"Why isn't everyone else as angry about this issue as me?"
November 5, 2023 1:35 AM Subscribe
Can you point me to any research (or good opinion pieces) about social apathy during global crises? My partner is doing a lot of political activism around a current big violent conflict, and is struggling to understand why most people are just "carrying on, pretending everything's okay, when children are being killed". Help them understand?
I understand my partner's legitimate frustration. But it's tearing them (and their friendships) apart, so I'd like to help my partner understand the social and psychological reasons why most people are less engaged than them, and why we don't all jump to help in a crisis when we logically know we should.
To be clear, I'm not looking for reasons why we shouldn't worry about politics. I'm hoping these resources might reveal effective ways for my partner to empathetically and usefully engage people who are politically apathetic/frozen/disengaged.
I understand my partner's legitimate frustration. But it's tearing them (and their friendships) apart, so I'd like to help my partner understand the social and psychological reasons why most people are less engaged than them, and why we don't all jump to help in a crisis when we logically know we should.
To be clear, I'm not looking for reasons why we shouldn't worry about politics. I'm hoping these resources might reveal effective ways for my partner to empathetically and usefully engage people who are politically apathetic/frozen/disengaged.
I would guess that most people who don't seem to care believe that they won't be able to make a difference (and somewhat understandably in my opinion). If people are dying, the system is corrupt. If you're brave enough to take on a corrupt system, it could quite easily take over your life. So 2 problems with that: most people already have a lot going on and may be already at max and also a fear of failure which really seems to affect most people to the extent that they won't try things they don't have a good chance of succeeding at.
I wonder if giving a specific small (time-wise) action they could take along with an example of how that action has succeeded in the past might help. I still think that cold-calling/stopping people on the street is unlikely to help based on people's misperceptions about this kind of thing. Social media seems like it would be better. I see people on Reddit amping each other up about helping others to the extent that they really can effect change.
posted by Eyelash at 3:27 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
I wonder if giving a specific small (time-wise) action they could take along with an example of how that action has succeeded in the past might help. I still think that cold-calling/stopping people on the street is unlikely to help based on people's misperceptions about this kind of thing. Social media seems like it would be better. I see people on Reddit amping each other up about helping others to the extent that they really can effect change.
posted by Eyelash at 3:27 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think for some people like your partner, anger is a way with dealing with the terrible things in our lives. I imagine the process goes something like this:
Terrible events -> distress and feeling powerless -> brain redirects distress into anger, which is easier to cope with -> anger fuels action (activism) -> action gives feeling of having "done something", no longer being powerless, which causes relief.
Additionally, and muddying the issue, activism is coded morally upright, like you are a better, more moral person, than "apathetic" people. So you get to feel good about that, too.
For me the process is more:
Terrible event -> distress -> anger -> complete inability to turn feelings into anything but depressed inaction and incoherent raging.
As my partner says: "my feeling worse doesn't make anyone else feel better".
So my strategy is: avoid the news. If cornered by news, funnel money into humanitarian projects so the active among us get the monetary support they need. I have the money for this, many don't. I have the spoons, am not normally hanging by a thread, chronically ill, living in poverty etc. Many don't.
I think it's not the feeling that's important but the doing.
I think your partner may be conflating "feeling things" with "doing good" with "being a good person". This is doing their relationships a disservice. Your partner is an activist because, when faced with the injustice around them, they can't imagine anything else that could alleviate their own intense distress. For other people, getting this angry would just exacerbate the distress and make them less able to act usefully.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:29 AM on November 5, 2023 [35 favorites]
Terrible events -> distress and feeling powerless -> brain redirects distress into anger, which is easier to cope with -> anger fuels action (activism) -> action gives feeling of having "done something", no longer being powerless, which causes relief.
Additionally, and muddying the issue, activism is coded morally upright, like you are a better, more moral person, than "apathetic" people. So you get to feel good about that, too.
For me the process is more:
Terrible event -> distress -> anger -> complete inability to turn feelings into anything but depressed inaction and incoherent raging.
As my partner says: "my feeling worse doesn't make anyone else feel better".
So my strategy is: avoid the news. If cornered by news, funnel money into humanitarian projects so the active among us get the monetary support they need. I have the money for this, many don't. I have the spoons, am not normally hanging by a thread, chronically ill, living in poverty etc. Many don't.
I think it's not the feeling that's important but the doing.
I think your partner may be conflating "feeling things" with "doing good" with "being a good person". This is doing their relationships a disservice. Your partner is an activist because, when faced with the injustice around them, they can't imagine anything else that could alleviate their own intense distress. For other people, getting this angry would just exacerbate the distress and make them less able to act usefully.
posted by Omnomnom at 3:29 AM on November 5, 2023 [35 favorites]
So I’m pretty sure you don’t mean genuine apathy, but research on apathy is pretty interesting.
People with apathy’s brains may be working harder.
People with high levels of apathy have fewer expectations of the world
Apathy could predict onset of dementia (good luck to us Gen X!)
But really I think your partner is experiencing a lack of empathy, or maybe a wobble in their understanding of Theory of Mind. Because there are a ton of ways to understand why people don’t feel the same or behave the same way we do. And your partner is choosing not to engage in that process. That also is very understandable and human. In my experience, what’s needed in order to empathize better with people is often not research but self-awareness and rest. If the political activism is involving a lot of meetings, travel, and fundraising, a short break might help. If it’s online-based then a 48 hr online detox might help.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:03 AM on November 5, 2023 [13 favorites]
People with apathy’s brains may be working harder.
People with high levels of apathy have fewer expectations of the world
Apathy could predict onset of dementia (good luck to us Gen X!)
But really I think your partner is experiencing a lack of empathy, or maybe a wobble in their understanding of Theory of Mind. Because there are a ton of ways to understand why people don’t feel the same or behave the same way we do. And your partner is choosing not to engage in that process. That also is very understandable and human. In my experience, what’s needed in order to empathize better with people is often not research but self-awareness and rest. If the political activism is involving a lot of meetings, travel, and fundraising, a short break might help. If it’s online-based then a 48 hr online detox might help.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:03 AM on November 5, 2023 [13 favorites]
a current big violent conflict
I think that's where the issue is. Which one?
Yemeni civil war (377,000 dead, 2014-Present), Nigeria Boko Haram Insurgency (350,000 dead, 2009-Present), Ethiopia's Tigray war (up to 600,000 dead, 2020-2022), South Sudan Civil War (400,000 dead, 2013-2020), or Israel-Palestine (around 20,000 dead, 2013-Present)
The strategy to getting people engaged in each one will be different, there is no one-size fits all approach, and not everyone will be engaged in every issue.
We personally give $3000 to $4000 in aid to children in Ethiopia via Compassion International, but we don't get engaged in all the other causes, and I think that's fine. No one has the energy and resources to care about all things at the same time.
posted by xdvesper at 4:21 AM on November 5, 2023 [42 favorites]
I think that's where the issue is. Which one?
Yemeni civil war (377,000 dead, 2014-Present), Nigeria Boko Haram Insurgency (350,000 dead, 2009-Present), Ethiopia's Tigray war (up to 600,000 dead, 2020-2022), South Sudan Civil War (400,000 dead, 2013-2020), or Israel-Palestine (around 20,000 dead, 2013-Present)
The strategy to getting people engaged in each one will be different, there is no one-size fits all approach, and not everyone will be engaged in every issue.
We personally give $3000 to $4000 in aid to children in Ethiopia via Compassion International, but we don't get engaged in all the other causes, and I think that's fine. No one has the energy and resources to care about all things at the same time.
posted by xdvesper at 4:21 AM on November 5, 2023 [42 favorites]
Slightly sideways from this, but the people I know who have experienced these issues have done so because they're dealing with activist burnout. It's less about the people around them than the fact that they're exhausted, frustrated, upset, and ultimately not taking good care of themselves.
I would suggest your partner also look into how self-care can be part of their activism and start prioritising their own mental health. This could lead into them understanding why their anger at their friends might also be harmful, especially if those friends are struggling with other stresses in their lives (which many of us are).
Depending on your partner and their temperament, I wonder if they would also benefit from considering how much they're centring themselves and their own anger rather than the causes they're trying to bring attention to. Are they actually angry that nobody is paying attention to what's going on or are they just angry that nobody is paying attention to their feelings? Unpicking these feelings and where they come from might also help them find a way through.
posted by fight or flight at 4:26 AM on November 5, 2023 [19 favorites]
I would suggest your partner also look into how self-care can be part of their activism and start prioritising their own mental health. This could lead into them understanding why their anger at their friends might also be harmful, especially if those friends are struggling with other stresses in their lives (which many of us are).
Depending on your partner and their temperament, I wonder if they would also benefit from considering how much they're centring themselves and their own anger rather than the causes they're trying to bring attention to. Are they actually angry that nobody is paying attention to what's going on or are they just angry that nobody is paying attention to their feelings? Unpicking these feelings and where they come from might also help them find a way through.
posted by fight or flight at 4:26 AM on November 5, 2023 [19 favorites]
I think your partner is falling into a very binary view that is very common with people who have become consumed/obsessed with something. It’s a sort of “if you’re not with me, you’re against me” view of things. The wordview of a true-believer.
The vast majority of blacks in America did not join the march on Washington. Were they apathetic to the civil-rights cause? Most draft-age men in America did not protest the war in Vietnam. Were they all apathetic to the war? Most people will never add solar to their homes. Are they all apathetic to global warming?
