love Emma. They want to pet her and cuddle with her, even on the street. I realized that I finally have an adequate story to make meaning of why we are here in Michigan. When people inevitably ask, where do you live, I can say, I am staying over at my father’s house dealing with some family issues before we move. I have a story that briefly makes sense of the past six months, even as it elides so much of what has happened.

There are times that I have told more of the story: the story of how our puppy bit another dog then an angry mob of bigots and bullies organized to have him killed by Animal Control; they were not successful, but they did get him banned from the county. When I have told this story, the listener feels empathy for me, quite possibly because many times when I have told the story, I have cried. Who would not feel empathy for me? Crying about my dog? Empathy or a sense of derision for how pathetic I am. Either option seems reasonable.

This morning, though, while walking I was thinking about empathy and stories and wondering, do people mainly have empathy for the person standing before them telling the story? That is, is empathy primarily emergent through human proximity rather than through an arrangement of facts? Do people hearing the stories told by the bigots and bullies empathize with them?

I imagine the owner of the dog that Tibe bit (see this is how empathy works, I am constantly imagining myself in someone else’s shoes) telling people about how Animal Control held a hearing and this vicious dog was banned. I imagine the empathic listener joining her with a sense of righteous justice. Yes, the world is as it should be, your beloved dog was bit and that other hoodlum dog was forced out of the neighborhood. Would a listener feel empathy for Tibe or does it only or at least primarily emanate from proximity, from the person telling the story?

Similarly, I imagine the other neighbors telling people about their fear of Tibe and how the close knit neighborhood spoke out together and removed the frightening threat of a dog. Does every listener think, what a strong and effective community? Does she think, these poor people, frightened by an unruly dog, but the community came together to secure justice? How can anyone counter or questions a speakers’ fears? How can rational minds ever triumph over the emotions, particular emotions that other and reinforce ideas about those without institutional and societal power?

This is why I no longer believe in community. Community is not about building more equality, building more justice; community is not about inclusion and the generosity of human spirit. Community is about enforcing the norms of dominant culture. Community is about policing racial and sexual boundaries. Community is about power and control and the disciplining of other humans. Believing in community and building community, which I have done for nearly thirty years, is folly. When the chips are down, community does not serve our highest aspirations, it functions to reinforce our basest instincts.

Stories function similarly. Stories are dependent on the narrator and the listener and the proximity of the two. Stories from minority communities can never sway the dominant stories. The sheer volume of stories being told by the dominant community can never be countered by the subjugated communities for the simple reason of power.

And empathy? I wonder if empathy is simply a tool to keep people powerless. I can imagine how other people felt in the drama of our lives, but did they think about how we felt? I doubt it. And ultimately, what we needed is not empathy but justice. Justice was elusive. The stories and community that I have spent my adult life believing in? They failed me. I am now trying to move on from this loss and find what I might believe in next.

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