What is the wellspring of compassion and empathy? How is it possible for humans to lose their humanity, to regard as enemies those whose race, religion, politics or country of birth differ from their own ?
The Meyers Briggs personality inventory and similar assessments classify psychological preferences into types based on four categories that describe the ways in which people see the world and make decisions. The fourth of these represents the divide between perception and judgment. No value is assigned—there is nothing inherently bad or good about either trait; to be fair, most people do not tend toward the extreme but this particular distinction offers some insight into those whose world view is negative even pathologic in the extreme.
The examination of our own thoughts and feelings is a touchstone of mental health. While it is nearly impossible to be entirely objective about ourselves, our only means of understanding who we are, how we are perceived, and how our actions affect others is through the process of introspection. We might describe introspection as self-awareness, but that would be over simplifying. Even the most heinous of individuals can be self-aware and may even regard their behavior as a form of superior individualism that sets them apart from and above others. In a slightly less toxic form that is precisely what we see happening today and at various periods in the history of our species. We should not dismiss what we see today as mere politics. When people call for the annihilation of others who are members of another political party, race or religion, regardless of whether they are acting out of fear, hatred or some other impulse, we must regard them as more than rhetorically judgmental, they are judge, jury and executioner.
I am not talking of individuals whose wrath is in retribution for a tangible harm done. While that is not excusable it is entirely understandable that when we or someone we love have been injured by another our emotional response can be extreme. But when that perceived harm is a manufactured, an abstraction based on differences in how one lives one’s life, or what beliefs we may embrace there is no question that the mediating effect of self-inspection is not present. Lacking the capacity to place ourselves on equal footing, to understand that but for grace and chance we are the same, we lose all perspective. Only when we see that evil is implicit in all of us without humanity, that what we see in others is a reflection of our own latent capacities, can we stand apart from vengeful judgment. It is only when we see and accept our own failures, frailties and inadequacies that we are fully human.
We humans are not built for over-introspection. Those who are so self-absorbed can be incapable of any action—caught in an endless loop of evaluation that renders all distinctions, morality itself without meaning. The same is true for those who cannot or will not look within. We know that predilections to anger and violence are almost always the result of victimization. Bullies are the bullied, abusers the abused, and haters the subject of hatred. Unless we can free ourselves from the repetitive cycle that seeks harm for harm and find a path to forgiveness without retribution we are doomed to suffer and cause the same for generations that follow. That path begins with self-acceptance and accountability. We cannot and should not dismiss those harms that may have been visited upon us—but we can recognize the propensity exists within us all under different circumstances and we can choose to let go the anger that bids us become what we fear and hate most—the reflection in the mirror.
We need no instruction to acknowledge the wisdom that we cannot love others without having felt love ourselves. So, it is true that we cannot revile, or take action against others without having felt the same. Neither can we forgive unless we are forgiven and this is hardest of all for those who will not look within. For while we may see ourselves justified in our feelings the same judge and jury that condemns others is implacable when turned inward. Perhaps this is why it is said that to err is a human trait, but to forgive is divine. Only that higher self has the capacity to overcome our humanness—the flawed and limited version of ourselves that is forever stunted by emotion without thought, and it is only that self that can give us the dispensation we so surely crave.
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