It is a scary time to be alive. And not just because of the horrors of climate change, wage inequality, the Covid pandemic and ongoing violence. It feels especially scary because so many seemingly good people don’t seem to care about any of it. Or, if they do care, they seem to be fixated on the wrong things.
Your question about how to get others to try to get along with others is so important. I believe the key is to engage with others with respectful and considerate discourse. It's a skill that can be learned. It's a skill that can be modeled so others will begin to emulate it. It requires listening with a non judgmental ear, thanking others for expressing their opinions, finding some common ground, and using language that allows you to express your thoughts, too. It starts by taking one small step with each person. These skills are all part of how we communicate....written, oral, body language.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Allison. I appreciate it.
Thanks for your words. I appreciate your perspective on empathy and humanity—it really makes me think about how we can all make a difference in our own ways.
As always, beautifully put. I have to admit, I've also been extremely heartbroken by my family's borderline complicit attitude to the Palestinian genocide. What helped me humanise them *get it?* is to realise that our parents' generation mostly get their news from actual news channels, not social media. They only see one, very biased view of the conflict, and a view that very much serves the people in power. I also try to keep in mind that the same news channels during the 2000's promoted a similarly one-sided view of 9/11 and the Iraqi invasion, and in the 2010's of the Syrian war and following refugee crisis.
My point is that decades of islamophobic propaganda - from sources you believe to be unbiased, mind you - are difficult not to internalise, even for normally kind and empatheic humans.
these lines particularly spoke to me (among all the rest, as the entire piece did):
"Our brains are wired to filter out information so we aren’t constantly overwhelmed. Unfortunately, one of the things that is often filtered out is other people’s suffering."
"I worry about becoming too desensitized. It feels impossible to find the right balance."
"It is easier to be a human when you don’t care about humans."
"I personally think the only way to avert disaster is to do everything we can to hold onto our humanity and try to spark it in others."
This post, especially the opening of it, speaks to me so deeply especially as someone who still masks indoors and in crowded spaces and if possible isolates if I suspect exposure. I felt the exact shift you described with the people I am close to and I felt it even more deeply when I got COVID for the first time in the summer as far as I’m aware (which I hope will be my last time but I can’t guarantee it, though knock on wood I managed to avoid getting a cold or flu since pandemic started).
While I grew up in a country where we were always aware about what has been going on in Palestine long before October 7, so majority of people I know get it, but the recent events have me feeling afraid about going back to the US (used to live there for a decade before I moved back to my country) to do a doctorate. While I could do it online, I have personal reasons for why I need to do it in person.
What is helping me is remembering what Thich Nhat Hanh said “human is not your enemy.” I link that with what I learned in my narrative therapy training as a psychotherapist: the idea that people are not problems, but they are in relationship with dominant stories and problem stories and systems that invite problems. These help me reconnect to my own humanity which includes the fact that I too have had times I aligned with internalized harmful ideas and times when I too numbed myself and still do to certain injustices . It helps me have compassion for everyone without excusing their behavior but at least redirects my anger at the systems that recruited them and convinced them that what they are doing is a good idea. It helps me see that people may be caring about multiple things at the same time but systems may recruit them to center some of these cares at the expense of others. I now think I can be close to certain people around certain aspects but not around others so I have learned to compartmentalize my relationships.
Having said all that I still wish I can live in a neighborhood of friends who do care about both COVID and humanity as a whole. It is exhausting to have to always explain and re-explain my boundaries around indoor eating and to be the only one in the room who is masked.
Thank you for voicing so succinctly the feelings I’m also struggling with. This is all so much it’s too much! But I’d like to cling to my humanity too.
Thank you so much for this vulnerable, heartfelt piece, Allison. And thank you for choosing to look at the suffering of Palestinians and saying something. I know you feel alone - I hope that you are also finding others online who care about the same things you care about. It's not the same of course, but it's something.
hi allison. i have also struggled with the lack of humanity. ive been in a tough spot, where nothing feels quite right. i want to support the movement but ive also had friends who have done things and said things that have made me feel shaken. can you still put aside antisemitism when it comes to your friends, in particular, ur middle eastern friends, or only have solidarity?
As so often, you really express what I feel in such a concrete, human, empathetic way. It really makes me feel a lot better knowing that I am not alone in these worries. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and making us feel less alone!
Society often looks for scapegoats to blame for its problems. It's one of the saddest parts of the human condition that a vast number of people can be so easily manipulated to hate each other.
TLDR : People will only see humanity of other people and care about them if they have the intention to.
