When Empathy Gets Biased and Outrage Takes Over: A Wake-Up Call

I learned a lot in the last week. A lot about people I know and don’t know.

I am seeing sides of people about issues I didn’t even know were out there.

Social Media is a volatile place.

I searched and obsessed within my mind of how to digest the stuff that happened last week. The effect the social media climate had on my day(s) after. The fighting and lines drawn by so many (different lines, different reasons, differing opinions).

Then I saw these two posts.

This one is about our addiction to outrage: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOb_Fb0kdkc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

This one is about our empathy bias: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOdrtoAjtHk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I haven’t stopped thinking about either of them.

I now have started seeing the addiction to outrage. How much we love sharing, liking and talking about something new to be outraged about.

What has outrage done for you in the last year? Has it made you feeler closer to someone? Has it made you feel further away from someone? Has it helped you sleep better? Has it made your day better? Has it made your day worse? Has it made you conversations more heated? Has it made conversations about nothing related to said outrage worse? How has it helped you? How has it hurt you?

It has hands down made days of mine worse.

It has made situations that I am in have a tense undertone that is because of the outrage NOT because of the thing that went wrong.

I am actively observing this happening around me and in my own interactions.

The second one really twisted my mind. I have never realized that Empathy is biased. It kind of has to be because it would be hard for you to understand so many humans different ways of life and be empathetic. It’s hard to understand what someone has gone through that grew up in a different state or country and with a different color skin or different family structure, etc.

I have often said since the George Floyd situation that I can not imagine life being scared of policemen. When I was in high school and at a party, drinking, if the party got busted by cops, I wasn’t afraid of the policemen, I was afraid of disappointing my parents, family and people in school. While there are people out there that would take their parents as the safer place than being caught by a cop. How can I be empathetic for something I have never felt?

So reading this post this week made me realize how true it can be that we give our empathy to people we think deserve it or to people we can relate to more than not. Perhaps I am one of the few people that think like this. I don’t know.

I see a lot of outraged people who think different from each other.

I see a lot of evidence of truth that exist at the same time (someone can be good and still do bad things) and people being angry with each other for not being enough of whatever they have decided is true (insert whatever side you are on here).

I see SO many people putting others into categories because that is what we have been shown and influenced to do, yet those categories aren’t nuanced enough to fit so many people.

It feels like the puppet masters are getting to the climax of their shitty story and no one knows what side things will land on but we all have no choice but to hang on for dear life and hope to pick the “correct” side of history.

Although, at the end of the day, it seems like we all want the same things. I try to pay attention to the folks that I know I disagree with heavily and every time I do that, it feels obvious that we want the same kind of life, we just get there on two different paths.

Isn’t that the best part about being a human on earth? We get the freedom to live the life we choose. Problems seem to arise when we try to impose influence over too many people in unjust ways.

And if social media no longer existed, would we fight a tenth of how we do now?

I miss the days where I didn’t know my parents voted the way they did because it didn’t matter to me. Nor did I know how religious or not religious someone was. When news channels weren’t for “entertainment purposes only”. I want to go back to liking someone because they helped me with something or we had a good conversation. Not unfollowing people because their incessant posting consistently ruins how I thought they were a decent human being.

Or how often people put me into a category when they already know what way I show up in life and whether or not I would be there for them or their families if they really needed something. But I voted a certain way so they think I will taint their children if I get too close..

I am still combing through feelings about all of it. Seeing how far people are taking the news of last week. Seeing how distracted we all are over who is right and wrong and not the people that got us into these messes. I am not sure anymore if I am more displeased with the government of elected humans or the corporations or specifically social media companies that built the systems that are tearing us apart and changing the way we live.

I hope where ever you are reading this from, you are safe and happy. Even if it’s just for the day.

😊 Good luck out there, - Tanya