The world is complex and overwhelming beyond belief. People adopt myriad ways of coping, including not taking to the streets over every. damned. thing. Their lack of open, public, outrage over should not be misconstrued as apathy.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [30 favorites]
The vast majority of blacks in America did not join the march on Washington. Were they apathetic to the civil-rights cause? Most draft-age men in America did not protest the war in Vietnam. Were they all apathetic to the war? Most people will never add solar to their homes. Are they all apathetic to global warming?
The world is complex and overwhelming beyond belief. People adopt myriad ways of coping, including not taking to the streets over every. damned. thing. Their lack of open, public, outrage over should not be misconstrued as apathy.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [30 favorites]
The suggestions upthread seem valuable to me, particularly the importance of understanding the value of selection. For some quality materials that are open access, you might be interested in various policy papers, etc. hosted on .edu websites.
It's maybe worth pointing out to your partner that not everyone has the oomph for this. I have normative Gen X cynicism, but even that aside, it's worth saying that time passes and you see things go in waves, sometimes with more or less effect. Massive protests in the U.S. against the Gulf Wars, for instance, did a whole bunch of things, including demonstrating that millions were against the wars, but they did not stop the wars. If I, as a Gen X guy with various work, family, and other obligations (including ongoing activism tied to other causes!) am urged by a young friend to get involved with anything along the lines you describe, I'm probably not going to explain all of that. I'm just going to hide the social media post, or say "I'm sorry, I can't help with this, but good luck."
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:51 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's maybe worth pointing out to your partner that not everyone has the oomph for this. I have normative Gen X cynicism, but even that aside, it's worth saying that time passes and you see things go in waves, sometimes with more or less effect. Massive protests in the U.S. against the Gulf Wars, for instance, did a whole bunch of things, including demonstrating that millions were against the wars, but they did not stop the wars. If I, as a Gen X guy with various work, family, and other obligations (including ongoing activism tied to other causes!) am urged by a young friend to get involved with anything along the lines you describe, I'm probably not going to explain all of that. I'm just going to hide the social media post, or say "I'm sorry, I can't help with this, but good luck."
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:51 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have made the personal decision that I can only deeply care about things I can myself effect some change on. If I let myself have a significant emotional involvement in something I can't do a single thing to help, all I will do is wallow in despair to the extent that I'm unable to manage my own life.
So I care about what I can, and do what I'm able to contribute towards those things in a positive way. Often that means my concerns are very local. For most everything else, all I can do is vote responsibly for people who are better positioned than me to do something about it.
Does it make me happy? No. You know that comeback "die mad about it?" Oh I am. Don't worry. I am angry most of the time, and the list of things I'm sure I'll be dying mad about is long. Anger at the injustices of the world is the background radiation of my life. It just can't be my entire personality. I have other things I need to do.
posted by phunniemee at 5:04 AM on November 5, 2023 [30 favorites]
So I care about what I can, and do what I'm able to contribute towards those things in a positive way. Often that means my concerns are very local. For most everything else, all I can do is vote responsibly for people who are better positioned than me to do something about it.
Does it make me happy? No. You know that comeback "die mad about it?" Oh I am. Don't worry. I am angry most of the time, and the list of things I'm sure I'll be dying mad about is long. Anger at the injustices of the world is the background radiation of my life. It just can't be my entire personality. I have other things I need to do.
posted by phunniemee at 5:04 AM on November 5, 2023 [30 favorites]
Effectively, your partner is saying that their way to feel and react is the only right way. That is incredibly arrogant. Presumably they don’t act this way about all issues or you‘d not give them the time of day. So they may want to explore why they can accept the wide range of human experience on other issues but not this.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:26 AM on November 5, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:26 AM on November 5, 2023 [12 favorites]
I wonder if contemplating Maslow's pyramid might also be generally useful. This is such a generally-accepted psychological idea that I even learned about it in a high school science class - Maslow's point was generally that people tend to worry about taking care of themselves first, and only when they've got that shit sorted out, then they have the headspace to say "Okay. So now that I've got that sorted, what else can I turn my work and attention to?"
The foundation of what people need, Maslow said, was food, water, shelter, clothing, and sleep. And then the next step up from that was health, employment, and property. You can't even start thinking about things like overall conceptual morality and altruism until you've got your own shit sorted out, he argued.
And - consider that we're also living in a time when lots of people are struggling with health and employment (I've been unemployed since July) and even more people are having issues with the food and the shelter parts. So what your partner is seeing may not be apathy about Gaza so much as it's "Yes, I acknowledge that that's bad, but I'm still emotionally wrestling with this fucking job hunt so I just plain don't have the bandwidth right now, can I get back to you once that's sorted?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:30 AM on November 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
The foundation of what people need, Maslow said, was food, water, shelter, clothing, and sleep. And then the next step up from that was health, employment, and property. You can't even start thinking about things like overall conceptual morality and altruism until you've got your own shit sorted out, he argued.
And - consider that we're also living in a time when lots of people are struggling with health and employment (I've been unemployed since July) and even more people are having issues with the food and the shelter parts. So what your partner is seeing may not be apathy about Gaza so much as it's "Yes, I acknowledge that that's bad, but I'm still emotionally wrestling with this fucking job hunt so I just plain don't have the bandwidth right now, can I get back to you once that's sorted?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:30 AM on November 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
Because people feel like they can't do anything that will provoke change. I can donate money, and I can organise fundraisers, and I can call my elected officials, and I can march in a protest but if you are in the United States, there is no chance the US is going to withdraw support for Israel. I know we like to think that protests are why we withdrew from Vietnam, but that's a really romanticized version of history. It was really about troop loss - the loss of American lives. That is not a factor at play in Gaza.
It's possible your partner may be less frustrated and see more of what they want to see in their community by providing opportunities to help and asking people individually to take part. A local baker is doing Palestinian baked goods as a fundraiser and I'm organising my friends to do a mass pre-order so we can give those baked goods as Christmas and Hannukah gifts, for example. Someone else is organising a dinner at a Palestinian restaurant, so all their friends need to do is go out for dinner, which is easy. I'm sure there are opportunities like that in your area and it might make your partner feel better to see that their friends will do something when they are asked to do a specific thing.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:31 AM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's possible your partner may be less frustrated and see more of what they want to see in their community by providing opportunities to help and asking people individually to take part. A local baker is doing Palestinian baked goods as a fundraiser and I'm organising my friends to do a mass pre-order so we can give those baked goods as Christmas and Hannukah gifts, for example. Someone else is organising a dinner at a Palestinian restaurant, so all their friends need to do is go out for dinner, which is easy. I'm sure there are opportunities like that in your area and it might make your partner feel better to see that their friends will do something when they are asked to do a specific thing.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:31 AM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
I recommend The Informed Heart by Bruno Bettleheim. It's about his experiences in Dachau and Belsen and what he learned about survival, also his understanding of the psychology of the people who watched it all happen and did nothing.
He was disgraced for his assumptions about autism years later, I know.
But The Informed Heart is just so good and insightful.
posted by Enid Lareg at 5:46 AM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
He was disgraced for his assumptions about autism years later, I know.
But The Informed Heart is just so good and insightful.
posted by Enid Lareg at 5:46 AM on November 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Before the "current big violent conflict", there were other big violent conflicts that had been going on, and continue. If one is struggling to understand why most people are just "carrying on, pretending everything's okay, when children are being killed" over one particular current event, it says more about this person than the state of apathy in the world. I can guarantee there are many people who feel the exact same way as your partner, because they are the ones literally under the gun, in conflicts that your partner may have never even heard about. Was the world hunky dory before the current big violent conflict started? If the one current big violent conflict is somehow resolved tomorrow, does the world revert back to that calm, natural state?
We've experienced people here in the US destroy their lives over passionate involvement in issues that are completely fabricated-don't exist. Out of a complete sense of superiority and righteousness. I have no doubt your partner can do the same thing with a current event that's actually happening. If this person is having trouble seeing the harm in such behavior, it may take more than doing your own research on apathy to fix.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:03 AM on November 5, 2023 [11 favorites]
We've experienced people here in the US destroy their lives over passionate involvement in issues that are completely fabricated-don't exist. Out of a complete sense of superiority and righteousness. I have no doubt your partner can do the same thing with a current event that's actually happening. If this person is having trouble seeing the harm in such behavior, it may take more than doing your own research on apathy to fix.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:03 AM on November 5, 2023 [11 favorites]
There's an incredible amount of suffering the world. There are children being horrifically abused in our own backyards. Gun violence, intimate partner violence.
There's also a lot of folks who have been through a lifetime of trauma or just more mundane mental health issues and cannot take any more trauma in their lives.
There's also the question of, what does "caring mean? Being and depressed about it, while normal, isn't actually helping those suffering. Those who can take action can certainly do that but not everyone has the mental health, financial, etc resources to fight for a cause. They may just be trying to survive their own day-to-day.
posted by bearette at 6:16 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
There's also a lot of folks who have been through a lifetime of trauma or just more mundane mental health issues and cannot take any more trauma in their lives.
There's also the question of, what does "caring mean? Being and depressed about it, while normal, isn't actually helping those suffering. Those who can take action can certainly do that but not everyone has the mental health, financial, etc resources to fight for a cause. They may just be trying to survive their own day-to-day.
posted by bearette at 6:16 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Anger management issues are not activism.
They have media-traumatized themself and is yelling about it, that's not activism.
