Messy Reflections On The Assassination Of A Political Opponent
To be fully human requires living with and in sometimes unresolvable contradictions
This is an attempt to write through some of the complex and muddled thoughts and feelings I’m experiencing in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. These fragmented reflections will probably appear contradictory at times (though I’m not sure they are). I’m going to avoid trying to smooth those points out or make them coherent. Thanks for coming on this ride with me. Barring egregious error or add a clarifying phase like this one, I will not make any edits for content. This represents my thoughts at a very specific moment (midday 9/11). I know if I was to write this again today (9/12) it would be different, though I am not sure how. – Matt
To me, Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, was a political opponent. I did not support his message. I did not want his vision for this country to succeed.
When I first drafted the title for this article, I called him a “political enemy.” I then realized that you can oppose someone without them being your enemy.
And that’s a necessary reframing I’m going to try to carry forward.
I’m horrified by this assassination. I’m horrified at the impact it has on Kirk’s family and friends. I’m horrified by the premeditated nature of it. If it does turn out to be politically motivated, I’m horrified by the implications.
I’m also horrified that it may not need to be politically motivated to spark Federal Government actions that will have terrible impacts on our nation.
There’s more I’m horrified about, too.
I’m horrified by how things are playing out on social media (and the role of algorithms and design choices in shaping how it’s playing out). I’m horrified by anchors on Fox News saying, “They killed Charlie Kirk.” I’m horrified by this President’s reaction, including saying that he intends to go after organizations funding this violence.
I reject the idea that any liberal institutions are funding violence. I reject the idea that conservative institutions are funding violence. I hope everyone can agree about that.
If I’ve already said things that are upsetting you, then I am achieving my goal. I’d love you to take some time and think about why they are upsetting you. And then ask yourself why that was what first came to your mind. If you feel comfortable, share what you find in the comments.
I also suspect you’ll find that happening frequently as you read this. It occurred to me a lot as I was writing it. Stay curious about those feelings.
I’m also horrified by a school shooting that happened at the same time, and the impact that it is having on families and the community there as well.
I wish they got the same level of attention, outrage, and, potentially, action (most likely for the worse in this case). I also wish the residents of Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan (which no one seems to talk about) got the same level of attention.
To be human is, unfortunately, to have a limited capacity for attention. That requires us to see some people as “harmable, torturable, and killable” so we can continue to operate in the world successfully.
That isn’t to say we celebrate that they are harmed, tortured, and killed. It’s just we, as a world, have come to expect that will happen to them as a price of doing business.
School children are supposed to occasionally be murdered by people with guns (or knives). Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, didn’t belong to the “harmable, torturable, and killable” class.
I am not sad that Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, will no longer be taking action in the world. I think Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, should NOT have been killed for his viewpoints. I don’t think anyone should be killed for their viewpoints. I don’t celebrate the murder of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator. Nor do I mourn the loss of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator.
In that way, perhaps, I am honoring Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, who stated that he didn’t like the concept of “empathy.”
While I was opposed to just about everything Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, espoused, I also acknowledge that he was far more complex than his quotes made him out to be. Returning to the empathy thing, here’s the larger quote:
The new [Democratic] communications strategy is not to do what Bill Clinton used to do, where he would say, “I feel your pain.” Instead, it is to say, “You’re actually not in pain.” So let’s just, little, very short clip. Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It was all about empathy and sympathy. I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time. [source]
As someone who works in an industry that has commodified the idea of “empathy” and, in its worst practices, thinks it’s something you can develop by reading profiles of fake people and thinking about how hard their imagined lives are, I agree with Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, on this issue.
That was the first time I looked up the whole quote in context. I had sought it out to prove the difference in our thinking. I think there is a lesson somewhere in there.
I think finding agreement in small things helps keep us human. I also still reject the rhetorical strategy of “Even my opponent supports this idea.” I don’t believe in amplifying opponents. Agreement is not the same thing as alignment.
I am processing some of the centrists’ writing about Kirk’s legacy. Erza Klein, as usual, seems to be the perfect crystallization:
Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.
That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. [gift linked source]
I struggle with this vision of “practicing politics.” To me, this reads as a neutral, scientific take on what “practicing politics” means. It avoids grappling with the messy details (perhaps out of desire not to appear biased). We’re all already biased.
Without a doubt, Kirk built a very effective organization. And he seemed to really enjoy debating. His approach allowed for more opposing views to be voiced than the carefully crafted talk radio format, where everything is prescreened. Or the much more controlled debate formats that other right-wing commentators of his generation prefer. There is something to be said for that. And I just said it.
