Übermensch: The Empath
When I was a young, I figured out what my superpower was. Not an actual supernatural ability…not quite. I mean it like the kids use it these days…my talent. I always had a talent for seeing through bullshit. Sure, everyone thinks they have this particular talent, but if you can’t see through the bullshit, you’ll always think you can. No one wants to be wrong. Everyone’s trying to protect their ego under a shield of righteousness. Anyone who spends their whole lives knowing what the truth is, is guaranteed to miss it even when it slaps them across the face. But I’m not really talking about right and wrong, facts or fantasy, good or bad. I’m talking about the bullshit in my own head which would otherwise prevent me from understanding the other side of an issue.
Something happens in a person’s brain when they learn. Whether its chemical or psychological, something happens to those brain cells when they store information. It’s like a switch on an industrial machine which can be locked when the machine is under repair. No one can flip that switch… YOU can’t flip that switch. Unlearning something is some magnitude more difficult than learning it in the first place. Even in the face of empirical evidence, that nugget of “truth” you learned long ago can’t be undone. No, it’s not faith…faith is belief without evidence. I’m talking about belief in an idea despite incontrovertible evidence. I call it “bias.” Bias is what blinds most people from seeing the other side…it’s the curtain hanging between your point of view and some other point of view.
It’s not that I’m not biased…sure, I am. Everyone is biased. Its human nature to have a preference which contradicts logic. We’ll even go in search of alternate logic to justify our biases. But I can turn my bias off when I want and see a different point of view. For instance, I’m a firm believer in an American’s second amendment right to bear arms. I have several pistols and a shotgun. None of these are used for hunting and I never plan to use them against any authoritarian government. I take them to the range every so often and put rounds through paper targets with the end goal of having the skill to put one through a person, if necessary, under Texas law. But after a mass shooting happens and people get killed for no good reason, I can understand the call to ban guns in America. I don’t believe it will ever happen (certainly not in the South) and if it did it would never work. But I can understand, and I agree it would be a good thing if there were no guns in America… if it could work out the way progressives dream (more on this issue in another post… don’t start arguing with me about guns right now). But yeah, that’s my superpower… I can see another person’s point of view. I know, it’s a very lame talent, but think how extremely rare it is these days.
Have a look at the goddam internet. We’re like a bunch of Lilliputians arguing and going to war over which side of the egg to crack. Jonathan Swift would get a kick out of us (a Swift kick!). People arguing for days, months, hell, even years over the littlest issues! They’ll never allow themselves to hear the other side. Family and friends have been unfriended and never speak again. It’s a sad truth, sometimes disagreement overcomes love. Were you ever really a good friend if an internet argument ends your relationship? Are you even able to have friends who disagree with you? Would you deny a friend of many years the chance to tell you their opinions about politics? Can you put your righteousness on hold for the sake of someone you love?
I’m not sure it can be taught…maybe, but you must want to learn. I put together a few steps…they’re simple but far from easy:
- 1. Shut your mouth a minute and listen. You won’t win any argument by speaking the most words regardless how loudly they are spoken or how often. Think about the last disagreement you had with someone. Of all the words spoken (or typed), what percentage came from you? If it was more than 75%, consider step 1 your priority toward learning this talent/skill/superpower.
- 2. Value their opinion. If you disagree, then you must understand what it is you’re disagreeing with. You can’t just flatly deny someone’s point of view simply because it’s not aligned with yours. That’s not an argument, it’s just ignorant. Welcome their opinion and you’ll get one of two outcomes: you’ll agree with them and become enlightened, or you’ll disagree, and you will be able to refute their opinion because you gave it merit and used critical thinking to refute it. Win-win! Or you may have a fresh take on the issue and enlighten everyone…you’re a boss!
- 3. Don’t be a dick (whether steps one and two were successful, step three is necessary). Whether you change your opinion, or the other person changes theirs, or if no one changes their thoughts about anything, keep your nasty comments from leaving your lips (or your keyboard). If you must devolve into insults and name-calling…you’re proving your incompetence as a critical thinker. If you feel you have to absolve your relationship with this person, you’re proving you are a shitty human. If you have to say something, try “Agree to disagree,” or even better, “I see your point, but I’m not convinced,” (a shrug of the shoulders at this point conveys your reluctance to continue arguing). Trust me, people can disagree and remain friends.
Okay, but these steps really only show how to argue without being an asshole. But how do you open your mind to the point it can be changed?