You mention nothing about protesting in the streets and at local government, working with established organizations, consulting with friends and respected leaders in both sides' populations. Phone banking, hounding your representatives, shutting up and taking in advice from established activists - which includes Don't Just Go Around Shouting At People - and doing the boring-ass work of most activism? It might be time for a soul search about assuming other people's bona fides if one's own aren't rock solid.
You've both assumed apathy about people who just don't want to engage - in what I'm going to guess is one of the extremely nuanced conflicts going on at the moment and so already really hard to talk about well - with Shouty Person. How arrogant, to assume inactivity or a lack of concern because someone isn't having a public meltdown. Lots of people are doing the work without showing off, how arrogant to assume nobody else could possibly care as much as them because they are the noisiest person in the room.
I don't have shit to say on twitter, and I am in NO way qualified to be an expert on what is happening and what to do and how to fix it or how to even get it to stop for a minute. So I look to support the people I believe are doing expert activism that aligns with my values. I know who to shout at with any hope of results. It's not random people on the streets, or my friends. I don't save one baby with every relationship I ruin. That's not apathy.
Yeah, there are people who don't know, don't understand, don't care. There are people who DO care very much and need to hold their tongues in some contexts. There are people who wish everyone involved ill. There's 8 billion people on this rock, man, and some of them are busy either with their own shit or their own humanitarian crises or it's just not their turn right now. Caring what happens in Away is something of a luxury.
A lot of us are already walking around with broken hearts, too, but we gotta pay rent and raise our kids and make dinner, so money and voicemails may be most of what we can contribute. That's nice that they want to join the club, but maybe they should take a seat and not the podium?
If they/you wants to read something constructive, maybe work through:
The Activist's Handbook
Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
The Strategy of Nonviolent Direct Action
All of these are going to address the idea that not everybody is going to be on the front lines and how to cope with that. One of the intentions of activism are swaying opinion, reaching people who don't know or haven't been moved by the cause, which means those people necessarily exist because that's how humans do sometimes.
Shouty Person is a liability to a cause, though. They lose their heads and break ranks during direct actions, they offend the people the movement wants to get on board. They're in it for their own shouting, not for the cause. They need to get a hold of them, and learn about more complex emotions than anger. The problem here is not other people.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:27 AM on November 5, 2023 [53 favorites]
They have media-traumatized themself and is yelling about it, that's not activism.
You mention nothing about protesting in the streets and at local government, working with established organizations, consulting with friends and respected leaders in both sides' populations. Phone banking, hounding your representatives, shutting up and taking in advice from established activists - which includes Don't Just Go Around Shouting At People - and doing the boring-ass work of most activism? It might be time for a soul search about assuming other people's bona fides if one's own aren't rock solid.
You've both assumed apathy about people who just don't want to engage - in what I'm going to guess is one of the extremely nuanced conflicts going on at the moment and so already really hard to talk about well - with Shouty Person. How arrogant, to assume inactivity or a lack of concern because someone isn't having a public meltdown. Lots of people are doing the work without showing off, how arrogant to assume nobody else could possibly care as much as them because they are the noisiest person in the room.
I don't have shit to say on twitter, and I am in NO way qualified to be an expert on what is happening and what to do and how to fix it or how to even get it to stop for a minute. So I look to support the people I believe are doing expert activism that aligns with my values. I know who to shout at with any hope of results. It's not random people on the streets, or my friends. I don't save one baby with every relationship I ruin. That's not apathy.
Yeah, there are people who don't know, don't understand, don't care. There are people who DO care very much and need to hold their tongues in some contexts. There are people who wish everyone involved ill. There's 8 billion people on this rock, man, and some of them are busy either with their own shit or their own humanitarian crises or it's just not their turn right now. Caring what happens in Away is something of a luxury.
A lot of us are already walking around with broken hearts, too, but we gotta pay rent and raise our kids and make dinner, so money and voicemails may be most of what we can contribute. That's nice that they want to join the club, but maybe they should take a seat and not the podium?
If they/you wants to read something constructive, maybe work through:
The Activist's Handbook
Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
The Strategy of Nonviolent Direct Action
All of these are going to address the idea that not everybody is going to be on the front lines and how to cope with that. One of the intentions of activism are swaying opinion, reaching people who don't know or haven't been moved by the cause, which means those people necessarily exist because that's how humans do sometimes.
Shouty Person is a liability to a cause, though. They lose their heads and break ranks during direct actions, they offend the people the movement wants to get on board. They're in it for their own shouting, not for the cause. They need to get a hold of them, and learn about more complex emotions than anger. The problem here is not other people.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:27 AM on November 5, 2023 [53 favorites]
Your partner should view the people that "aren't upset" with the same empathy they're viewing the victims they are outraged for. Like, you literally can't be upset about everything all the time. There is not capacity for it.
While I probably ally with your partner on some issues, I am certain that we have different opinions on others and there are looming horrors I fear, that they ignore, or even support for reasons. But, I will consider them another normal human being trying to get by*, rather than "an evil person who has been confronted with the same horrors and chosen to ignore or support them". (*this option is not available for journalists lol)
posted by so fucking future at 6:33 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
While I probably ally with your partner on some issues, I am certain that we have different opinions on others and there are looming horrors I fear, that they ignore, or even support for reasons. But, I will consider them another normal human being trying to get by*, rather than "an evil person who has been confronted with the same horrors and chosen to ignore or support them". (*this option is not available for journalists lol)
posted by so fucking future at 6:33 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am deeply concerned about Climate Emergency, and am as active as I can be. There are other causes and campaigns that I can affect, and I have been canvassing for school board because there's a really heinous moms4liberty, january 6er, book-banning candidate. I am not active about tons of important issues, because I don't have the emotional, physical, and financial bandwidth.
Your partner is making a personal choice to be passionate and active. Railing at people who make different choices is judgmental and ineffective. He could ask people to donate to groups that provide medical aid. He can send people informative emails. he can invite people to go to demonstrations with him. if someone is an arms dealer or donates to Trump, NRA, etc., we can't be friends. But if someone makes different choices about how to spend their time, energy, and money, it's not my position to judge them.
Your partner is deeply upset about an injustice. Injustice is usually embedded in other injustices. It's fair to share your concern, outrage, and pain with friends, and I think he feels this so deeply, he needs that. Honestly, I don't get drawn in to Israel/ Palestine/ Hamas/ territories/ Gaza, because I can't affect it and the injustices on every side are grave and historical. I donate for humanitarian aid.
posted by theora55 at 6:54 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Your partner is making a personal choice to be passionate and active. Railing at people who make different choices is judgmental and ineffective. He could ask people to donate to groups that provide medical aid. He can send people informative emails. he can invite people to go to demonstrations with him. if someone is an arms dealer or donates to Trump, NRA, etc., we can't be friends. But if someone makes different choices about how to spend their time, energy, and money, it's not my position to judge them.
Your partner is deeply upset about an injustice. Injustice is usually embedded in other injustices. It's fair to share your concern, outrage, and pain with friends, and I think he feels this so deeply, he needs that. Honestly, I don't get drawn in to Israel/ Palestine/ Hamas/ territories/ Gaza, because I can't affect it and the injustices on every side are grave and historical. I donate for humanitarian aid.
posted by theora55 at 6:54 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
There is a good chance that your partner is so angry about this issue that the right physiologist could do a few tests and be able to detect that anger. They are in a state of arousal with increased heart rate, or high levels of serotonin or cortisol, or stuff like that. They are not spending any appreciable amount of their time relaxed and calm and content.
This means that when they interact with other people they are already physiologically primed to be defensive or aggressive. It means that other people don't have to do anything to trigger your partner being angry at them. Your partner needs them to synchronize emotions and effort with your partner in order for your partner's anger to be strategic and productive and give them a feeling of progress. If other people don't, then your partner is going through a huge amount of stress which is amounting to a long slow drawn out panic attack.
But from the other side, people are used to other people weaponizing anger to manipulate them. Bullies do this all the time. Moreover everyone your partner talks to will have experienced angry people being a danger to them, when someone who gets mad at a small domestic disaster then lashes out that it's all the fault of the bystanders. See what you made me do! By the time we are in kindergarten most of us know that when someone is trying to hide how angry they are it's not safe to be around them, and if they are actively ranting, it's a situation we need to get out of.
So as soon as they perceive anger the majority of people will perceive your partner as a potential danger to them. From the bystanders point of view your partner is at risk of being someone who turns anger on them - as when an organizer gets furious with the volunteers for being unreliable and not trying enough. Your partner getting angry at people they are hoping will help and collaborate with them is going to making people back right off. It's a vicious circle. The angrier your partner sounds, the more some people will be wary of getting involved with them and their cause.
You didn't name what the conflict is, but whatever it is, the other people are not visibly obsessing with it and don't know much about it. If they decide the issue is urgent enough they need to get involved the first thing they will need to do is get more information.... And a certain number of them know that hearing about, reading about and seeing trauma will traumatize them. Worse, where there is a conflict there will always be people taking sides and coming to different conclusions. Some will be pragmatic and want to reduce the number of deaths even if it means making concessions, others will feel that concessions will only make the situation worse and prolong it. Simply caring very deeply and working actively to try to fix it means that some of them will be working for completely opposing goals to your partner! And naturally if the other people pick up on the fact that your partner is angry, they will be reluctant to discuss what kind of action is effective with your partner, lest they find that they are now arguing opposing solutions. Should masses of money be spent on weapons of war? Your partner likely has strong opinions on this, and will not be at all happy to discover they just mobilized someone who will start working towards the wrong solution.