I reject the thinking that someone who used that apparatus to spread racist takes, countless lies, and stoke direct hatred for political opponents is “practicing politics in exactly the right way.” As MLK pointed out, so many, many times: polite racism is still racism. In fact, it’s arguably the most dangerous form of racism.
What is being said needs to be taken into consideration as much as the structures being built. Klein’s take feels like a “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” understanding of what it means to “practice politics in exactly the right way.”
I, most likely, tolerate it more when “my side” engages in racist takes, countless lies, and content designed to strike direct hatred for political opponents. That, unfortunately, is also to be human.
It’s also essential to recognize that we are always already biased, which impacts what we notice and don’t notice.
Turning Point and its employees have been implicated in several questionable activities. Ask young conservative and libertarian women about their conferences during the 2010’s, and many accounts of sexual harassment from staff. While Kirk was, to my knowledge, never accused of anything, the impacted folks did directly confront him, and he apparently did nothing.
That isn’t “practicing politics in exactly the right way”, nor do I think this is running an organization “the right” way either.
I desperately don’t want the killer to be a queer person, a pro-Palestinian person, a member of any minority group, an immigrant (documented or undocumented) or someone who has posted anything anti-Trump. I’m also prepared for it to be the case.
I don’t think those things should have a significant bearing on this. I also help my fellow travellers on the left will remember both these feelings and the fact that we shouldn’t be chasing collective guilt the next time a left-of-center person is the victim of violence that may be political in nature.
I have already heard from people I know who fall into some of those categories who are also hoping that the killer isn’t from “their group” because they fear collective punishment. Those fears are based in the reality of what has been happening to their communities over the last few years. Those fears are even more based on the escalation in persecution of their communities since January 20th, 2025.
I really wonder the degree to which fellow travelers on the right feel this way when people on the left are hurt and killed.
If the killer is found, I expect that they will have a history of mental illness.
I also am prepared for the possibility that the person may also kill themselves first (either by their own hand or death by cop) and remain a cypher–like the young man who attempted to assassinate then-candidate Trump over a year ago.
However, I won’t be surprised if the person is never caught. After all, roughly half of the murders in the US go “unsolved.”
On that note, I wish the heads of Federal Law Enforcement were chosen for their competency rather than their political views. Perhaps if that were the case, they might not decide to rush to social media and embarrass themselves.
Not to mention, who knows how that is affecting the overall investigation?
Additionally, given this present political moment, it would be great not to have them have known histories of publicly sharing lists of leftist political enemies they wanted to prosecute.
I also wish that Fox News commentators were not using rhetoric like “they killed Charlie Kirk” or “the left killed Charlie Kirk.” That’s eerily similar to the past media framings that have led up to civil wars and genocide.
This type of coverage also suggests that folks on the right don’t really have an issue with the concept of “systemic oppression.” They just don’t like it when it’s applied to things they support.
I cannot help but notice how different this reaction is from the overall response to the recent assassinations and shootings of Democratic state senators in Minneapolis. You know, the one that President Trump said that making a call to express solidarity and grief would be “a waste of time.”
I fear that extreme political actors on the right, and foreign agents interested in destabilizing the country, recognize the potential for state action against their political opponents. I also think most Democrats realize that this is a probability, too.
I think that says something about the different ways that the parties react to these situations. But I’m not sure if that’s my bias coming through.
Regardless, there is a categorical observable difference. Especially among political opportunists, including those in high offices:
I also wish that our social media platforms were not algorithmically optimized to value conflict as engagement. They are. And they promote conflict because engagement is the foundation of their business model.
I further wish that the second-richest person in the world (depending on who you ask) did not make the explicit design decision to allow people to pay $8/month to push their hot takes to the top of every reply thread.
As a general rule, anyone willing to pay $8 a month to have their takes seen is likely to have the worst takes.
I also wish that the same person hadn’t made their platform so LLM-friendly. Or had a more rigorous way of identifying them. The honor system only works when people have honor to start with.
If I were a hostile foreign power, I’d definitely shell out $356/year to have a blue check account that could be connected to an LLM or staffed by a low-wage worker and used to post the most awful rage-inducing content designed to drive wedges between Americans.
I am hard-pressed to think of information warfare tactics with a higher ROI–especially as reporting on what nuts are saying on social media (and making one or two nuts stand in for an entire political “side”) is low-hanging fruit for other news outlets.
