The Republican Party and assorted right wingers have used the occasion of President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, in conjunction with a previous Obama statement emphasizing the importance of empathy in U.S. Supreme Court justices, as an occasion to attack not only Sotomayor, but empathy itself. In doing so, they have made it crystal clear what kind of people they are.
This is nothing new. Right wingers have long hated and actively fought against any intrusions of empathy into the workings of our government. They fought against FDR’s New Deal. They fought against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They fought against the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They fought against Medicare and Medicaid. And today they fight against universal health care for all Americans.
It is very revealing that they should now be mounting a frontal attack on empathy itself. Empathy is one of the major character traits that make us human – and moral.
Empathy is the quality whereby we imagine ourselves in another’s shoes – what it is like to be that person (or animal) and experience what that person is experiencing. And it’s more than just imagining it, it’s actually
feeling it – which is where the expression “I feel your pain” comes from. Indeed, empathy is the source of morality. Just try to imagine what possible value morality could have without a foundation in empathy.
Yet it is the Republican Party that calls itself the Party of moral values. How can that be? How can a Party that has nothing but contempt for empathy claim to be the Party of moral values? The answer to that question lies in the particular type of moral values proclaimed by right wingers. They are a peculiar type of moral values that are devoid of empathy. They are moral values in the abstract – moral values that don’t require us to imagine ourselves in other peoples’ shoes. They are moral values, rather, that can simply be
asserted on the basis of being written down somewhere or proclaimed by some self-assumed authority figure.
The controversy over President Obama’s stance on empathyThe Obama stance on empathy in judicial appointees that is currently being attacked by Republicans comes primarily from
a speech that he gave as a presidential candidate, in which he commented on the traits he would like to see in a U.S. Supreme Court justice:
And we need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenaged mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges.
The Republican attack against this has been aggressive and ignorant in the extreme. Here are some examples:
Orin Hatch on empathy “What does that (empathy) mean? Usually that’s a code word for an activist judge,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said on ABC’s “This Week.” He said a judge needs to “be fair to the rich, the poor, the weak, the strong, the sick (and) the disabled.”
Lindsey Graham on empathyWell, you know, I don't want a judge to take his robe and become a politician, an empathetic politician wearing a robe. I want a judge to decide cases fairly.
Diggers Realm website on empathyThis goes against the principles of the Constitution wherein empathy has no place. Judgments are to be made based off of the law of the land and not on empathy or emotion for either party concerned. It is the only fair way that people have equality under the law in this country.
Jeff Sessions on empathyCall it empathy, call it prejudice…. But whatever it is, it’s not law…
So there you go. The right wing/Republican view of the act of placing oneself in another person’s shoes is that such an act is antithetical to fairness and our Constitution. And they even equate it with prejudice. This is the typical Orwellian Republican up is down and down is up blather. It is their typical “
Clear Skies” through the deregulation of anti-pollution laws, peace through war, and great health care for all by pricing people out of the market kind of philosophy.
The need for empathy in the Judiciary Branch of our governmentIn attempting to find the requirement for empathy for interpreting the
U.S. Constitution, one need look no further than the first sentence, contained in the preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Thus it is that three out of the six reasons that our Founding Fathers provided for the creation and existence of our Constitution are reasons that require empathy for their understanding. How can one understand what is meant by
general welfare if one lacks empathy? In the absence of empathy, one could interpret certain economic indicators, such as gross domestic product (GDP) as absolute indications of economic health, even while unemployment continues to mount. Without empathy, one could be satisfied with a “trickle down” theory of economics, whereby our nation’s first priority is to enrich the wealthy, while depending upon the wealth of the wealthy to trickle down to everyone else. There would be no need to test that theory. Merely the belief or assertion that it works would be enough to be satisfied with it. In short, people without empathy have no means of understanding the meaning of “general welfare”. Instead, they are content to rely on a host of untested ideologies and arbitrary indicators to tell them when the needs of our country’s people are being met.
A right wing understanding of “liberty”The same thing can be said about “liberty”. Without empathy it is not possible to ascertain the meaning of the word, since it is a word that applies to subjectively felt human needs. Without empathy, one could believe that a starving and homeless person with no means to improve his lot would be “free”, as long as there were no laws that specifically required that he be starving and homeless. A person without empathy would merely assert that starving or homeless people must rely on the so-called “free-market” to give them a chance at having a decent life.
George Lakoff, Professor of cognitive science and linguistics, discusses the conservative idea of freedom and liberty in his book, “
Whose Freedom – The Battle over America’s Most Important Ideal”.