From the viewpoint of most other people your partner is soliciting emotional labor. They are asking people who are not angry and sad about an issue to become angry and sad about it. That's a big ask. They are asking for people to listen to them and validate their viewpoint. Your partner is just the latest in a long line of people who are soliciting approval, action and emotion.
If your partner considers everyone they talk to have their own lives, they will understand that their request for involvement is also a request for the other people to drop something they are already doing. If they are activists for another conflict they need to drop at least some of their efforts and their concern about that conflict and take up the one your partner cares about. If they are working parents they need to either snub their bosses, neglect their children or drop some of their own self care. The boss and the kids are both likely to raise objections and make it hard to cut back, so the effort your partner is asking for is going to come out of their personal time - which means that your partner is asking them to do something that will make their lives effectively worse.
Sure, a three dollar donation is just a coffee, sure calling a congressman is just a ten minute task... but most people are struggling enough that skipping their mid morning coffee will ruin their morning, and calling the congressman means they won't make that phone call to the plumber... Now any one of them would drop their coffee on the sidewalk and run to help a child that was just hit by a car in front of them, and would leap to call their friend that has no cell phone if an urgent evacuate neighborhood NOW alert hit their own cell phone, but that's because they know that their assistance is time critical and could make a huge difference and they will know if it does make a difference. Whereas they also know that calling a congressperson's office means that some intern will log their call in a database and their congressperson will do whatever their corporate donors tell them to.
Your partner does not have real urgency or agency to trigger their friends rising to the occasion. They have nothing concrete to motivate people into action. People only leap into action when that kid in the blue jacket is now lying deathly quiet under the bumper, or if Aunt Maggie is going to need twenty minutes to get her cat into a the cat carrier, but she's got a good car to get ahead of the storm surge. People just don't spring into action unless they smell smoke or see blood. If they could spring into action without it, they'd have long since spent all the money they could scrape up responding to the bulk mail from various registered charities.
Everyone is so flooded with people asking for our attention that they probably do not at all want to spent twenty minutes listening to your partner exhort them to take action. Your partner is probably coming across like a door to door proselytizer who is convinced that eternal damnation is awaiting anyone who doesn't join their cause and that everyone who fails to join their cause brings us closer to Armageddon.
Conviction does not equate to being right. It's strange but many people think it does. So many people think that the loudest and most emphatic guy is right and therefore if they are loud and emphatic enough they can bend reality, that I now figure anyone with conviction is deluded. If you raise your voice, I am highly likely to immediately write you off as either a scammer or someone too upset to really know what's going on. The day my mother-in-law told me that she KNEW that the kidney transplant would go well was the day that I set my brother-in-law's chances to real low. I wasn't calculating his chances before that, but when she told me that the transplant would definitely be successful, I felt like she had some insider knowledge about his health and was in deep, deep, denial about it. I got the classic bottom dropping out of my stomach sensation at her words. Poor, poor Andy... Sure enough I was attending his funeral a week later.
So reality. Is your partner actually going to be able to broker peace? Are their letters to politicians and their fund raising going to make a difference? They probably suspect it won't, not unless they find a way to control other people and make them cooperate and they become the leader of a massive social movement. What are the odds that your partner is that well connected and charismatic, or that they are tapping into an inevitable zeitgeist in the first wave of what will become something historic? Perhaps not high. Their anger is probably covering a deep terror which they are trying hard not to think about that even if they manage to get fifty people to write to their elected representative and manage to raise $100,000 the bad stuff will keep happening.
The balance of probability is that either the situation will keep happening, potentially getting worse no matter what your partner does, or someone else somewhere in a position of power is busy brokering a ceasefire or a victory, and will do so without any help from your poor partner. This is part of what your partner isn't seeing because it just hurts so much. They want to save lives and stop misery! Is that so much to ask?
There are millions of people out their vibrating with pain because they want to do something and make it better. There might even be billions of them. And they aren't apathetic. What your partner is seeing as apathy is helplessness, the same helplessness that is breaking your partner's heart and making them angry at the people they are asking for help.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:56 AM on November 5, 2023 [8 favorites]
This means that when they interact with other people they are already physiologically primed to be defensive or aggressive. It means that other people don't have to do anything to trigger your partner being angry at them. Your partner needs them to synchronize emotions and effort with your partner in order for your partner's anger to be strategic and productive and give them a feeling of progress. If other people don't, then your partner is going through a huge amount of stress which is amounting to a long slow drawn out panic attack.
But from the other side, people are used to other people weaponizing anger to manipulate them. Bullies do this all the time. Moreover everyone your partner talks to will have experienced angry people being a danger to them, when someone who gets mad at a small domestic disaster then lashes out that it's all the fault of the bystanders. See what you made me do! By the time we are in kindergarten most of us know that when someone is trying to hide how angry they are it's not safe to be around them, and if they are actively ranting, it's a situation we need to get out of.
So as soon as they perceive anger the majority of people will perceive your partner as a potential danger to them. From the bystanders point of view your partner is at risk of being someone who turns anger on them - as when an organizer gets furious with the volunteers for being unreliable and not trying enough. Your partner getting angry at people they are hoping will help and collaborate with them is going to making people back right off. It's a vicious circle. The angrier your partner sounds, the more some people will be wary of getting involved with them and their cause.
You didn't name what the conflict is, but whatever it is, the other people are not visibly obsessing with it and don't know much about it. If they decide the issue is urgent enough they need to get involved the first thing they will need to do is get more information.... And a certain number of them know that hearing about, reading about and seeing trauma will traumatize them. Worse, where there is a conflict there will always be people taking sides and coming to different conclusions. Some will be pragmatic and want to reduce the number of deaths even if it means making concessions, others will feel that concessions will only make the situation worse and prolong it. Simply caring very deeply and working actively to try to fix it means that some of them will be working for completely opposing goals to your partner! And naturally if the other people pick up on the fact that your partner is angry, they will be reluctant to discuss what kind of action is effective with your partner, lest they find that they are now arguing opposing solutions. Should masses of money be spent on weapons of war? Your partner likely has strong opinions on this, and will not be at all happy to discover they just mobilized someone who will start working towards the wrong solution.
From the viewpoint of most other people your partner is soliciting emotional labor. They are asking people who are not angry and sad about an issue to become angry and sad about it. That's a big ask. They are asking for people to listen to them and validate their viewpoint. Your partner is just the latest in a long line of people who are soliciting approval, action and emotion.
If your partner considers everyone they talk to have their own lives, they will understand that their request for involvement is also a request for the other people to drop something they are already doing. If they are activists for another conflict they need to drop at least some of their efforts and their concern about that conflict and take up the one your partner cares about. If they are working parents they need to either snub their bosses, neglect their children or drop some of their own self care. The boss and the kids are both likely to raise objections and make it hard to cut back, so the effort your partner is asking for is going to come out of their personal time - which means that your partner is asking them to do something that will make their lives effectively worse.
Sure, a three dollar donation is just a coffee, sure calling a congressman is just a ten minute task... but most people are struggling enough that skipping their mid morning coffee will ruin their morning, and calling the congressman means they won't make that phone call to the plumber... Now any one of them would drop their coffee on the sidewalk and run to help a child that was just hit by a car in front of them, and would leap to call their friend that has no cell phone if an urgent evacuate neighborhood NOW alert hit their own cell phone, but that's because they know that their assistance is time critical and could make a huge difference and they will know if it does make a difference. Whereas they also know that calling a congressperson's office means that some intern will log their call in a database and their congressperson will do whatever their corporate donors tell them to.
Your partner does not have real urgency or agency to trigger their friends rising to the occasion. They have nothing concrete to motivate people into action. People only leap into action when that kid in the blue jacket is now lying deathly quiet under the bumper, or if Aunt Maggie is going to need twenty minutes to get her cat into a the cat carrier, but she's got a good car to get ahead of the storm surge. People just don't spring into action unless they smell smoke or see blood. If they could spring into action without it, they'd have long since spent all the money they could scrape up responding to the bulk mail from various registered charities.
Everyone is so flooded with people asking for our attention that they probably do not at all want to spent twenty minutes listening to your partner exhort them to take action. Your partner is probably coming across like a door to door proselytizer who is convinced that eternal damnation is awaiting anyone who doesn't join their cause and that everyone who fails to join their cause brings us closer to Armageddon.
Conviction does not equate to being right. It's strange but many people think it does. So many people think that the loudest and most emphatic guy is right and therefore if they are loud and emphatic enough they can bend reality, that I now figure anyone with conviction is deluded. If you raise your voice, I am highly likely to immediately write you off as either a scammer or someone too upset to really know what's going on. The day my mother-in-law told me that she KNEW that the kidney transplant would go well was the day that I set my brother-in-law's chances to real low. I wasn't calculating his chances before that, but when she told me that the transplant would definitely be successful, I felt like she had some insider knowledge about his health and was in deep, deep, denial about it. I got the classic bottom dropping out of my stomach sensation at her words. Poor, poor Andy... Sure enough I was attending his funeral a week later.
So reality. Is your partner actually going to be able to broker peace? Are their letters to politicians and their fund raising going to make a difference? They probably suspect it won't, not unless they find a way to control other people and make them cooperate and they become the leader of a massive social movement. What are the odds that your partner is that well connected and charismatic, or that they are tapping into an inevitable zeitgeist in the first wave of what will become something historic? Perhaps not high. Their anger is probably covering a deep terror which they are trying hard not to think about that even if they manage to get fifty people to write to their elected representative and manage to raise $100,000 the bad stuff will keep happening.