Ultimately, I feel no need to honor Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, because he was assassinated. I definitely feel no need to honor Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, JUST because he was assassinated.
For me celebrating anyone’s death is ghoulish.
Yes, even Hitler. Or Trump.
No, I was not comparing Trump to Hitler. Or at least I don’t think I was. Your interpretation of that may vary.
Believing, to my bones, that the world is better because they are no longer able to act upon it in the ways they acted upon it is not celebrating their death.
It’s ok not to grieve the loss of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, even though you revile how he died.
I personally don’t want to waste any energy on celebrating that he no longer acts upon the world. I am trying to focus on applying that energy to undoing the impact he left us.
The practice you describe seems pretty awful, I would agree. Reading your bio does not really answer any questions I might have had about the statement I quoted, though.
The notion that empathy does not exist, is made-up, is nonsense. Faking it is also nonsense. Performing rote, dry exercises that are mandated by a power structure is also nonsense that is likely to produce little to no results. Most corporate DEI initiatives are like this. They are in support of a goal that I endorse and advocate for, and yet don’t seem the slightest bit effective in advancing that goal.
So where does empathy come from?
I’ve seen it stated that some people just aren’t born with any. That may be. It also seems that one can gain a grteat deal of advantage in certain business or political situations, particularly in negotiations, by appearing to not have any (even if you do).
So, many things in our culture push against empathy and any expression of it. In a healthy person, in a healthy group, empathy and resolve(?) should have a dialectic, a conversation. Neither one “wins”, but which tool is used depends on the situation. there is an ebb and flow.
We do not actually know whether this was an assassination of a political opponent. The suspect is a young-appearing, male-appearing, White person wearing a Disabled American Vets t-shirt and apparently armed with an unusual and pricey Mauser rifle.
It is most likely to be political, but we are not there yet.
@Jay L. Gischer:
I am increasingly coming to the belief that most people are not born with many things we think are “standard install” on humans. Having done enough work around the topic of acute childhood experiences, I believe that things like “empathy,” “sympathy,” and countless other critical life skills need to be taught, modeled, and practiced.
I also believe that any individual person’s “hardware” (or for the sci fi among us “wetware”) can make that process harder if not impossible. And that can be because they were born “on the spectrum” (using that in the colloquial sense) or because of post-birth environmental factors (lead being a huge one).
As for my profession, I’m in the UX design field. And this is an essay written by someone I really admire that speaks for my position on the way it’s been commoditized and bastardized by designers and “design thinking” over the last two decades:
https://uxmag.com/articles/stop-bastardizing-design-with-false-empathy
This gets to my point about agreeing but not aligning with Kirk’s statement. I have no idea if he believes in what you call developing “true empathy.” I’m also not curious to dig any deeper. I personally don’t see much in my limited view of what he did to suggest he cared about true empathy. So while I agree with his criticism, I cannot align with his overall direction.
I think I agree with your gist here. In my professional life I have cared for trauma patients in some form for over 40 years. I have seem what it does to families to say nothing of the actual victims. So I feel bad for this guy and his family. It should have never happened. That said, in my view his death isn’t much worse than some other people being murdered. Sure, it has political overtones and there may be fallout, but otherwise as you note he made his living as a political activist. Not really any more added social value in his life than lots of other people who get killed. Probably more than your average drug gang member and less than some innocent killed in a driveway gone bad.
Steve
Many years ago I read an article about a man who was head of the Flat Earth Society. Eventually, his house burned down, destroying his library of books. When I read that, I felt a pang.
In more recent years (as I mentioned in the open thread), flat-earth beliefs seem to be on the rise, and one thing I’ve learned from reading about them is that a lot of the people are hardcore anti-Semites. I guess when you reject the whole edifice of modern science to that extreme degree, it leads to the idea that there’s a giant conspiracy to cover it up, and we all know who the traditional supervillains in those sorts of beliefs usually turn out to be.
I find it much harder to empathize with someone when what they advocate isn’t just stupid, but hateful, and resting on ideas that have caused great harm. The person loses even more empathy points with me if their embrace of such ideas is a calculated choice based on cruelty, rather than getting sucked into it due to naivete.
And it’s especially hard for me to take kindly to being lectured at by those on own side to bend over backwards to be compassionate and civilized when we can see clear as day that the other side never extends the same courtesy to us. Matt mentioned the recent killing of the Minnesota lawmakers, but I was also thinking of the GOP’s reaction to the attack on Paul Pelosi.
