Another factor strongly effecting how we express our natural inclination towards an empathetic response, relates to our culture. Humans are susceptible to the power of ideas and attitudes as is no other creature. They possess the unique ability to mentally travel in space and time, projecting themselves out of the moment back to the past and into the future. Being able to mentally put ourselves out of the moment enables us to think critically about the past and take steps to protect ourselves in the future. Because of the lessons learned from our past we have strategic resources ready at all times for future crises such as famines, fires, extreme weather, earthquakes, and pandemics. Our ability to focus on the potential future enables us to carry out complex endeavors that can take decades if not centuries to complete such as building systems of aqueducts, and gothic cathedrals.
While projecting ourselves out of the current moment has greatly contributed to our unparalleled success, it unfortunately has also enabled humans to act with violence and cruelty in the name of “the greater good.” Convincing themselves that their actions are necessary to protect their loved ones, humans can plunge bayonets into adults and children alike, impervious to their pain.
Our ability to focus on possible future events, and abstract ideas rather than our immediate circumstances, make humans highly susceptible to the stories we create. One aspect of stories is that they can connect some people by demeaning others. For most of our human journey, the majority of narratives have been in support of what Austrian social system scientist Riane Eisler calls a domination system. Domination systems elevate some to vast wealth and power and debase others as inferior, a potential threat, or both, pitting one group against another. In such systems, males are pitted against other males and females, tribal, racial, ethnic, religious and national groups are pitted against one another, and humans are pitted against nature.
The stories we tell and the powerful cultural, religious, political, and educational platforms from which we tell them establish and perpetuate domination systems. Over time we have developed increasingly effective methods of conveying these stories utilizing state of the art technology as reflected though song, writing, print, telecommunications, and the internet making them nearly impossible to resist.
Thus far in human history, the way that humans are susceptible to being shaped by ideas and attitudes has mostly been manipulated to reinforce systems of domination for the benefit of a relatively small group of people. For thousands of years, ideas providing the rationale for elevating some and debasing others have been deliberately promulgated. By convincing some people of the lack of humanity in others, elites and their followers have gained and retained power and wealth, at least until captured by a different group of elites. Powerful narratives of the inferiority and/or the threat of others have justified brutality, violence, and indifference to suffering.
Stories that dehumanize and debase other groups are not only harmful to those targeted but also damaging to those who fall under their delusional spell. The basic premise such stories represent can result in a life filled with disgust, suspicion, anger, aggrievement, and righteous indignation. Such thoughts and emotions can easily translate into a desire to commit a wide range of aggressive acts including deliberate neglect of fellow humans in need, and violence, either in retaliation for perceived misdeeds, or for pre-empting anticipated aggression.
When we fill our minds with angry alienating thoughts and feelings, our human experience is diminished. Humans who engage in aggressive, violent, or other antisocial behavior are not optimized but functionally diminished in some vital way. Brain scans reveal that, compared with healthy humans, in those with low levels of empathetic reaction the activity levels in areas associated with such reactions appear attenuated, and the structures associated with empathetic reactions indicate impairment[1]. Responding to such individuals in an informed and rational manner should not dehumanize them nor justify their mistreatment, but instead be focused on mitigating harm.
Fortunately, over time humankind has been developing an ever-expanding empathetic sensibility, greatly facilitated by a new way to spread stories other than the traditional or official narratives. The advent of print made it possible to tell an entirely new kind of story to millions of readers. This advance was the beginning of a culture moving slowly towards evermore empathy, sensitivity, acceptance of diversity, and even some compassion for people who threaten us.
Unfortunately, individuals and groups who have pursued power and wealth by spreading dehumanizing ideas have also deployed state of the art technology providing the toxicity that produced the previously mentioned atrocities from the past three centuries – and that was only a partial list.
The newer stories which broaden our empathy and impel us toward an ever-expanding sense of extended self-interest, hold the promise of a world where human potential is far less wasted, and access to a happier, more empowered life is universally available. Overall, society has been moving increasingly in this direction. Earlier in human history, our ancestors engaged in behaviors which we would regard as completely unacceptable.
In premodern society a male competing for a mate might kill the infant of a competitor to enhance his chances of reproducing. Other motivations for parental and non-parental infanticide included sexual selection and conservation of limited resources. Today, were we to witness infanticide as a reproductive strategy, or for any other reason, we would regard the act as deranged, criminal, and unquestionably not the behavior of an emotionally healthy person.
Just a few hundred years ago, watching a condemned person be tortured to death was compelling entertainment, drawing masses of spectators. Today, anyone desiring to commit, or to witness actual torture[2] would be widely regarded as deranged, sociopathic and criminal. Similarly, during the American institution of black chattel slavery just a century and a half ago, at least one fifth of white people in the United States considered it legal and acceptable to kidnap Africans and force them and their descendants into lifelong captivity and servitude, and subject to horrific violence for non-compliance. Today anyone who would kidnap and try to keep another person in captivity under the threat of torture would be considered both mentally ill and criminal.
Sadly, in our contemporary society, hatred of people outside one’s own group endures and there continues to be far too many acts of violence. But having ever-increasing access to stories and information which help us imagine ourselves in the place of people who may seem very different has helped us make our mainstream culture less tolerant of acts of hatred and violence that were once commonplace. As the stories we tell increase our sensitivity to others, our willingness to even passively support such violence is consistently diminishing. And we will significantly support the transition from a dominator society to one that is egalitarian and compassionate when we tell a more accurate story about our human nature.
Naturalistic Humanism provides a new non-fictional narrative about our human experience. In combination with a steadily increasing volume of research, literature, art, and public engagement this narrative will enable the ongoing expansion of our natural empathetic capacity. Traditional societal narratives imagining human nature as selfish, greedy, disinclined to contribute, and violent result in a destructive self-fulfilling prophecy and the delusion that our ultra-competitive system of excessive reward or disproportionate hardship is appropriate and the only alternative possible. With the catastrophic impact of accelerating technological change with lagging social progress looming, it is a delusion we can no longer afford.
Changing our societal narrative characterizing some people as worthless or undeserving is also crucial with regard to the psychological problems which seem to motivate perpetrators of violence.
“All violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem.” – James Gilligan
In his book, Preventing Violence, American psychiatrist James Gilligan argues that in modern society, where we condemn individual acts of violence, what drives violent behavior is a desperate need to compensate for a deep unyielding sense of shame. As mass murder and gun violence in the United States has risen significantly in recent years, our need for a new societal narrative in which we cease denigrating others is imperative.
[1] See https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00695 and https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024175240.htm
[2] The word torture, as it is being applied here, referrers to forcing an unwilling victim to agonize and suffer as pain and damage is inflicted. It does not refer to scenes presented on stage or screen that are scripted and performed for an audience that knows what they are watching is fictitious. Nor should it be confused with consensual dominant-submissive erotic power exchange.