What
You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter
A Special Investigation:
China's Mass Murder for Body Parts
CounterPunch
outlines the terrible evidence that thousands of Falun Gong members
have been killed to supply China's body parts trade with the
West. Larry Lack reviews
the evidence and explains why the US government is keeping its
mouth shut. CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month But remember, we are
funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition
of CounterPunch.
Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter,
which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or
by making a donation towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now
One of the most devastating consequences
of unearned privilege -- both for those of us on top and, for
very different reasons, those who suffer beneath -- is the death
of empathy.
Too many people with privileges of various kinds -- based on
race or gender, economic status or citizenship in a powerful
country -- go to great lengths not to know, to stay unaware of
the reality of how so many live without our privilege. But even
when we do learn, it's clear that information alone doesn't always
lead to the needed political action. For that, we desperately
need empathy, the capacity to understand the experiences -- especially
the suffering -- of others.
Too often in this country, privilege undermines that capacity
for empathy, limiting the possibilities for solidarity. Two examples
from my recent experience brought this home for me.
"Pity"
party
At a Washington, DC, organizing conference on Palestine, a group
of dedicated activists and academics gathered to take stock of
the failure of the Oslo accords and think creatively about new
directions to guarantee democracy and human rights for everyone
in Israel and Palestine. Along with analysis of Israel's continuing
illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, the participants
talked about missteps in the Palestinian resistance movements
as well. Such critical self-reflection is crucial if past mistakes
are to be avoided in the future struggle for justice.
At the end of a tiring but productive day, a white male student
from a nearby college rose during the discussion period to ask
a question. He said that in his class they were being encouraged
to be critical of mainstream media and the conventional wisdom,
and that he wanted to practice such critical thinking skills
in this context, too. He challenged the panel to come up with
concrete solutions, saying smugly that it seemed the conference
so far had been nothing more than a "Palestinian pity party."
Responding to the not-so-subtle racism and nationalism in such
comments is always tricky, but as the only white, U.S.-born person
on the panel I thought I shouldn't leave it to others to call
the student on his ugly display of privilege.
The problem with privilege, I said, is that it so often leads
to incredible arrogance, the belief that one has a right to blurt
out in public anything on one's mind, no matter how uninformed
or thoughtless. I pointed out to the young man that he seemed
to have missed how much of the day had been devoted to careful
analysis without a hint of self-pity. Perhaps his question had
something to do with seeing the issue from the comfortable position
of someone safe in the United States with no direct experience
of the struggle and suffering of people in Palestine.
At that point, Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer now
living in the West Bank, stepped in and explained what life is
like in the territories. Switching gears from the legal/political
analysis she had offered earlier, Buttu described the daily reality
of negotiating checkpoints and Jewish-only roads just to be able
to travel a few miles for work or to see friends and relatives.
She described the grinding poverty of the territories, where
at least half of the population is below the official poverty
line. Her comments made it clear that this wasn't about self-pity
but about a deeply felt concern about injustices being perpetrated
and the real effects on real people. Buttu, who pointed out that
she didn't suffer as much as others in the territories because
she travels with a Canadian passport, modeled -- rather than
preached -- empathy, and the effect was powerful. She was able
to recognize that the student was young and ignorant, and that
the moment called for a correction of that ignorance but with
some compassion for him.
"Sex"
party
In a presentation on the feminist critique of pornography at
a college, I described some of the routine body-punishing types
of sex that are common, especially in the genre known as "gonzo,"
the most harsh and overtly cruel type of sexually explicit material.
A young man from the audience waited until the rest of the folks
who had questions were gone and then approached me cautiously,
saying he wanted to challenge some claims I had made.
The student said that he watched gonzo pornography regularly
and thought I had distorted the reality of such material. None
of what he watched, he said, sounded like what I had described.
"The stuff I like -- it's just movies of people who liked
to party," he told me.
I asked him to tell me more about what he watched. As he talked,
it became clear he was describing exactly the kind of material
I had discussed, and I could see the realization emerge in him:
My assessment of the rough and degrading nature of that pornography
was accurate, and he had simply never recognized it. When he
mentioned a type of sex he liked to watch in pornography called
a DP -- double penetration, in which a woman is penetrated vaginally
and anally at the same time -- it really started to dawn on him:
In these scenes, the sex was defined by men's sense of control
over, and domination of, women.
I pressed a bit more. What kind of things did the men call the
woman during this sex? I asked. As he started to reproduce some
of the terms -- all names meant to demean and insult women --
it became impossible for him to avoid the conclusion that the
pornography he had been consuming is not just sex, but sex in
which men act out contempt for women.
At that point, he stammered, "But I don't hate women. I
love women. I wouldn't use pornography like that."