P.S. A side note. Clinton’s “I feel your pain” was something he said to a heckler at a 1992 campaign stop. In context it sounded borderline passive-aggressive, an attempt to neutralize someone who was being rude and disruptive by pouring honey on their vinegar. The quote is often incorrectly attributed to a moment during one of the debates when the candidates were responding to an audience member who asked George H.W. Bush how the economic problems affected him personally. His response was taken to sound overly technocratic and out-of-touch, while Clinton’s response was said to project empathy, though he never used anything close to the words “I feel your pain” during that response. It was kind of a partisan reversal of the infamous moment from the 1988 debate when Dukakis gave an overly technocratic-sounding response to the question of what he would do if his wife were raped and murdered. Neither side has a monopoly on being criticized for an inappropriate lack of emotion in addressing an issue, but the emotion the GOP demands always seems to be about how bloodthirsty one is willing to be.
@Michael Reynolds:
There is no question in my mind that (a) Kirk was a political opponent (to me at least) and (b) that he was assassinated using the definition of the word:
What happened yesterday definitely meets the core definition.
I attempted to be really careful to refer to this as an assassination and NOT a political assassination for precisely those reasons.
I saw that after writing this. It didn’t change anything I wrote so I didn’t see the need to include it.
FWIW, I’ve seen some researchers into Right Wing Movements comment that Kirk was not particularly liked by those to the right of him (and, in particular, the Nick Fuentes) crowd. Or this could have nothing to do with politics.
@Matt Bernius:
Yeah, I misread the sentence. Not necessarily the shooter’s political opponent, but yours. Got it. Belatedly.
I know what this looks like, and things more often that not are just what they look like. But let’s keep a tiny door open for the possibility that this is not what it seems. The shooter fled the scene, so he intends to survive. Who sits in their garage engraving ‘trans ideology’ on a brass casing and leaves behind an unusual weapon, while intending to escape? Granted scared people, especially scared crazy people, do weird shit, but this picture is not clear.
@steve222:
Thank you for doing the Lord’s work (or profoundly essential and challenging work if you’re more a secular humanist).
And that captures one of the core tensions in this.
@Michael Reynolds: That shooter looks like a White Supremacist Bugaboo Boy to me. Or someone form of far right accelerationist. The hat, glasses and long sleeved t-shirt with an American flag. Very right-wing coded.
The shot was either very lucky or very practiced. And a plan to get away. I’d guess military training.
Of course, it could also Kirk’s gay lover, upset that he hasn’t left his wife like he promised. Or any number of other scenarios. But my money would be on right wing accelerationist.
Do the dumb political betting sites that let you bet on who will win this nomination or that race also have shooter’s motivation? I think they’re leaving money on the table if they don’t.
@Kylopod:
Yup. That’s why empathy, like hope, is a disciplined practice.
Also, I tried my best to separate Kirk, the political commentator, from Kirk, the human being. That latter Kirk, or, rather, his friends and family, deserves some empathy (or perhaps sympathy). I have none to spend on the former.
Ugh, I realize that I’m now struggling with the concept of “deserves.” That can be read as suggesting they did something to make themselves deserving. That isn’t my view point. Or rather, I think simply being born is enough to make everyone deserving of some empathy.
And that doesn’t mean I personally want to celebrate his death–even the death of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator. I’m still trying to work out the right words to describe how I feel about him no longer being able to take direct action in the world. For me, that’s a positive thing. I’m not sure if it’s so positive that “celebrate” captures those feelings.
For me, this gets back to my personal movement away from “intent.” I’ll never know why Kirk did anything — especially not what was calculated and what was naivety (or something else, or a mix of many things). I know that the actions and impact of Kirk, the political commentator, did not align with my view of ethical living or making the world a better place.
I also suspect there are people who will read this who would say the same thing about me.
I don’t read this specifically as directed at me. If it was, I would really appreciate if you can talk more about what aspects led to that impact.
FWIW, I totally agree. Much of this came out of the past 24ish hours and my thinking through all of the different responses I’ve seen and trying to work through what I am feeling in the middle of this.
I tried, in writing this, to take as much of a “me” centric focus as I could. So when I wrote:
That is what I think. I did not intend that to condemn others. I could have been more explicit about that. I was also concerned that this was already way too long.
I also hoped the final two sentences got some of that across:
I also agree that in this moment, barring some profound change of heart, the loudest voices calling for this to “be avenged on the left” would never offer the same courtesy to the left.