The balance of probability is that either the situation will keep happening, potentially getting worse no matter what your partner does, or someone else somewhere in a position of power is busy brokering a ceasefire or a victory, and will do so without any help from your poor partner. This is part of what your partner isn't seeing because it just hurts so much. They want to save lives and stop misery! Is that so much to ask?
There are millions of people out their vibrating with pain because they want to do something and make it better. There might even be billions of them. And they aren't apathetic. What your partner is seeing as apathy is helplessness, the same helplessness that is breaking your partner's heart and making them angry at the people they are asking for help.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:56 AM on November 5, 2023 [8 favorites]
Part of your question sounds like you want resources or research, which some people have mentioned above and which I don't have. But I can give you my perspective.
"... the social and psychological reasons why most people are less engaged than them, and why we don't all jump to help in a crisis when we logically know we should."
Your partner and I could have a conversation about (nameless conflict) or any of the ones on xdvesper's horrific list, and I'm pretty sure I'd come across as less "engaged". I might even visibly shrug my shoulders, if I'm in a state where I can't moderate my response. say, if I'm tired.
But if I was feeling uncharitable, I might then say "Last night I spent four hours working on finding safe shelter for a sexual assault victim. What did you do?" and ask why they weren't volunteering overnight to work face to face with victims of gender based violence, who exist in every city, every night.
And apart from lapses like this post, I don't generally talk about it because I don't do this to be heard, or to brag, or for approval or accolades. And someone might absolutely think I'm not "engaged".
I'm genuinely grateful that there are people like your partner who are willing to go out and agitate and stump and work and spread the word about the cause that they are working on and passionate about. But there are lots of reasons (as pointed out above) that people might not be engaged. And sometimes people really are, and your partner just doesn't know it.
posted by Gorgik at 7:20 AM on November 5, 2023 [13 favorites]
"... the social and psychological reasons why most people are less engaged than them, and why we don't all jump to help in a crisis when we logically know we should."
Your partner and I could have a conversation about (nameless conflict) or any of the ones on xdvesper's horrific list, and I'm pretty sure I'd come across as less "engaged". I might even visibly shrug my shoulders, if I'm in a state where I can't moderate my response. say, if I'm tired.
But if I was feeling uncharitable, I might then say "Last night I spent four hours working on finding safe shelter for a sexual assault victim. What did you do?" and ask why they weren't volunteering overnight to work face to face with victims of gender based violence, who exist in every city, every night.
And apart from lapses like this post, I don't generally talk about it because I don't do this to be heard, or to brag, or for approval or accolades. And someone might absolutely think I'm not "engaged".
I'm genuinely grateful that there are people like your partner who are willing to go out and agitate and stump and work and spread the word about the cause that they are working on and passionate about. But there are lots of reasons (as pointed out above) that people might not be engaged. And sometimes people really are, and your partner just doesn't know it.
posted by Gorgik at 7:20 AM on November 5, 2023 [13 favorites]
i want to present a different perspective! because from the responses so far it sounds like every person out there is just doing their best, working hard and caring in their own ways about a different cause or this cause, and it's unreasonable for your partner to be frustrated at them for choosing to care about something else...and, i just don't think that's true across the spectrum.
there are people who are caring and doing what they can and then there are people who are genuinely apathetic - who have food water shelter and employment and just...don't really care. they don't care about injustice and pain on others, they might care for their immediate family and friends and personal suffering, and thats's fine for them but i really get how that can feel frustrating and enraging.
and i don't have resources or research: but, i do think it might help to focus on finding people who *are* engaged in the way that your partner is - they're not alone in feeling angry, they're not alone in doing activism, they're not alone in wanting other people to change their minds and care about something that's deeply injust.
being around people who you don't have to convince to care can be really validating and encouraging. it might not be every friend, but it has to be some friends - so maybe stepping back from the anger-inducing friends and finding the work-together-towards something friends might more gratifying right now. the apathetic friends will still be there later - but i've learned it's really hard to change someone's mind if they don't want to, and it's more about where to put in your energy when you're feeling fired up about something.
posted by lightgray at 7:28 AM on November 5, 2023 [8 favorites]
there are people who are caring and doing what they can and then there are people who are genuinely apathetic - who have food water shelter and employment and just...don't really care. they don't care about injustice and pain on others, they might care for their immediate family and friends and personal suffering, and thats's fine for them but i really get how that can feel frustrating and enraging.
and i don't have resources or research: but, i do think it might help to focus on finding people who *are* engaged in the way that your partner is - they're not alone in feeling angry, they're not alone in doing activism, they're not alone in wanting other people to change their minds and care about something that's deeply injust.
being around people who you don't have to convince to care can be really validating and encouraging. it might not be every friend, but it has to be some friends - so maybe stepping back from the anger-inducing friends and finding the work-together-towards something friends might more gratifying right now. the apathetic friends will still be there later - but i've learned it's really hard to change someone's mind if they don't want to, and it's more about where to put in your energy when you're feeling fired up about something.
posted by lightgray at 7:28 AM on November 5, 2023 [8 favorites]
also, i do hope you're giving space to and validating your partner's emotions! sometimes it's valuable to hear that anger is warranted (even if perhaps misdirected), because it *is*, before jumping into resources and helping *them* change their minds and feelings about something they care deeply about using evidence or research (especially if they haven't asked for that particular form of support)...
posted by lightgray at 7:39 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by lightgray at 7:39 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yikes, some of these comments are pretty harsh.
OP, I relate a lot to your partner and have often felt the same way while successfully working for causes. Like we see in the comments here, many people respond with something along the lines of (1) "well actually I do a lot of rad stuff that you don't know about so get off my case" or (2) "well actually a lot of people are struggling and can't help out so maybe check your privilege" which I think are both true but don't really address the frustration I have with other people.
Because the truth is that while (1) and (2) are true for many people, it's also true that there are many, many people who are able to help out with X cause but choose not to. Consider people's behavior during COVID -- did everybody who had the wherewithal to behave prosocially do so? Of course not.
Regarding resources, I like Mariame Kaba's writing on organizing. She's done a lot of impactful organizing over a long stretch of time, and comes from a place of experience and wisdom. In Let This Radicalize You, she and Kelly Hayes mention that most people aren't going to get involved with your cause, and that's just how it's always going to be. The rest is up to you to figure out what to do from there.
Most people aren't truly apathetic or evil, but rather feel disempowered to make a meaningful difference. You hear this a lot from people unfamiliar with organizing, where people say "well we protested X but X still happened", or "protesting doesn't actually do anything tangible, it just makes people feel better about themselves." These are commonly held misconceptions with shallow analyses of how organizing drives impact. It's your job as an activist, as an organizer, to empower people to understand what role they can play and how that can make a difference in the very long-term. Again, most people aren't going to care or be able to care, and you just have to move on and accept that.
Finally, it may just be a difference in values that your partner has compared to the general public. Ethically, I would argue that most people think that "being a good person" means "not actively doing anything bad," rather than "making hard choices to do the right thing, even if they are inconvenient." In other words, people see working on social causes as supererogatory but not imperative. The best solution I've found is to find community, stick closely with those who share your values, and prioritize that over the friends that you have fun with but don't share values with.
posted by bongerino at 7:40 AM on November 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
OP, I relate a lot to your partner and have often felt the same way while successfully working for causes. Like we see in the comments here, many people respond with something along the lines of (1) "well actually I do a lot of rad stuff that you don't know about so get off my case" or (2) "well actually a lot of people are struggling and can't help out so maybe check your privilege" which I think are both true but don't really address the frustration I have with other people.
Because the truth is that while (1) and (2) are true for many people, it's also true that there are many, many people who are able to help out with X cause but choose not to. Consider people's behavior during COVID -- did everybody who had the wherewithal to behave prosocially do so? Of course not.
Regarding resources, I like Mariame Kaba's writing on organizing. She's done a lot of impactful organizing over a long stretch of time, and comes from a place of experience and wisdom. In Let This Radicalize You, she and Kelly Hayes mention that most people aren't going to get involved with your cause, and that's just how it's always going to be. The rest is up to you to figure out what to do from there.
Most people aren't truly apathetic or evil, but rather feel disempowered to make a meaningful difference. You hear this a lot from people unfamiliar with organizing, where people say "well we protested X but X still happened", or "protesting doesn't actually do anything tangible, it just makes people feel better about themselves." These are commonly held misconceptions with shallow analyses of how organizing drives impact. It's your job as an activist, as an organizer, to empower people to understand what role they can play and how that can make a difference in the very long-term. Again, most people aren't going to care or be able to care, and you just have to move on and accept that.
Finally, it may just be a difference in values that your partner has compared to the general public. Ethically, I would argue that most people think that "being a good person" means "not actively doing anything bad," rather than "making hard choices to do the right thing, even if they are inconvenient." In other words, people see working on social causes as supererogatory but not imperative. The best solution I've found is to find community, stick closely with those who share your values, and prioritize that over the friends that you have fun with but don't share values with.
posted by bongerino at 7:40 AM on November 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
You've gotten a lot of good advice already - if it helps, I too have had feelings similar to your partner at work lately - it just feels bizarre when I am thinking so intensely on I/P, to then be in a workplace where is has not been mentioned once. It does feel disorientating.