That contradiction wasn't going to be worked out in the moment.
Instead, I told the student that I wasn't arguing that he hated
women but was simply pointing out he had been getting sexual
pleasure from pornography that expressed hatred for women. Why
had that misogyny been invisible to him? Why had he been unable
to see what was happening on the screen and imagine how women
might feel about such degrading treatment?
The answer is simple enough: The privileges that come with being
a man in patriarchy had undermined his capacity to empathize,
allowing the sexual pleasure he felt to override his humanity
and making it difficult for him to put himself in the place of
a woman experiencing overtly cruel and degrading treatment.
Privilege
and the empathy deficit
The student at the Palestine conference lives in a country in
which he has never had to pass through a checkpoint or justify
himself to authorities simply because of the color of his skin,
ethnicity, or citizenship. The student at my pornography presentation
lives in a society in which he has never had to fear he would
be the target of degrading and potentially violent sexual behavior
simply because of his gender. Both had learned to think of themselves
and their experience as the norm, against which the behavior
of others should be judged.
How can I be so sure of that claim? Because it's the way I was
raised as a white man of European heritage with U.S. citizenship.
Comfortable in my privilege, I spent much of my life wondering
why so many other people who didn't look like me complained so
much. I understood there was inequality and injustice in the
world, but life seemed reasonably fair to me. After all, my hard
work seemed to be rewarded, which suggested to me that those
not so well off should just work a little harder and stop whining.
Looking back, I can see that even though I don't come from the
wealthy sector of society, the unearned privileges that I enjoyed
had diminished my capacity for empathy. I had access to lots
of information, but I was emotionally underdeveloped. I could
know things, but at the same time not feel the consequences of
that knowledge. That meant I could avoid the difficult conclusion
that would have come from a deeper knowing and feeling -- that
the inequality and injustice in the world was benefiting me at
some level, and therefore I had a heightened obligation to confront
it.
As I became politicized later in my life, I realized I not only
had to learn more about the world but also had to fight to reclaim
an ability to empathize. For me, that process started at the
intimate level, by recognizing the misogyny and racism in the
pornography I had grown up with. From there, it moved to the
global, by recognizing the poverty and violence suffered by the
targets of U.S. power.
The struggle to know and to feel is never-ending, because my
privilege continues. The way in which privilege insulates us
can't simply be renounced and then easily transcended. For me,
it takes continual effort, marked by moments of real connection
with others that deepen my sense of life, as well as continued
failures to empathize deeply enough that remind me of the need
for humility. It is part of the endless struggle to be human
in a world saturated with so much suffering.
Organizing
lessons
There are two lessons in this for left/progressive political
organizing.
The first involves outreach. Everyone is aware that accurate
facts and a compelling logical argument are not enough to carry
the day politically. But that doesn't mean quick-hitting emotional
appeals based on fear or pity are the answer. We need not simply
to use emotion, but to develop collectively a deeper capacity
for empathy. That alone doesn't guarantee political victory,
but it's hard to imagine much progress without it.
Second, for those of us with unearned privilege, as we focus
on outreach we have to remember to reach in as well. Privilege
is insidious, and it works on us even when we think we have moved
past it. When we see the ugliest expressions of that privilege
in others, it's tempting to want to distance ourselves from them,
to label them as the problem and see ourselves as part of the
solution. But to be effective organizers, we have to be able
to practice empathy in all directions.
Looking back at the two examples, I can see that with the young
man struggling with his pornography use, I had been able to connect.
He was taking his first steps out of his own isolation and illusions
about what kind of "party" goes on in pornography,
and as my conversation with him ended I told him that I understood
how difficult it can be. I gave him my card and encouraged him
to contact me if I could help.
I was less successful with the student at the Palestine conference.
It was appropriate to be blunt in my comments, not only to try
to change him but to mark to the others in the room just how
inappropriate his "pity party" remark had been. But
I wanted to follow up with him after the event, to tell him that
while I strongly disagreed with his comments, there was a way
in which I felt he and I were part of the same struggle.
Unfortunately, the young man slipped out during the last panel
and didn't return. Maybe he had another engagement to get to,
or perhaps he wanted to avoid the possibility of another confrontation.
Maybe he rejected what he heard, or perhaps he went off to be
alone and ponder.
Whatever his choice, I continue to ponder, to struggle, to be
frustrated with the limits of others and with my own failures.
And I continue to plod forward.
It is in our plodding, I believe, that we can find hope for the
future. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to keep trying
to connect in a world that gives us many ways to disconnect if
we choose.
Each day we struggle to empathize, we hold onto our humanity.
Each day we stay connected -- to ourselves and each other --
is another plodding step forward.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