And we know because of their past actions.
I hope the do have that change of heart. But until they demonstrate it through action, I’m not changing my beliefs about what their actions would be.
@Michael Reynolds: WAT? Nobody who is trans positive would refer to it as an “ideology”. But that was on the bullet? Wow, that’s whacked out!
Simple web searches do not corroborate this…
Perhaps you are simply spinning out a hypothesis? I mean, it’s colorful, attention-grabbing, and inventive, and those are among your strengths.
@Gustopher:
Anyone who’s spent time in farm country around folks who like hunting and shooting knows that making that shot at 200 yards (or was it fit, either way point stands) isn’t that hard at all, especially when you are in a position where no one is shooting at you.
That’s before we get into scopes. Though frankly, a lot of folks could do it with the built-in iron sights.
Additionally, we have no idea where the individual was aiming. That could have been intended to be a head shot. It might have been intended to be something towards center mass. Hell, it could have been intended to wing him (though that seems doubtful).
Could the person be military? Sure. But I don’t think we need to jump to that conclusion just yet.
Also, given the competence that the current FBI has shown so far, including the leaking of unconfirmed reports, I frankly wouldn’t trust anything they say until it’s really verified. Which get’s back to the problem with having political appointees with no investigative experience and who also think they are the smartest people in the room running things.
@Jay L. Gischer:
There is an uncorroborated *RUMOR* that was on the bullet. From the NYT coverage:
That’s it. It might have been, but it has NOT been confirmed to my knowledge.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Not on the slug, but on the brass. Not scrawled with a Sharpie, engraved. So perhaps intended to be found. And what is a ‘trans ideology’ statement that could fit on basically two inches of curved brass? ‘Trans men are men?’ That’s a lot of engraving.
The photo doesn’t show the dude carrying a gun, either coming or going, and we know he carried the rifle away into the woods. So is that photo even the guy?
Details are always a mess this early, understandably.
@Jay L. Gischer:
You’re saying this on a website where everyone communicates in paragraphs with sentences filled with subjects and objects. Your average lone shooter in a place like Utah is coming from some dark non-lone shooting places. I will not be surprised if the person is trans or gay and comes from an extremely right-wing background and has been ‘radicalized’ online in an 8chan environment.
One thing I’ve noted anecdotally about antifa is that the hardcore people come from tough backgrounds. An intelligent guy who reads books and watches Dad punching Mom’s lights out on a regular basis is going to have a lot of thoughts about the patriarchy and Amerikkka. Same goes with someone who doesn’t fit in growing up in Mormon country.
@Modulo Myself: Stuff varies a lot. I want to represent for my relatives who are Mormon, though they don’t live in Utah. They are fairly trans-accepting. They are certainly not radicalized anti-trans.
That doesn’t rule out your scenario. All kinds of ideas lurk beneath the banner of any religion.
@Matt Bernius: That was a really great piece about UX design you shared. I really liked the tale of the big job she took on early on.
@Jay L. Gischer:
We in the field of psychology have decades of behavioral observation to urge society away from this cliff. Because we do know that speaking kindly and gently and doing nice things actually does rewire the brain. This isn’t new age voodoo, it’s empirical: one’s behavioral choices are not siloed off from one’s brain chemistry. Thoughts, speech, actions, habits etc. affect each other, in a constant feedback loop.
This is especially important when working with romantic couples, and in child and youth development — as the human brain is still quite elastic till ages 25-30ish. Of course there’s always exceptions, but in general, yes, forcing children to speak politely, develop the habits of niceness, do kind acts does turn them into more empathetic people at a cellular level.
So people should fake empathy. There is utility in working that muscle until the gains stick. America is suffering from becoming the kind of society where we think it’s quaint and contrived to raise kids to be superficially respectful and to say, “Yes ma’am” and “No sir.” These things are not irrelevant over the long term.
Should a large scale, longitudinal, anthropological or multidisciplinary study be done on the matter, we’d probably find a correlation between our wrongheaded jettisoning of such norms and our fraying communities + regressive backsliding.
Charlie Kirk, R.I.P., was wrong.
@Michael Reynolds:I can buy a Mauser 18 in 30-06 springfield right now for about $700 plus tax/fees. It’s not a rare or hard to find gun and 30-06 is a popular hunting round that was developed for the military over a 100 years ago.
I doubt they used a rare old Mauser that was converted to 30-06. It’s most assuredly just one of Mauser’s hunting rifles that they still produce.