But then I remember that workplaces thrive on harmony, and I/P (assuming this is it) is not a topic that produces harmony. No wonder nobody has brought it up at work. Likewise, without knowing your social circle, is it possible some friends are prioritizing friend-group harmony over hashing out their views on the subject?
Other people are really good at compartmentalizing. They can wake up, call their reps, maybe make a donation, and then go about their day as normal. That doesn't make them apathetic, but more pragmatic - i.e. "there is a limit to how much I can achieve as someone with a 9-5 job, raising two kids, but I'll do what I can."
In short, I think an easy starting point is to push against the binary view that people are either as active as your partner or they're apathetic.
posted by coffeecat at 8:53 AM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
But then I remember that workplaces thrive on harmony, and I/P (assuming this is it) is not a topic that produces harmony. No wonder nobody has brought it up at work. Likewise, without knowing your social circle, is it possible some friends are prioritizing friend-group harmony over hashing out their views on the subject?
Other people are really good at compartmentalizing. They can wake up, call their reps, maybe make a donation, and then go about their day as normal. That doesn't make them apathetic, but more pragmatic - i.e. "there is a limit to how much I can achieve as someone with a 9-5 job, raising two kids, but I'll do what I can."
In short, I think an easy starting point is to push against the binary view that people are either as active as your partner or they're apathetic.
posted by coffeecat at 8:53 AM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
I hesitate because I don't want to answer a question that isn't asked, and I feel like it's an answer I give a lot, but it sound to me like there something else going on in your partner's life, unrelated to the global crisis, that is a personal crisis and the activism to the point of distress is a coping mechanism for that something else.
posted by ndfine at 9:02 AM on November 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by ndfine at 9:02 AM on November 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
There are many shitty things going on in many shitty places around the world. I cannot possibly devote time and money and attention to all of them. In fact, I can barely devote time and money and attention to any of them because my resources are depleted quickly. We each have to pick our battles. But we can't expect our battles to be the same battles that others want to fight. That's...myopic? Arrogant? Naive?
As for me, I choose to direct my time and money and attention to local shitty stuff, when possible. Why? Because (a) I'm better able to control my resources that way and (b) that shitty stuff most effects me and the people I love. I'm aware that there are other, worse shitty things going on in the world, and I'm sad about those things, but there have always been shitty things going on in this world, and there always will be. I've decided the best choice for me is to address shitty things close to home.
posted by jdroth at 9:16 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
As for me, I choose to direct my time and money and attention to local shitty stuff, when possible. Why? Because (a) I'm better able to control my resources that way and (b) that shitty stuff most effects me and the people I love. I'm aware that there are other, worse shitty things going on in the world, and I'm sad about those things, but there have always been shitty things going on in this world, and there always will be. I've decided the best choice for me is to address shitty things close to home.
posted by jdroth at 9:16 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
So the OP actually asked how their partner could get their apathetic/frozen friends more engaged rather than directing them to be less interested themselves due to their privilege or various other suggested mental illnesses, so I will suggest that OP's partner choose some more direct local impact issues that their friends might enjoy getting a little dopamine hit out of. Direct action and mutual aid feel really good to perform and can even be fun.
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 9:42 AM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 9:42 AM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yes, the reactions to this question have been (predictably) strong, but even so, CTRL+F+"local"=5.
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
I listened to this podcast episode today from the Offline podcast which had some good reflections on engaging with this conflict. The section starts around 11 minutes and ends around 26 minutes.
Some of the thoughts include:
- caring about this conflict is a good thing, but most people can't do anything about it and so they end up turning their feelings against each other
- four tips for how to talk about it productively and compassionately:
1) you are not responsible for other people's statements or opinions, no matter how bad they are (i.e. for proving people wrong when they have bad takes) - the discourse, takes are not the most important thing (by far). There are some things we can do that may have an effect, but winning an argument doesn't
2) often when people talk about the conflict, on the surface it might sound like they're asserting an opinion or making a factual claim - often they're actually trying to express how the news makes them feel and it helps to pay attention to that and not just the correctness of the opinion
3) if someone doesn't share your same emotional response or is concerned about something else, that is okay and doesn't mean they're trying to undermine or distract from the thing you care about
4) when you feel scared or outraged, try to be thoughtful about how to channel that energy and not take it out on the people around you (which feels tempting because it feels like the only thing you can control)
The remainder of the episode (the conversation with Naomi Klein) also has some thoughtful and thought-provoking reflections on where we are as a whole in terms of activism, personal identity, the internet and the roots of some of our collective malaise that your partner might also find interesting.
This other Offline episode, "Why has social media made it impossible to follow the Israel-Hamas war?" has some more useful thoughts and framings about what's going on in the discourse. It discusses some of the specific events people are outraged about in more detail so might or might not be helpful to your partner right now. But the reflections towards the beginning about why there is this view that everyone needs to have a take, and how that view can be harmful, might be helpful.
I also often go back to the first essay in Jia Tolentino's book, Trick Mirror, called "The I in the Internet". Among many other things, it talks about how our culture has been affected by the internet and made us feel like if we don't say something, we don't exist.
The idea that everyone needs to have a take on every issue and battle it online is bad for our collective mental health and our capacity to take real action.
posted by lookoutbelow at 10:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Some of the thoughts include:
- caring about this conflict is a good thing, but most people can't do anything about it and so they end up turning their feelings against each other
- four tips for how to talk about it productively and compassionately:
1) you are not responsible for other people's statements or opinions, no matter how bad they are (i.e. for proving people wrong when they have bad takes) - the discourse, takes are not the most important thing (by far). There are some things we can do that may have an effect, but winning an argument doesn't
2) often when people talk about the conflict, on the surface it might sound like they're asserting an opinion or making a factual claim - often they're actually trying to express how the news makes them feel and it helps to pay attention to that and not just the correctness of the opinion
3) if someone doesn't share your same emotional response or is concerned about something else, that is okay and doesn't mean they're trying to undermine or distract from the thing you care about
4) when you feel scared or outraged, try to be thoughtful about how to channel that energy and not take it out on the people around you (which feels tempting because it feels like the only thing you can control)
The remainder of the episode (the conversation with Naomi Klein) also has some thoughtful and thought-provoking reflections on where we are as a whole in terms of activism, personal identity, the internet and the roots of some of our collective malaise that your partner might also find interesting.
This other Offline episode, "Why has social media made it impossible to follow the Israel-Hamas war?" has some more useful thoughts and framings about what's going on in the discourse. It discusses some of the specific events people are outraged about in more detail so might or might not be helpful to your partner right now. But the reflections towards the beginning about why there is this view that everyone needs to have a take, and how that view can be harmful, might be helpful.
I also often go back to the first essay in Jia Tolentino's book, Trick Mirror, called "The I in the Internet". Among many other things, it talks about how our culture has been affected by the internet and made us feel like if we don't say something, we don't exist.
The idea that everyone needs to have a take on every issue and battle it online is bad for our collective mental health and our capacity to take real action.
posted by lookoutbelow at 10:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
Because being overtly mad doesn't actually help anyone, does it? Spending all your hours posting angrily about a global situation, even a horrific one, to the point that you're completely unable to fulfill the responsibilities in your own life is about as effective at helping that faraway situation as is eating your vegetables because "children are starving in China" was 50 years ago.
People who seem to still be immersed in their own lives also might be donating to a fund, making a call to a representative to demand a ceasefire, and signing a petition. They might also feel terrible about it privately. It doesn't mean they are helping less, objectively, than someone else who visibly upset or mad.
posted by ojocaliente at 10:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
People who seem to still be immersed in their own lives also might be donating to a fund, making a call to a representative to demand a ceasefire, and signing a petition. They might also feel terrible about it privately. It doesn't mean they are helping less, objectively, than someone else who visibly upset or mad.
posted by ojocaliente at 10:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]
I wonder if the fight/flight/fawn/freeze response has anything to do with this. And I think it’s a helpful metaphor regardless.
Sometimes we respond to threats in different ways. I can get pulled into fight but I can also freeze or fawn. And usually I don’t know why exactly - not without thinking it over.
Atrocities and human rights violations are threatening to me. Some part of my mind knows that if it can happen to someone else, it can happen to me or to someone I love. I want to fight all of the atrocities but I also have no faith in my power to make any kind of difference.
And then there’s fatigue. Some part of me feels a drive to help but can’t think of anything to do. If you saw someone drowning you’d jump in, or call for help. To hear, constantly, about horrific suffering all over the world … I have a cycle I’ve observed. I experience an almost manic outrage which can last a couple of weeks, and then I just can’t sustain it anymore. If I do watch the news it’s with a certain degree of dissociation, but I’m more likely not to watch it.
The past few years have been chaotic and full of grief. We’ve lost lives and wellness but we’ve also lost - or I (American) have - faith in our national institutions and relationships. It’s a stunning loss and I have not figured out how to operate in the world from this POV.
posted by bunderful at 11:30 AM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
Sometimes we respond to threats in different ways. I can get pulled into fight but I can also freeze or fawn. And usually I don’t know why exactly - not without thinking it over.
Atrocities and human rights violations are threatening to me. Some part of my mind knows that if it can happen to someone else, it can happen to me or to someone I love. I want to fight all of the atrocities but I also have no faith in my power to make any kind of difference.
And then there’s fatigue. Some part of me feels a drive to help but can’t think of anything to do. If you saw someone drowning you’d jump in, or call for help. To hear, constantly, about horrific suffering all over the world … I have a cycle I’ve observed. I experience an almost manic outrage which can last a couple of weeks, and then I just can’t sustain it anymore. If I do watch the news it’s with a certain degree of dissociation, but I’m more likely not to watch it.
