Conservatives and liberals both perform vital functions in a society.
Conservatives offer caution, hopefully preventing rash decisions whilst still allowing progress to take place. This is essential.
Liberals seek growth, propose risk-taking, and prevent stagnation. Hopefully not at the cost of stability. This is vital too.
On the conservative end of the spectrum, yesterday morning, Pauline Hanson tarred everyone in the Flemington flats as migrant drug addicts and alcoholics. She proceeded to advocate letting them rot.
As I listened, one question rung in my mind, as loud and as clear as the MCG siren.
“How can she have so little empathy?”
Then I caught myself.
Asking ‘Why doesn’t Pauline Hanson have more empathy?’ contains the assumption that empathy is an unambiguously good thing. Like chocolate. Or waterslides.
That any sane person should leap to experience it at any opportunity and in any form. That everyone wants as much of it as possible in their lives.
Why then, given that obvious truth, is this person wilfully refusing the precious chance to observe others deeply, and see within them a universal human reflection of themselves?
Lessons from Stand-Up.
Twenty years of performing live stand-up comedy has taught me a few key things about humans.
Here's a tip for the budding stand-up. At any gig, from a pub basement to an arena, the FIRST thing you must do, and quickly is to set the audience’s minds at ease.
This is because your audience does not want to see you suck. No-one is too good for this rule.
You might think “Uh, yeah! They’ve paid and they want a good show.”
But that’s not what it is.
Audiences don’t want to see me or anyone take a bath in front of them, because watching someone die on stage is an emotionally painful experience.
It’s watching someone try their best and fail. It’s watching someone beg a room full of people to like them and be humiliated.
Every person in that audience has done both of these things, albeit in grandma’s clothes. We’ve all been both of these people and we remember acutely how painful it is.
We don’t want to see it, because when we see it, we feel it. We feel it because humans are empathetic creatures.
The only people who enjoy watching someone die are psychopaths. For the rest of us, it’s like we’re dying on stage.
Empathy IS an unambiguously good thing. But it’s not like chocolate. Or waterslides.
Empathy is hard.
It hurts.
Followed through to its conclusion, it’s transformative.
Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, feeling what they feel remarkably quickly leads to understanding just how much that person is just you in different circumstances.
And that has consequences.
You can’t call them drug addicts, alcoholics, immigrants, or whatever other arbitrary line you draw to justify tossing their concerns aside.
It’s very inconvenient, especially if that’s your political MO.
Feelings. Right-wing heartbeat. Right-wing kryptonite.
No, empathy is utterly terrifying. No wonder there’s a large part of society who want to avoid it at all costs.
Putting yourself into someone else’s shoes before you judge them might mean forgiving your Dad, your evil sister, or your shitty ex.
It might mean acknowledging that structural racism and sexism exist. Or just generally accepting the fact that you don’t experience the world in the same way as other people or groups of people.
No wonder Pauline rails against it angrily whilst we tut, cocksure in our disbelief.
But here’s the thing. We all do it.
For some of us, it’s not thinking too much about what happened for our smartphone to end up in our hands. Or our cheap clothes. About where the meat in our meal came from.
The reason that right wing parties thrive in bad times, is because behind all their policies, rhetoric, the nice, easy take home message is ‘You’re fine, none of this is your fault. Don’t think about it too much. Oh, and hate anyone who tries to make you.”
You’re not the problem, they’re the problem.
Any problems that you hear about are either made up or the people don’t mean what they say because they have a political agenda, next question”
Forgive me, but given that politics is the treatment of citizens under a government, and that’s all of us, doesn’t having a political agenda just mean ‘being alive’?
It’s hardly a criticism, unless you’re really saying you wish these people were dead. Ahem.
The price to be paid, and change.
Empathy necessitates change, of ourselves and eventually, our societies. And, as we all know, change is hard.
Change challenges us.
Change demands courage.
Change promises transformation and growth, but threatens pain and discomfort.
Pain and discomfort are why it’s ironic that Pauline chose alcoholic and drug-addict as her smears of choice.
I think that the ultra-conservative and drug addicts have far more in common than they might like to think.
Both addicts and ultra conservative people don’t feel in control. Both feel scared.
Both seek to remedy this, but in different ways.
Conservatives try to gain control by subjugating their environment.
Addicts try to gain control by subjugating themselves.
In both cases, they’re not actually gaining control, only the illusion of it.
What is alcoholism or drug addiction but a compulsive, out of control desire to control oneself?
To even momentarily, not be the wounded, tormented people that we are?
Most addictions, be they food, sex, drugs, gambling or blame are behavioural demonstrations of a desire to escape PAIN and DISCOMFORT.
Temporarily at great cost through repetition of whichever that person’s chosen addictive behaviour is. But hey, it sure beats taking responsibility.
As any addict will attest, healing and recovery only comes with great honesty and introspection.
Accepting that we can’t control everything.
That as scary as that is, it’s okay because everyone’s scared, just like us and that, just like you scream about it being okay to be white, that it’s okay to be scared too.
Maybe that should have been the slogan the whole time?
Reality. And its inconvenient left-wing bias.
Healing from addiction and fear means acknowledging that we do not exist apart from others. We all live in the same world. In a very real way, what happens to one of us happens to all of us.
That compartmentalising ourselves and our societies is only ever a temporary solution.
Ultimately, the only thing that truly heals, is connection with other human beings.
Connection requires trust.
And empathy is integral to trust.
Trust is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and seeing them understand that to hurt you is to hurt themselves, and then being kind to you.
I’m sure when Pauline Hanson puts herself in the shoes of the people she disparages she doesn’t seem them being kind. She certainly doesn’t see herself in them.
Pauline and her supporters are control addicts. Frightened people scared because they feel that their country is out of control.
That there’s US, WE’RE from HERE and there’s THEM, THEY’RE from THERE.
And that THEY are what’s making HERE not HERE anymore.
Pauline’s answer is to double down on Here and There. Us here, and them there.
But this requires segmenting and controlling the world and demanding everything in it conform. It’s exhausting one, and impossible in the long run two.
Sadly, even achieving it temporarily only reveals that the source of your pain wasn’t the people you vilified, but the sadness and fear within yourself yourself. Soz.
So I say to Pauline Hanson and her supporters the same thing I say to most addicts, and it’s as true when I say it now as it was when it was said to me.
I appreciate that you’re scared. We all are. But your addictions aren’t an excuse for the pain you cause people.
You’re not as alone as you think you are. We’re all here to help when you’re ready to take take a deep breath, step into the unknown, and grow.
Come out and join us. Wade into the sea we’re girt by.
The water’s fine. Trust us.
Yianni Agisilaou - 11 September, 2020
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