The focus of (George Bush’s) presidency is defending and spreading freedom. Yet, progressives see in Bush’s policies not freedom but outrages against freedom. They are indeed outrages against the traditional American ideal of freedom… It is not the American ideal of freedom to invade countries that don’t threaten us, to torture people and defend the practice, to jail people indefinitely without due process, and to spy on our own citizens without warrant…
It applies to just about every issue. Take the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which had the effect of keeping poor people (though not wealthy corporations) from declaring bankruptcy in the face of overwhelming debt – in most cases debt from emergency medical care. This will keep tens of thousands of families enslaved to debt, often at the cost of their homes! It was sponsored and passed by conservatives. It was an anti-freedom bill…
Freedom and liberty are progressive ideas that are precious to Americans. When the right wing uses them, it sounds as if aliens had inhabited, and were trying to take possession of, the soul of America. It is time for an exorcism.
In other words, far from facilitating the use of reason, as those right wingers who disparage empathy claim, the absence of empathy leads to the kind of tortured logic described above.
Specific examples of the need for empathy required for interpretation of the U.S. ConstitutionIt’s not just the
reason for our Constitution, as specified in its preamble, which points out that its interpretation requires empathy. Our Constitution is filled with such examples. In Article I the Constitution specifies providing for the “general welfare” as one of the responsibilities of Congress. Here are a few other examples:
The 4th Amendment notes that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” How can one who lacks empathy understand what it means for another person to “be secure”. Without empathy, one could only understand what it means for himself to be secure.
The 5th Amendment specifies that a person may not “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” I’ve described above how people who lack empathy misinterpret the word “liberty”. Similarly, the interpretation of “just compensation”, “justice”, or “fairness” requires empathy. Without empathy, one can understand only what it means to be fair to one’s self. The concept of fairness to other people is not interpretable to one who lacks empathy, because such a person is not capable of imagining what that concept means from another person’s point of view, or from the point of view of other people in general.
The 6th amendment says that “The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial….” But what is meant by a “speedy” trial? Such a phrase has no meaning outside of the context of the needs of real human beings. There is no specific time frame by which our Constitution defines “speedy trial”. A judge requires empathy in order to put that phrase in the context of human needs.
Our 8th amendment says that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” How does one define “excessive” bail? A person without empathy would most likely think that “excessive” refers to a specific monetary amount that has nothing to do with the means available to the imprisoned person. The maximum amount of bail allowed would be identical for billionaires and paupers. And what is “cruel” punishment? The difficulty that a person who lacks empathy would have in interpreting the meaning of “cruel” punishment explains why so many right wingers are so accepting of the torture practiced by our government over the past few years.
Our 14th amendment says “… nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” Again we have the words “liberty” and “due process” – phrases that cannot be interpreted in the absence of empathy.
An example: Brown v. Board of EducationOne of the most important, respected and progressive U.S. Supreme Court decisions ever rendered was
Brown v. Board of Education. The importance of this decision is
explained here:
By declaring that the discriminatory nature of racial segregation ... "violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws," Brown v. Board of Education laid the foundation for shaping future national and international policies regarding human rights. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education. The laws and policies struck down by this court decision were products of the human tendencies to prejudge, discriminate against, and stereotype other people by their ethnic, religious, physical, or cultural characteristics. Ending this behavior as a legal practice caused far reaching social and ideological implications, which continue to be felt throughout our country. The Brown decision inspired and galvanized human rights struggles across the country and around the world.
To this day, right wingers claim that this decision was an example of “judicial activism”, in that it created new law. But it did
not create new law. It interpreted the 14th Amendment to our Constitution, recognizing that “due process” cannot exist when prejudice and discrimination guide government action. This decision required the recognition that prejudice and discrimination were written into our public educational system – thus making that system unconstitutional according to our 14th Amendment. The recognition of this problem would not have been possible without empathy.
Right wing moralityRight wingers who disparage empathy and are enraged with the idea that our government should consider it a
good thing clearly don’t understand what it is, nor its necessary relationship to our Constitution or good government in general. It is probable that their inability to understand what empathy means is due largely to the fact that they have little or no personal experience of it.
George Lakoff discusses what this means in terms of the so-called “culture of life”, which so many right wingers boast about, consider the cornerstone of their morality, and try to impose upon their fellow citizens:
So-called pro-life conservatives are typically in favor of the death penalty… They favor conservative policies that result in America having the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world… These deaths are a result of conservative policies against prenatal and postnatal care, universal child health insurance…, Medicaid…
If they were really pro-life… they would support programs for pre- and postnatal care, health care for all children, programs to feed and house the hungry and homeless, antipollution programs, and safe food programs. Instead, they let strict father morality dominate over issues of life – that the poor are responsible for their own poverty and that they and their innocent children should suffer for it, and that government should not interfere with corporate profits through public health regulations for clean air and water.
Indeed. Right wingers should stop their pathetic whining about empathy in government.
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