The past few years have been chaotic and full of grief. We’ve lost lives and wellness but we’ve also lost - or I (American) have - faith in our national institutions and relationships. It’s a stunning loss and I have not figured out how to operate in the world from this POV.
posted by bunderful at 11:30 AM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
People react to stress in different ways. For example, some people want to talk about their feelings, others find ways to act on or engage directly or indirectly with what is bothering them, and more might focus intently on other, sometimes routine activities as a way of self-regulating.
The thing is, none of these behaviours are wrong, and none of them necessarily indicate any particular feeling. The very active person might be performing for social approval and not really care that much. The person who is hiding out watching Netflix might be in the verge of extreme grief. The overly cheerful person might be fighting not to give in to despair. Someone might be taking action but not want to talk about it.
The bottom line is that for their own sake, your partner should stop assuming that they know what is going on with other people, and start focussing on their own feelings and how they want to show up in the world.
posted by rpfields at 11:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
The thing is, none of these behaviours are wrong, and none of them necessarily indicate any particular feeling. The very active person might be performing for social approval and not really care that much. The person who is hiding out watching Netflix might be in the verge of extreme grief. The overly cheerful person might be fighting not to give in to despair. Someone might be taking action but not want to talk about it.
The bottom line is that for their own sake, your partner should stop assuming that they know what is going on with other people, and start focussing on their own feelings and how they want to show up in the world.
posted by rpfields at 11:34 AM on November 5, 2023 [6 favorites]
If this is about a big, violent conflict, then I'll ask why OP's partner didn't go to Afghanistan as a civilian to get shot at, mortared, and rocketed while trying to help the Afghans rebuild their schools, like vitia did. Or why OP's partner didn't wind up committing suicide after working to dismantle rape hotels with 13- and 14-year-old girls in them in Bosnia, like vitia's best friend did.
Exactly. As someone who has worked as a civilian in both these places, Vitia's examples resonate particularly hard with me. You would not necessarily know to meet me what kind of work I do and have done, nor do I discuss the details with people who are making a lot of performative noise.
Two summers ago, I worked very hard, behind the scenes, with a group of former colleagues, to rescue a significant number of people from one war zone. Most of the people around us had no idea how involved we were until it was done. If anyone was paying attention, they would have seen a range of coping styles, time commitment, and public engagement in the group. The one thing they would not have seen was anybody putting on a big display by fighting with others about what they were or not doing.
In my experience, you can act or you can perform, but the relationship between the two is often inversely proportional.
posted by rpfields at 12:30 PM on November 5, 2023 [11 favorites]
Exactly. As someone who has worked as a civilian in both these places, Vitia's examples resonate particularly hard with me. You would not necessarily know to meet me what kind of work I do and have done, nor do I discuss the details with people who are making a lot of performative noise.
Two summers ago, I worked very hard, behind the scenes, with a group of former colleagues, to rescue a significant number of people from one war zone. Most of the people around us had no idea how involved we were until it was done. If anyone was paying attention, they would have seen a range of coping styles, time commitment, and public engagement in the group. The one thing they would not have seen was anybody putting on a big display by fighting with others about what they were or not doing.
In my experience, you can act or you can perform, but the relationship between the two is often inversely proportional.
posted by rpfields at 12:30 PM on November 5, 2023 [11 favorites]
People engage more when a crisis is smaller. Also when they feel empowered.
Here is a study about what kind of media elicits different kinds of solidarity actions;
here is a paper about what encouraged and discouraged German acts of welcoming towards Syrian war refugees.
Finally, this is an article that talks about how studies have shown people are much more likely to respond to small crises (like a Gofundme) than huge crises — for instance, people were more likely to send money to a hypothetical refugee camp with 10k people in it than a hypothetical camp with 250k people in it.
posted by hungrytiger at 3:50 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Here is a study about what kind of media elicits different kinds of solidarity actions;
here is a paper about what encouraged and discouraged German acts of welcoming towards Syrian war refugees.
Finally, this is an article that talks about how studies have shown people are much more likely to respond to small crises (like a Gofundme) than huge crises — for instance, people were more likely to send money to a hypothetical refugee camp with 10k people in it than a hypothetical camp with 250k people in it.
posted by hungrytiger at 3:50 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think the "you have no idea what personal connection someone has to this issue that might be affecting their non-response" is a huge and immense factor here.
There is a big recurring issue in my political circles that I simply do not do online discourse about even though I am extremely vocal about many other issues. I don't do online discourse about it because unlike most of the armchair experts in my political circles, I actually have family in the area of the world of this big recurring issue. There is no way to discuss it publicly without making things worse within my family and even potentially disrupting my ability to visit them in the future. So I typically withdraw and don't say anything about big recurring issue. I'm sure this makes some of my comrades think I simply don't care about this issue or am on the "wrong" side but none of them have ever actually reached out to me to have a quiet compassionate conversation about it.
So I guess one piece of advice would be, it's always good to approach someone with a sense of compassion and curiosity when their reaction to a big situation is not what you would have expected.
posted by mostly vowels at 5:24 PM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
There is a big recurring issue in my political circles that I simply do not do online discourse about even though I am extremely vocal about many other issues. I don't do online discourse about it because unlike most of the armchair experts in my political circles, I actually have family in the area of the world of this big recurring issue. There is no way to discuss it publicly without making things worse within my family and even potentially disrupting my ability to visit them in the future. So I typically withdraw and don't say anything about big recurring issue. I'm sure this makes some of my comrades think I simply don't care about this issue or am on the "wrong" side but none of them have ever actually reached out to me to have a quiet compassionate conversation about it.
So I guess one piece of advice would be, it's always good to approach someone with a sense of compassion and curiosity when their reaction to a big situation is not what you would have expected.
posted by mostly vowels at 5:24 PM on November 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm hoping these resources might reveal effective ways for my partner to empathetically and usefully engage people who are politically apathetic/frozen/disengaged.
Is your partner reading work by organizers? Mariame Kaba (as mentioned above), adrienne maree brown, other people really thinking about how to create mass movements.
A very small thing that I started doing, I believe based on a post from Rebecca Solnit, was to make sure I was including full instructions for small actions on any social media posts I was making about issues, rather than just complaining. Posting a story about X issue can lead to everyone just feeling mad and helpless; posting a story about X issue and saying, "I just called my congress people to ask them to vote for Bill 123, which would help make this issue better. You can call yours by calling 202-333-4567 -- you can call after-hours and leave a message -- and ask them to support Bill 123." Maybe it's donating to a particular organization. But it needs to be concrete and easy, and the request needs to be cheerleader-y and not shaming.
Adrienne maree brown has talked about how if we want more people involved in these movements, we actually need to make it attractive for them to be there, to make it feel good to be a part of things. That's part of my way of doing that.
posted by lapis at 7:36 PM on November 5, 2023 [11 favorites]
Is your partner reading work by organizers? Mariame Kaba (as mentioned above), adrienne maree brown, other people really thinking about how to create mass movements.
A very small thing that I started doing, I believe based on a post from Rebecca Solnit, was to make sure I was including full instructions for small actions on any social media posts I was making about issues, rather than just complaining. Posting a story about X issue can lead to everyone just feeling mad and helpless; posting a story about X issue and saying, "I just called my congress people to ask them to vote for Bill 123, which would help make this issue better. You can call yours by calling 202-333-4567 -- you can call after-hours and leave a message -- and ask them to support Bill 123." Maybe it's donating to a particular organization. But it needs to be concrete and easy, and the request needs to be cheerleader-y and not shaming.
Adrienne maree brown has talked about how if we want more people involved in these movements, we actually need to make it attractive for them to be there, to make it feel good to be a part of things. That's part of my way of doing that.
posted by lapis at 7:36 PM on November 5, 2023 [11 favorites]
Could it be helpful for your partner to explore the many instances where the shoe is on the other foot, where there are equally terrible atrocities taking place that they feel indifferent to?
I have attended quite a number of events over recent years aiming to get some relief for the people of Yemen from the horrors of the war there. They were pretty sparsely attended to be honest. Even I, with friends in Yemen, could go days, weeks maybe without really thinking about it. Then suddenly, there it was again a video of a place I knew having been destroyed. 100,000 people were ethnically cleansed from Nagorno Karabakh, friends that was last month.
Now if your partner has a special familial link or other affinity to this conflict, then that is different. I don't expect and none of us should expect pipe puffing theory and neutrality from parties to a conflict - the work of peacemaking is a load that must be carried by non-parties since only the most saintly can make the required compromises from a place of pain. It was ultimately the power and credibility of the United States and the flexibility of a political party that had been out of power for almost a generation in the UK that ended the fighting in Northern Ireland and that is by no means unique. Left to themselves the parties to the conflict would still be fighting.
They have media-traumatized themself and is yelling about it, that's not activism.
I would encourage your partner to read the book Politics is for Power which is aimed at domestic politics but carries the same message: politics is not a hobby and it is not a substitute for emotional engagement elsewhere. It is a practice aimed at specific concrete action. Most people would be better off being 10% more engaged with these issues all the time and 90% less now.
The people who will ultimately make a permanent structural difference for the better are those who can be counted on to put in consistent work over a generation.
