Empathy and Racism

I want to discuss a sensitive topic: the cause(s) of racism. I will not discuss all aspects of what is doubtless a complex phenomenon, especially virulent, violent, institutional racism; I will discuss a specific universal non-malicious cause of racism. And by racism I will mean lack of empathy for people of races different from one’s own. I want to know what accounts for an inability to empathize, or empathize fully, with people of other races; in particular, failure to empathize with people of other colors. This is a limited topic but I think the theory I propose gets to the heart of the general phenomenon—color-dependent inability to feel empathy (or full empathy). We are apt to empathize with people the same color as us but not a different color—the explanation of this is my sole concern here. To empathize with X is to put oneself in the position of X and feel the emotion of empathy. This is an imaginative project: you imagine yourself in the position of X—you imagine being that person. The content of the imaginative act is, “If I were X, I wouldn’t like what is happening to me”.  You identifywith X: if you were identical to X, you wouldn’t like it. I am concerned with the possibility of this kind of empathetic imaginative act in the case of people of a different color. Call it Color-Dependent Empathy Deficiency Syndrome (CDEDS).

The explanation I offer takes off from a simple fact: it is hard to imagine yourself being of a different color. You can easily imagine living in a a different town or a different country or having a different job or having a different hairstyle, but it is not easy to imagine being of a different color. It takes an effort and it may not succeed—the effort may not be a complete success. Maybe, ultimately, it is not possible at all. It would be different if you had a memory image of being another color because you once were, but short of that it doesn’t come easy. The reason is not far to seek: you have been the color you are your whole life; it is deeply engraved in your brain; you are confronted by it constantly—and it is hard to undo these facts. It is likewise hard to imagine that the sky is yellow or that grass is purple; it goes against all your experience. It takes a real effort of mind to imagine such things; maybe you are really not up to the challenge—it’s not something you have ever been trained to do. Similarly, you have a strongly ingrained image of yourself as of a certain color and trying to change that is a hard task. It’s a bit like trying to imagine yourself as having four eyes or two mouths: you know what the words mean but you have trouble forming a concrete image of what they mean—it just goes against your whole experience of yourself. Your imagination is just not that flexible. If you ask me to imagine being a woman, I will tell you that I find it difficult, because I am so used to being a man—though I can easily imagine being dressed as a woman (I did it the other day). The imagination has limits, weaknesses, blind spots.

So, suppose a person P observes a person of another color in some kind of distress. P tries to imagine himself being that person, but it proves difficult, because he can’t imagine himself having that color. He can’t make an identification. Then P will not have engaged in the mental act that is necessary for empathy to occur. Thus, he will not feel empathy—or not to the same degree as he would for a person the same color as he is. P will have reduced empathy, maybe much reduced. Let’s take a case close to the topic at hand: animals. It is a truism that we empathize with animals in proportion to their physical proximity to us—mammals more than reptiles, say. Since no animal closely resembles us, we tend to lack empathy compared to our empathy for other humans. We can’t easily put ourselves into the animal’s position, imagining ourselves to be a mongoose, say. The question, what would I feel if I were a mongoose, has little sense for us; we can’t imagine being a mongoose. Similarly, it is difficult to imagine oneself being of a different color, because we are steeped in the color we are. If humans went through one color phase and them morphed into another, things would be different—we would find it easy to imagine being another color when confronted by a being the same color as our earlier self. But this doesn’t happen, so the mechanism of empathy breaks down, partially or wholly. We can conceive of beings who completely lack empathy for any being not physically just like them, because they have no capacity of imaginative projection into another type of being—they can only imagine being a being just like themselves. They would be complete racists and speciesists where empathy is concerned. We are better than this, but we are not perfect. Thus, we favor other beings that are similar to ourselves physically. In the case of human skin color, we are biased in favor of our own skin color because it impresses us so strongly. (If we had never even seen a person of another color, we would be even more precluded from extending empathy towards them, because our imagination would have nothing to go on but our own color.) It is hard to imagine being a life-form that is completely or saliently dissimilar to you, because your own physical form determines your sense of your own identity. You find it difficult to imagine being someone whose nature is different from your own nature. This inability underlies what I am calling racism, i.e., deficient empathy for other races. Racism is not the result (only) of arbitrary malice, stupidity, prejudice, and indoctrination; it is also, and centrally, the result of an intelligible imaginative limitation. Even if you want badly not to have a racist bone in your body, your imagination will pull you in a different direction; and you will have to fight it. You will, at a minimum, have to put some work into empathetic identification. The color of a person is a deep fact about him or her, recognized as such, so it’s hard to shed it in imaginative empathetic acts; it’s not unlike one’s species or basic anatomy. None of this is to say that speciesism or racism is a good thing; it is clearly a bad thing. But it is an intelligible thing not just an arbitrary prejudice; it has roots in the workings of the human imagination. Maybe accepting this can lessen its hold on us.[1]