I don't think it is possible to get other people to see the humanity of every person. I think it is their fundamental way of looking at the world. If this changes some time in their future, it would be because of something huge that happened in their own lives. Not us convincing them that all humans must be cared about.
If someone already cares about all of humanity however, then you can get them to see how they might not be doing a great job about a particular issue. Example : of the issues you mention, I am guilty of thinking COVID has passed. But since you are saying it's still an issue, I will go look it up to know more about why it is so.
Allison, I respect your mental health advocacy...but unequivocally labeling the situation in Gaza as an 'ongoing genocide' is inaccurate, offensive, and likely to exacerbate the very tribalistic divides in our society/problematic "othering" you wish to combat. The International Court of Justice, and other subject matter experts, are in clear agreement that - despite the severe and tragic impact its had on innocent civilians in Gaza, including thousands of lives lost - the just and existentially important war against H@mas does not in any way constitute genocide. On the contrary - and, unlike H@mas, which IS, by their leaders' own admission, a genocidal movement determined to kill ALL Jews and wipe Israel off the face of the Earth - the IDF takes *extreme* measures to limit civilian harm and striclty adheres to all international guidelines and treaties.
i was treated like excrement after having a massive AVM bleed while supporting my family by transcribing from a weekly rent motel. My and my partner's defective genes produced first-born who needed $100000 of ortho procedures by age 6 and was so far on the spectrum even Waldorf was intolerable. Raising a kid in a fetid hip spica cast while transcribing drained $1000/month from my production. Having a 27-week preemie after a LEEP for CIS was another $1/4 MILLION.
I live in Eugene where our fearless leaders have creatively budgeted us into a $1/4 million shortfall balanced on animal services and the library, because defunding the cops would send wrong message to homeless..
sooooo very easy to sit all comfy and well nourished, clutch one's pearls and wring one's hands about far off genocide.
Nearly one in four (24%) children in Lane County live in food-insecure households — and for those children, hunger has lasting consequences. Teachers are often the first to see how hunger effects their students.
I was discharged to street at 1am and squatted for a week in a parking garage while jumping through the hoops of transitional housing wait list.
it's masturbation to indulge in your exceedingly wordy malarky. One assumes you also volunteer and throw money at your causes.
men start these wars. what if they had a war and nobody came.
Allison, this is beautifully expressed and I agree deeply. Here with you in the family of humanity.
Thank you for giving voice to something that is troubling me deeply. You are not alone in feeling this worry
Your question about how to get others to try to get along with others is so important. I believe the key is to engage with others with respectful and considerate discourse. It's a skill that can be learned. It's a skill that can be modeled so others will begin to emulate it. It requires listening with a non judgmental ear, thanking others for expressing their opinions, finding some common ground, and using language that allows you to express your thoughts, too. It starts by taking one small step with each person. These skills are all part of how we communicate....written, oral, body language.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Allison. I appreciate it.
Thanks for your words. I appreciate your perspective on empathy and humanity—it really makes me think about how we can all make a difference in our own ways.
As always, beautifully put. I have to admit, I've also been extremely heartbroken by my family's borderline complicit attitude to the Palestinian genocide. What helped me humanise them *get it?* is to realise that our parents' generation mostly get their news from actual news channels, not social media. They only see one, very biased view of the conflict, and a view that very much serves the people in power. I also try to keep in mind that the same news channels during the 2000's promoted a similarly one-sided view of 9/11 and the Iraqi invasion, and in the 2010's of the Syrian war and following refugee crisis.
My point is that decades of islamophobic propaganda - from sources you believe to be unbiased, mind you - are difficult not to internalise, even for normally kind and empatheic humans.
Hope this helps at least a little,
Eryk
dear allison,
thank you for your humanity. i love you.
these lines particularly spoke to me (among all the rest, as the entire piece did):
"Our brains are wired to filter out information so we aren’t constantly overwhelmed. Unfortunately, one of the things that is often filtered out is other people’s suffering."
"I worry about becoming too desensitized. It feels impossible to find the right balance."
"It is easier to be a human when you don’t care about humans."
"I personally think the only way to avert disaster is to do everything we can to hold onto our humanity and try to spark it in others."
thank you for your sparks.
much love,
myq
This post, especially the opening of it, speaks to me so deeply especially as someone who still masks indoors and in crowded spaces and if possible isolates if I suspect exposure. I felt the exact shift you described with the people I am close to and I felt it even more deeply when I got COVID for the first time in the summer as far as I’m aware (which I hope will be my last time but I can’t guarantee it, though knock on wood I managed to avoid getting a cold or flu since pandemic started).
