Oh, I meant here as well as Tumblr. I considered replying there, but I hate reblogging text for discussion.
Not only do we have to guard against our own potential to do evil, which is the easiest task here really, but we have to learn not to look away when other people do evil, just because they look like us, and they are nice to us.
Excellent point! I consider "evil by omission" to be totally evil, and the thing is too many Germans were not only passive bystanders but active supporters of the regime.
Is it really that hard to empathize with dying children?
I think it is psychologically hard. Sympathize, sure, as in "Oh you poor things," and I do mean things--objects to be gawked at, to be pitied, to be saved. But to empathize--to enter into their stories and lives, even to acknowledge that they had lives and stories of their own, to feel what they felt, to realize that this could have been you, that is painful and it makes the world feel less safe.
Obviously it is moral cowardice not to take this conceptual leap of empathy. To withhold empathy is to cling to a fantasy of safety at the cost of disregarding and perpetuating oppression. I know that temptation as someone who has always been in the majority or at least a tolerated minority, the temptation to hold myself aloof from the oppressed and tell myself it could never be me and they must be less human or must have done something wrong. I can see why others give in to it, which does not make it any less inexcusable or wrong.
I am reminded of James Baldwin's words from Stranger in the Village: "People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." Innocence becomes monstrous, willful ignorance when maintained for the purpose of shielding one's self from the discomfort of reality. I agree it is very much the logic of abuse and the enabling of abuse: Your personhood matters less than my momentary comfort. I will deny your humanity for as long as I can just so I can feel safe.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2015-04-18 04:33 pm (UTC)Excellent point! I consider "evil by omission" to be totally evil, and the thing is too many Germans were not only passive bystanders but active supporters of the regime.
I think it is psychologically hard. Sympathize, sure, as in "Oh you poor things," and I do mean things--objects to be gawked at, to be pitied, to be saved. But to empathize--to enter into their stories and lives, even to acknowledge that they had lives and stories of their own, to feel what they felt, to realize that this could have been you, that is painful and it makes the world feel less safe.
Obviously it is moral cowardice not to take this conceptual leap of empathy. To withhold empathy is to cling to a fantasy of safety at the cost of disregarding and perpetuating oppression. I know that temptation as someone who has always been in the majority or at least a tolerated minority, the temptation to hold myself aloof from the oppressed and tell myself it could never be me and they must be less human or must have done something wrong. I can see why others give in to it, which does not make it any less inexcusable or wrong.
I am reminded of James Baldwin's words from Stranger in the Village: "People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." Innocence becomes monstrous, willful ignorance when maintained for the purpose of shielding one's self from the discomfort of reality. I agree it is very much the logic of abuse and the enabling of abuse: Your personhood matters less than my momentary comfort. I will deny your humanity for as long as I can just so I can feel safe.