In this weekend's Globe and Mail, Amira Elghawaby asks, "Where has all our empathy gone?" That's a question a lot of us are asking after Charlottesville. Here in Canada, Elghawaby writes, we have no reason to look down our noses at out neighbours to the South:
The events in Charlottesville, Va., are only the most recent to explode on our screens – and while this is happening more apparently in the South, many agree that Canadians have nothing to be smug about.
For instance, why is it that until now our federal government has refused to provide adequate support to Indigenous children at the same level as other Canadian children and to cease what the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled is discriminatory treatment? Why aren't Canadians writing en masse to the federal government, demanding positive action? Is it because many of us cannot imagine what it's like to live on reserves, with poor and inadequate housing and limited access to subpar education?
The tragic case of Soleiman Faqiri of Ontario is another example. Last December, the 30-year-old Canadian Muslim man was being held in solitary confinement at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont., waiting for a bed in a mental-health facility. He never made it. A coroner's report released to his family last month did not determine a cause of death, yet provides a horrific snapshot of his final hours: After an initial confrontation, he was beaten by a large number of prison guards, suffering more than 50 injuries – to his forehead, face, torso and limbs, the result of blunt impact trauma. Why is there little public outcry about this case, or others like it? Is it because most Canadians have never experienced what the Faqiri family is now going through, still waiting for accountability, seven months after losing their loved one?
A recent study done at UC Berkeley suggests that being wealthy and well off crowds out empathy:
By measuring how those with more wealth, occupational prestige and education behaved while driving, they were able to conclude that those from more well-off backgrounds showed less empathy than others.
Luxury-car drivers were more likely than others to cut off other motorists, or speed past pedestrians, rather than give them the right of way. The researchers concluded that such attitudes were likely attributable to feelings of freedom and independence that negated the need to rely on others, or care about how others feel.
When governments and political parties are mostly concerned with wooing middle- and upper-class voters, it is small wonder that there is less focus on more niche social-justice issues, and more on issues perceived as directly affecting those broader segments of our society. When governments do buck the trend, segments of these privileged populations will often push back aggressively, attempting to drown out those less equipped to engage.
The search for the goose that laid the golden eggs leaves all of us in poverty.
Image: Mortgage Compliance Magazine
8 comments:
The transaction costs of modern living are crushing the middle class, and giving the poor a ladder with no rungs to climb.
Absolutely true, Steve.
Our species has an amazing capacity to see only what it wants to see, Owen. Thanks for a very thought-provoking post.
The insight isn't mine, Lorne. And it's certainly nothing new. But some lessons have to be continually relearned.
"Where has all our empathy gone?"
To a great extent most of us have hit empathy fatigue. The nightly news has dozens of new crises and traumas and dire warnings. We go through the motions and emotions and do what we can and simply give up because it is all so overwhelming and relentless.
I'm convinced that most of us cannot function well in large communities. Oh, we can pretend. We can work for huge corporations, we can spend half a day in traffic jams, we can reside in man-built caves but do we know our neighbours?
That's a good point, Toby. It's hard to feel empathy for your neighbours when you're isolated from them.
It is easy to feel compassion for one or two refugees or others having a particularly difficult struggle. It is difficult, if not impossible, to have equal compassion for millions of troubled people no matter how much stress they have to cope with.
It gets harder. I know everyone who posts here has carefully written letters to their elected representatives and discovered that no one cares. There are some among us who can get official attention but most can't. (I suspect that I'm on an ignore list.)
Most of us are on that list, Toby. But, the more they hear from us, the harder we are to ignore.
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