What if we tried listening to each other?

Nobody listens to anyone else anymore. Perhaps we never have. In the midst of a polarized election season, perhaps you’ve noticed?

We’re all on a side, and the thing about taking a side is that there’s always an other side — a them. And one of the central aspects of aligning yourself with a side is defining who you are against. Identifying and vilifying those on the other side is Group Identity 101. Perhaps even better than you know who you are or who you’re with, you know who you’re against. You’ll even find that who you’re with can be flexible, because what has come to matter most is who you’re against.

And they’re just the. fucking. worst. The last thing any of us would ever admit is that we’re just like them. Uh uh, no way. We’re not like that. We have lists of adjectives meant to explain all the ways we’re not like them. They’re racist, misogynistic, hateful, ignorant, stupid. They’re arrogant, elitist, smug, condescending. They lack empathy; they think they’re so superior. They lack basic human decency. And you are not like them. But the last thing you’ll do is listen to them. Other camp swipe left.

I don’t need to demonstrate that this is the case, or prove that it’s true, because you already know it to be true. You know it because it’s what happens to you. It’s your own experience; you live it. Whoever is your them, or whoever has made you theirs — they don’t actually listen to you. Every time you’ve ever tried to talk to them has reinforced this experience.

You’re with me now; you’re thoroughly familiar with this experience. Nobody is listening to anyone else, and you know that feeling well. But I don’t just mean them — I mean you. Because that’s their experience too.

That’s the part you’re trying not to notice — that you’re doing the same to them. Once you’ve finished giving all your rationalizations for why that’s not true, why you’re different (i.e., better), you can confirm it simply by asking them. You don’t really need to, because if you honestly examine your own rhetoric, you’ll find plenty of places where you have actually argued that you are justified in not listening to them — perhaps even that you are justified in discarding them altogether. But if that’s too difficult, try just asking them. If you do, you’ll discover it’s one thing they and you can thoroughly agree on: Nobody on any side feels like anyone in the other camp takes even half a moment to actually, genuinely listen to them. This is our common ground.

I’m not usually one to quote Jesus anymore — I was raised a conservative evangelical Christian but today I’m an atheist, and not the kind that thinks that Jesus guy was pretty cool, just not the religion they built around him. But something he got right is the idea that loving your friends and those like you isn’t all that impressive. The same can be said about empathy.

If you can’t find empathy for people who see or experience the world differently than you, or who find themselves on different sides of certain issues than you, what you have isn’t empathy. It’s just another flavor of tribalism.

And if you can’t listen to those you disagree with — I mean fully suspend judgment and really listen — then you’re nowhere close to empathy. Here’s a hint to get you started: If your reaction to things they say is to argue why they’re wrong or to dismiss their experience, rather than asking with genuine curiosity why they think/feel that way, that’s not listening, and it’s quite far from empathy. You’re still judging.

And if you think that listening and empathizing to those on the other side of the issues you care about most is at best an exercise in futility, because they’re wholly rotten and there is nothing of value or validity to listen to or empathize with — if you have discarded an entire group of people as rotten, worthless, and disposable…

Well then you’re just like them.

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