I guess I could pretend that it could be just about any conflict, but we all know what it is. Let me be clear: without wanting to just put aside and make academic the monstrous conduct of the Hamas Einsatzgruppen, the horrors being experienced by children in Gaza today, or anybody else's suffering - the reason why there is broadly speaking violence between Israelis and Palestinians today is that the collective "West" and the non-Palestinian Arab world stopped caring enough during the times of low-grade conflict to put their power and prestige into a sustainable forever-peace. All parties to the conflict are now so deeply traumatised that we may have lost any possibility of pushing for peace for an entire generation.
Also as an Arabic speaker who has spent significant time in the West Bank and who married into a Jewish family, I simply have no interest in online engagement on this topic with Johnny and Sally come-latelies and their hot takes. To be honest my straight-up revulsion for the banal and sophmoric guff that comes from people with whom I notionally share a broad political direction on this particular topic is so strong that it has inhibited, probably for the best, me sharing my views on many other topics lest I sound like that to others. If you know me personally and don't have passable fluency in at least one regional language, the most "engagement" that you will get from me is very vague statements of regret and hope for a better world. That certainly doesn't mean I don't care. I care too much to have a discussion with someone who has just speed-read a wikipedia article by the candle-light of their own momentary rage.
posted by atrazine at 2:47 AM on November 6, 2023 [20 favorites]
I have attended quite a number of events over recent years aiming to get some relief for the people of Yemen from the horrors of the war there. They were pretty sparsely attended to be honest. Even I, with friends in Yemen, could go days, weeks maybe without really thinking about it. Then suddenly, there it was again a video of a place I knew having been destroyed. 100,000 people were ethnically cleansed from Nagorno Karabakh, friends that was last month.
Now if your partner has a special familial link or other affinity to this conflict, then that is different. I don't expect and none of us should expect pipe puffing theory and neutrality from parties to a conflict - the work of peacemaking is a load that must be carried by non-parties since only the most saintly can make the required compromises from a place of pain. It was ultimately the power and credibility of the United States and the flexibility of a political party that had been out of power for almost a generation in the UK that ended the fighting in Northern Ireland and that is by no means unique. Left to themselves the parties to the conflict would still be fighting.
They have media-traumatized themself and is yelling about it, that's not activism.
I would encourage your partner to read the book Politics is for Power which is aimed at domestic politics but carries the same message: politics is not a hobby and it is not a substitute for emotional engagement elsewhere. It is a practice aimed at specific concrete action. Most people would be better off being 10% more engaged with these issues all the time and 90% less now.
The people who will ultimately make a permanent structural difference for the better are those who can be counted on to put in consistent work over a generation.
I guess I could pretend that it could be just about any conflict, but we all know what it is. Let me be clear: without wanting to just put aside and make academic the monstrous conduct of the Hamas Einsatzgruppen, the horrors being experienced by children in Gaza today, or anybody else's suffering - the reason why there is broadly speaking violence between Israelis and Palestinians today is that the collective "West" and the non-Palestinian Arab world stopped caring enough during the times of low-grade conflict to put their power and prestige into a sustainable forever-peace. All parties to the conflict are now so deeply traumatised that we may have lost any possibility of pushing for peace for an entire generation.
Also as an Arabic speaker who has spent significant time in the West Bank and who married into a Jewish family, I simply have no interest in online engagement on this topic with Johnny and Sally come-latelies and their hot takes. To be honest my straight-up revulsion for the banal and sophmoric guff that comes from people with whom I notionally share a broad political direction on this particular topic is so strong that it has inhibited, probably for the best, me sharing my views on many other topics lest I sound like that to others. If you know me personally and don't have passable fluency in at least one regional language, the most "engagement" that you will get from me is very vague statements of regret and hope for a better world. That certainly doesn't mean I don't care. I care too much to have a discussion with someone who has just speed-read a wikipedia article by the candle-light of their own momentary rage.
posted by atrazine at 2:47 AM on November 6, 2023 [20 favorites]
most people are just "carrying on, pretending everything's okay, when children are being killed". Help them understand?
Send your partner news articles about all the times in their life that children were being killed and they were oblivious. Ask them if that made them a bad person and if other people should have been angry at them about it.
Because I can't remember the last time that children weren't being killed somewhere. Your partner just failed to notice and care before now.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:48 AM on November 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
Send your partner news articles about all the times in their life that children were being killed and they were oblivious. Ask them if that made them a bad person and if other people should have been angry at them about it.
Because I can't remember the last time that children weren't being killed somewhere. Your partner just failed to notice and care before now.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:48 AM on November 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
An insightful summary of system justification theory as it applies to climate change:
Why social change is so excruciatingly difficult
"A chat with psychologist John Jost about system justification theory and the differences between conservatives and liberals"
posted by sindark at 8:27 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Why social change is so excruciatingly difficult
"A chat with psychologist John Jost about system justification theory and the differences between conservatives and liberals"
posted by sindark at 8:27 PM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: A few comments have been removed. This is an intense, emotional, and triggering topic, but we need to try to constrain our advice in Ask Metafilter to practical / helpful advice to the OP and avoid lashing out, attacks, and arguments with other commenters. Thank you.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:38 AM on November 7, 2023
posted by taz (staff) at 2:38 AM on November 7, 2023
It may be helpful for your partner to think about this: the current Israel/Hamas war is maybe the first time a young person has considered the political quagmire that is that fucking flaming pile of dogshit. It's the first time in my adult lifetime that a flare-up of this (very old, very nuanced) conflict has dominated news headlines.
I understand your partner's perspective. I absolutely understand their anger that other people are not visibly/audibly enraged.
For me, though, rage is all I have to contribute to this mess. I have very little money, and frankly the little money I have makes a bigger impact in my son's life than it would to a charity. I am a single mother in New England. I could go to Gaza as a medical volunteer as I am an experienced trauma-certified emergency RN. But I would have to leave my own child and I will never do that.
I've tried to move away from the "why isn't everyone as pissed as me/game over" perspective and towards the (yes, cheesy) concept of One Love. All we can do is help in our own way and be good and fair in our own slice of the world. For me it's easier because my literal job is to help injured and sick people. But I can also: make it a priority to teach my son that no one is free until everyone is free, and more tangibly work in our community to ease the suffering of others. I can reach out to my Israeli cousin who is going through hell, and offer her my support and love.
In my opinion it is good that your boyfriend is angry at the unjustice of people going about their business as usual while hell is raging in a far corner of the world. It is absolute helplessness.
Not a good opinion piece, but an opinion piece anyway.
posted by pintapicasso at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
I understand your partner's perspective. I absolutely understand their anger that other people are not visibly/audibly enraged.
For me, though, rage is all I have to contribute to this mess. I have very little money, and frankly the little money I have makes a bigger impact in my son's life than it would to a charity. I am a single mother in New England. I could go to Gaza as a medical volunteer as I am an experienced trauma-certified emergency RN. But I would have to leave my own child and I will never do that.
I've tried to move away from the "why isn't everyone as pissed as me/game over" perspective and towards the (yes, cheesy) concept of One Love. All we can do is help in our own way and be good and fair in our own slice of the world. For me it's easier because my literal job is to help injured and sick people. But I can also: make it a priority to teach my son that no one is free until everyone is free, and more tangibly work in our community to ease the suffering of others. I can reach out to my Israeli cousin who is going through hell, and offer her my support and love.
In my opinion it is good that your boyfriend is angry at the unjustice of people going about their business as usual while hell is raging in a far corner of the world. It is absolute helplessness.
Not a good opinion piece, but an opinion piece anyway.
posted by pintapicasso at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why isn't your partner outraged about the dozens of global injustices going on right now? Why does one in particular matter more to her? I have worked around the world doing refugee work and I always notice when a "cool" crisis gets most folks attention. I often wonder why the so called bleeding hearts care about one more than another. Aren't we all human?
posted by tarvuz at 3:26 PM on December 3, 2023
posted by tarvuz at 3:26 PM on December 3, 2023
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Right now, in your county and across the world, there are children being molested and abused. Lonely, rejected teens contemplating suicide. Wild and domestic animals dying in terrible fear and agony from neglect, injury and starvation. Natural disasters destroying homes and lives. Corrupt governments torturing and imprisoning their citizens. In many of those instances, a little direct action could make a substantial difference, possibly far more than in general activism about a faraway global issue. How upset does your partner feel about all that other suffering? How much are they doing to help with that?
If the answer is, reasonably enough, "Well, my issue is just more important right now because [X emotional anecdote I saw online]" or "I'm trying to direct my effort and awareness where I can, nobody can do everything"-- or even an easy rationalization like "Children> adults" or "humans > animals" or "uniform group suffering > disseminated individuals suffering" or "people politically aligned with me > my political enemies"-- then they could ask themselves about the mental processes that led to them assigning that weighting, and ask what some other activist could do to inspire in them deeper and more active empathy for an instance of suffering besides their current Big Issue.
Virtually everyone motivates themselves by building their imagined world out of a set of stories with clear antagonists and protagonists, the kinds of stories that elicit emotion and demand moral action. But it's helpful to remember that this is a cognitive shorthand in our heads, not external reality. There are infinitely more morally salient stories happening in the world than the tiny handful we've selected to care about. Other people have other stories they're following, and find their care selectively absorbed by the different patterns of grief, outrage and resistance that those stories elicit, including dealing with urgent griefs and outrages in their own personal circles. Everybody selects, everybody prioritizes. If your partner wants to force someone else's priorities to conform to their own, they should study persuasion, propaganda and influence to try to build a more viral set of stories.
posted by Sockinian at 3:14 AM on November 5, 2023 [110 favorites]