The Righteousness Fix

Thats sympathy. Empathy is different from sympathy.

I can be sympathetic without really empathising with someone, and I can have empathy with someone without being sympathetic. Empathy uses more energy.

Ingroups tend to avoid empathy with outgroups because that weakens the separateness between people, and ingroups try to strengthen ingroup sympathy. Pity is a form of sympathy.

Sympathy: "I feel bad for you"

Empathy: "I understand you"

Often an ingroup member will not understand an outgroup member but can sympathize with their troubles or feel pity for them. Sympathy doesn't cost as much as empathy. Empathy challenges one's ingroup cohesion.

I wonder what the author's thoughts are on "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. It mentions many clear refutes backed up by history to the idea of how bad it is for humans to be "addicted to righteousness".

For example, individuals have not and do not live by themselves in a vacuum as only selfish. We are also very group-ish, and it is the righteousness or norms of those groups that allow for things to get done. People have evolved to agree to social and group norms because those groups always trust each other more, thereby getting more done.

On how efficient secular societies are, Haidt claims: "We don’t really know, because the first atheistic societies have only emerged in Europe in the last few decades. They are the least efficient societies ever known at turning resources (of which they have a lot) into offspring (of which they have few).”

If you support secularization and the ideas of "addictions to righteousness" you have to at the very least be worried about how low birth rates are for people who believe those ideals.

Of course we believe we are right otherwise we would believe something that we think is wrong. Self righteous people want you to know that they are right and you are wrong.

But I think what the article is really getting at is that we are putting people into groups of good and bad based on what they think. We have started to dehumanize people who don't agree with us.

Is it OK to punch a Nazi?

Social Media rewards polarized, highly motivated points of view. This isn't a "both sides" thing, it's a human nature thing.

These highly polarized posts never change anyone's minds. They only make people more motivated. It can be good to be more motivated, but the cost is driving a wedge between people who are differently motivated.

So how can tech solve this?

I have no idea, but people can help by having conversations with a few points in mind:

1. You can't change their mind. If your goal is to change someone's mind, you've set yourself up for failure. Facts don't change minds, yelling certainly does not.

2. You must listen. Try to hear principles that you share. Ask questions about what motivates them.

3. Speaking from shared principles and sharing personal stories can help build common ground.

The problem? These things DON'T SCALE. I don't think this works except on a 1x1 or small group level.

I really don't know how tech can address this.