Several years ago, there was a progressive movement in the south to remove confederate civil war statues and memorials. I disagreed with the movement because I felt like southern pride was part of my culture. Although the confederacy existed over a hundred years before I was born, I’d grown up with southern pride (and I grew up watching Bo and Luke Duke race around in the General Lee and jumping washed-out bridges). So, I posted and paraphrased the Lithgow line from Footloose, “The devil’s not in these statues! He’s in our hearts!” And I was damn proud of the analogy (I’m happy any time I get to use a movie line amid a hot debate). But then my brother-in-law replied and mentioned how little black kids have to walk past those confederate memorials and wonder why we erect statues in praise of someone who believed in slavery and the inferiority of black people. Yikes! He’s right…it would be like little Jewish kids having to walk past a statue of Hitler every day on the way to school. I immediately replied to my BIL’s post to acknowledge my mistake (again, now is not the time to argue for guns or for confederate statues). Maybe that’s an incidental and another rare talent…putting my ego aside and admitting when I’m wrong. So now here’s step 4…
- 4. Use logic instead of emotion. This is a crucial step, and very difficult for some people. Frankly, I’d say it’s next to impossible for those personalities who depend on emotion in most situations.
- 4.a. You have to circumvent your bias, or your emotional judgement which normally dictates your opinions on any particular subject. Think of the issue like it’s a math problem on an otherwise clean slate. It involves zero emotion (other than frustration for those who did poorly in math). The other side of the equation is the result and nothing more regardless if it contradicts your liberal/conservative sensibilities (or whatever it was holding you apart from the bald truth).
- 4.b. But you also need to set aside your ego. This is where you must admit to yourself that you may have been wrong in your previous judgements (or your PREjudgements). You’ll never be able to understand something you didn’t understand before if you believe you cannot ever be wrong. Find the arc in your storyline (the arc was what made American History X such a great flick). This is very hard for some folks, and I can understand if it takes many years to master this step.
- 5. Acknowledgement. When you have the occasion to change your opinion, acknowledge it. Tell the world you’ve changed your mind. It’s not so hard…you don’t have to apologize for it. Just acknowledge your own enlightenment. You deserve congratulations for expanding your mind a little…it’s an uncommon achievement these days! You’ve found enlightenment and righteousness in a single afternoon! Celebrate it! Shine it up and wear it on a gold chain around your neck for all to see!
This final step is not necessary for understanding to take place, but it shows the rest of humanity that there are gems to be found in the pile of muck we call society.
I know, a lot of egos out in the world are much too large to be contained. Mine is not so big (the “Big” in “Big Steve” does not apply to my ego), so it’s easier for me. I guess I put more value on a having a big heart (my doctor says its “enlarged”) as opposed to having a big ego. Or maybe I value enlightenment over righteousness…I am a big fan of Buddha. In this sense, I refer to “ego” as most people do, as a person’s self-esteem…or one’s self-value. Your ego is the mirror behind your face looking inward… your autobiography which only you can read, containing infinite blank pages. It’s something that can change without losing a part of it…it constantly evolves and in doing so, becomes more than it was before. Your opinions and your values are a large part of your ego. Stop thinking of them as though they are written in stone (they’re not written on an Etch-a-Sketch either).
Isaac Asimov famously said, “People think of education as something that they can finish,” meaning your scope of knowledge is constantly expanding…if you want to expand it. Just like knowledge, beliefs can expand, and it makes you capable of infinite possibilities. You just need to be willing to let it happen. Let some knowledge in and process it logically. Then if your beliefs have not changed, fine… but you’ve still allowed yourself the opportunity and you’ve gained a new insight into your old beliefs. Its my assertion that the truth is always somewhere between the fantastical extremes… empathy and critical thinking is how you get there.
Okay, I admit I have trouble understanding some things…like why are you blasting tejano music out of your car with the windows down in my neighborhood at 2 am?…and why do you think its okay to have your phone call in the middle of Target with the speaker on full volume?…and why are you taking your six-year-old on vacation to Vegas? I’ve become comfortable not understanding these things. I can understand that I may never understand these things. And I’m working on being okay with not understanding why some people insist on being intentionally ignorant. They’ll go out of their way to avoid hearing the other point of view…as though the notion of listening to it might be toxic or infectious. I think Nietzsche understood… “Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
You’d think my exceptional empathy and fair amount of tolerance for opposing perspectives would make me a social superman… more powerful than a liberal’s motive, faster than a type A personality, able to leap political conversations in a single bound! I can do these things, sure… except it seems people are my kryptonite.
Thus spoke Big Steve