While I grew up in a country where we were always aware about what has been going on in Palestine long before October 7, so majority of people I know get it, but the recent events have me feeling afraid about going back to the US (used to live there for a decade before I moved back to my country) to do a doctorate. While I could do it online, I have personal reasons for why I need to do it in person.
What is helping me is remembering what Thich Nhat Hanh said “human is not your enemy.” I link that with what I learned in my narrative therapy training as a psychotherapist: the idea that people are not problems, but they are in relationship with dominant stories and problem stories and systems that invite problems. These help me reconnect to my own humanity which includes the fact that I too have had times I aligned with internalized harmful ideas and times when I too numbed myself and still do to certain injustices . It helps me have compassion for everyone without excusing their behavior but at least redirects my anger at the systems that recruited them and convinced them that what they are doing is a good idea. It helps me see that people may be caring about multiple things at the same time but systems may recruit them to center some of these cares at the expense of others. I now think I can be close to certain people around certain aspects but not around others so I have learned to compartmentalize my relationships.
Having said all that I still wish I can live in a neighborhood of friends who do care about both COVID and humanity as a whole. It is exhausting to have to always explain and re-explain my boundaries around indoor eating and to be the only one in the room who is masked.
Thank you for voicing so succinctly the feelings I’m also struggling with. This is all so much it’s too much! But I’d like to cling to my humanity too.
Thank you so much for this vulnerable, heartfelt piece, Allison. And thank you for choosing to look at the suffering of Palestinians and saying something. I know you feel alone - I hope that you are also finding others online who care about the same things you care about. It's not the same of course, but it's something.
hi allison. i have also struggled with the lack of humanity. ive been in a tough spot, where nothing feels quite right. i want to support the movement but ive also had friends who have done things and said things that have made me feel shaken. can you still put aside antisemitism when it comes to your friends, in particular, ur middle eastern friends, or only have solidarity?
This is beautifully written. And it's great to see someone with a online platform continually speaking out about Palestine, when so many are silent.
As so often, you really express what I feel in such a concrete, human, empathetic way. It really makes me feel a lot better knowing that I am not alone in these worries. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and making us feel less alone!
Society often looks for scapegoats to blame for its problems. It's one of the saddest parts of the human condition that a vast number of people can be so easily manipulated to hate each other.
TLDR : People will only see humanity of other people and care about them if they have the intention to.
I don't think it is possible to get other people to see the humanity of every person. I think it is their fundamental way of looking at the world. If this changes some time in their future, it would be because of something huge that happened in their own lives. Not us convincing them that all humans must be cared about.
If someone already cares about all of humanity however, then you can get them to see how they might not be doing a great job about a particular issue. Example : of the issues you mention, I am guilty of thinking COVID has passed. But since you are saying it's still an issue, I will go look it up to know more about why it is so.
Allison, I respect your mental health advocacy...but unequivocally labeling the situation in Gaza as an 'ongoing genocide' is inaccurate, offensive, and likely to exacerbate the very tribalistic divides in our society/problematic "othering" you wish to combat. The International Court of Justice, and other subject matter experts, are in clear agreement that - despite the severe and tragic impact its had on innocent civilians in Gaza, including thousands of lives lost - the just and existentially important war against H@mas does not in any way constitute genocide. On the contrary - and, unlike H@mas, which IS, by their leaders' own admission, a genocidal movement determined to kill ALL Jews and wipe Israel off the face of the Earth - the IDF takes *extreme* measures to limit civilian harm and striclty adheres to all international guidelines and treaties.
my friend,
protoplasm is cheap.
i was treated like excrement after having a massive AVM bleed while supporting my family by transcribing from a weekly rent motel. My and my partner's defective genes produced first-born who needed $100000 of ortho procedures by age 6 and was so far on the spectrum even Waldorf was intolerable. Raising a kid in a fetid hip spica cast while transcribing drained $1000/month from my production. Having a 27-week preemie after a LEEP for CIS was another $1/4 MILLION.
I live in Eugene where our fearless leaders have creatively budgeted us into a $1/4 million shortfall balanced on animal services and the library, because defunding the cops would send wrong message to homeless..
sooooo very easy to sit all comfy and well nourished, clutch one's pearls and wring one's hands about far off genocide.
Nearly one in four (24%) children in Lane County live in food-insecure households — and for those children, hunger has lasting consequences. Teachers are often the first to see how hunger effects their students.
I was discharged to street at 1am and squatted for a week in a parking garage while jumping through the hoops of transitional housing wait list.
it's masturbation to indulge in your exceedingly wordy malarky. One assumes you also volunteer and throw money at your causes.
men start these wars. what if they had a war and nobody came.