I would caution you against taking anything the NYT says that is gun related at face value. The staff doesn’t seem to care about accuracy..
@Matt:
Somewhere I saw a reference to it as an ‘old’ gun, and I’ve been all over the intertubes and don’t recall where. But I take your point when it comes to reporters and guns. (Which is the end that goes bang?)
@DK: You are the expert on this, not me.
I get some sense though, that we aren’t talking about the same thing. Or that maybe I am employing more nuance than you understand. This is fairly typical with the way I communicate, much less a reflection of you.
For instance, let’s talk about my strategy to develop more sharing among my children. My policy, which I articulated to them at a still young age was that they didn’t *have* to share their own stuff, but if it was *my* stuff that I had given to them, they *did* have to share. I also said, “I like it when you share.”
This worked acceptably well, while maintaining boundaries and acknowledging consent. I am concerned with both these things, which are in a dialectic.
Another situation like this came up when we tried to redirect a young man (13 yrs old about) away from a habit of bullying and violence that he had picked up in school. Also he was impulsive.
I was very wary of trying to bully him out of bullying. It seemed to reinforce the life strategy he had employed, and would likely only produce the sort of sneaking around that my older sister employed on my father – shortening her skirt at school, sneaking out the window at night, and so on.
So we focused on simply slowing him down. One thing we did was this: He played the cello and enjoyed it. We first had to all get on the same page that violent language does not work in todays environment and he needs to walk away from it. Curiously, his mother was the one most resistant to this. Then we told him there was no place for that behavior in the dojo and we needed to see change before he came back (he liked coming). Finally, we had him play pieces on the cello at half speed, just to encourage him to learn to slow down, particularly in moments of high feeling (which music can provoke).
This seemed to work. There may have been other factors at work, I don’t know. But he’s a good kid now. I went to his Eagle Scout ceremony, and what he said was brutally frank, “I was kind of an asshole before, but i’ve figured things out and Scouting helped” Not an exact quote, but good enough.
Again I am not trying to contradict you or say you are wrong. You are more of an expert than I am.
AND, I am trying to apply what I have learned about your field in my field, rather than in a therapists office.
SO, the thing I was referring to is certain kinds of forced training that is non-consensual, and checks boxes.
Whereas the link Matt posted above rejects that, and talks about a longer-term commitment an “engineered empathy”. I think she (the writer) is on the right track. Should you choose to read it, it will probably seem opaque at first, referencing a bunch of things you haven’t heard of. But then it gets down to details and actual stories that really work and make sense.
@DK:
You can affect your own mood by doing something as easy as smiling. It shouldn’t work, but it does. I call myself a reformed sociopath because I was, at best, indifferent to the effect I could have on the world and the people around me. I learned empathy. People think if you practice empathy you lose your edge and can no longer be a prick. Sure you can. Hello!
The proof of learned empathy is in its opposite: we regularly teach people to suppress empathy. It’s called Basic or Boot Camp, depending. What you can suppress in yourself you can augment.
@Michael Reynolds:
MR, THANK YOU for that bit of wisdom. I had not thought of it that way before, and I will use that going forward. That’s a great gift on a crappy day.
Thank you, Matt, for this piece. Humanity is always timely, but today, especially so.
@Matt Bernius:
Well, I am full of insights.
That’s weird, every time I typed ‘insight’ it tried to autocorrect to ‘bullshit’. Damn AI.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Fantastic!
@Michael Reynolds:
QFE. At first glance, such things seem trivial and corny. Perhaps so, at a micro level, I our world of serious and tragic problems. On the macro level, if hundreds of millions were deploy otherwise minor and unimportant interventions, they do have impact.
@DK:
On occasion, when I’d talk to kids questions of good and evil would come up. My own kids too, come to think of it. I would point out that evil always looks attractive. It’s dramatic, it’s decisive, it wears Hugo Boss uniforms. Good is not dramatic, or decisive, it’s mundane. Good is you show up and do your job, and do your best with your kids, and despite the pressures of life, you show some grace. It’s billions of acts of compassion and competence and decency. It’s flashes of courage. It is tiny acts of kindness. Good never looks as cool or as irresistible, but there are 8 billion of us alive. In the end a billion acts of decency have more power than even the worst evil.
Is what I’d say writing for kids and not for a bunch of jaded politics junkies.
I was just re-reading the story of Horst Wessel’s assassination.
Let’s just say it sounds familiar.