[1] There is an episode of Star Trek in which two aliens are half white and half black but with the colors reversed: one is white on the left side and the other is black on that side. We are encouraged to see that their prejudice is completely irrational, and so it is. But this case is not like our own, because they are acquainted with both colors in their own bodies, while we are not. It should be easy for them to imagine being chromatically like the other, but it is not so easy for us. The color you are may not be a metaphysically necessary truth about you but it is surely a deep truth—part of how you see yourself (literally). This is why you would be shocked to look at yourself in the mirror one day and find yourself to have changed color. Color may only be skin deep, but skin is an important and salient part of a person. People care a lot about their skin: it is a locus of beauty, sensation, health, and individual identity.

A Trump Ukraine

I have come to a disturbing conclusion: Trump actively wants Ukraine to lose the war with Russia. What triggered this realization was the cessation of intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. This cannot be justified in terms of expense, as the cessation of arms can. It seems gratuitous—the kind of thing you would do if you wanted Ukraine to lose. Trump wants Ukraine to either surrender or be defeated. Why? There are a number of reasons, the most important being that he hates Zelensky. He hates Zelensky because he wouldn’t agree to investigating Biden and he defied Trump’s will; this also led to Trump’s first impeachment. He also hates him because Zelensky is universally hailed as a hero and gets standing ovations wherever he goes. This baffles Trump because the man is short, not handsome, and not rich—it makes Trump wonder what he is doing wrong. Zelensky is also intelligent and Trump hates that. The second reason is that he loves Putin: he wants to smooth the way for a beautiful perfect relationship with Putin—two strong men together, rich and powerful. If Putin believes that Trump helped him to victory, he will love Trump in return. Moreover, Trump hates the Europeans, because they don’t respect him and won’t bow down before him. Ukraine’s defeat will be one in the eye for them and demonstrate America’s power. Trump’s ideology (his “morality”) is that the strong must dominate the weak; for Ukraine to win would be for this ideology to be refuted. Has he ever said that he wants Ukraine to win and Russia to lose? Not that I can remember. Does he care if Zelensky loses his life? Not really. It’s as vicious and vile as that, I am sorry to say. Trump looks forward to a post-Cold War world in which America and Russia hold hands in autocracy, perhaps joined by North Korea (Hungary can also take a back seat). He can then vanquish his enemies, foreign and domestic. The look on his face in the Oval Office when he castigated Zelensky said it all—he has neither sympathy nor respect for the man. He wants him gone. The sooner Ukraine is defeated the better, as far as Trump is concerned.

Cold War Over

The Cold War went on for, oh, 75 years, give or take. Now it’s over. How did this miracle happen? Trump brought Putin to the negotiating table—he used diplomacy. He achieved this feat by not criticizing Putin. Yes, there were territorial concessions: Trump gave him Ukraine and any other chunk of Europe he took a fancy to (Cuba too). But the war had to end; it had gone on too long; there had to be peace. And what did Trump get in return? No territory, to be sure, or security guarantees, but lots of…lots of what? Oh yes, lots of flattery—false flattery but flattery nonetheless. He made a deal with the dictator—and he is a great dealmaker. It’s an artform with him. He gave Putin lots of land and he got lots of flattery in return—a pretty good deal, no? As a result, the Cold War is over, and Trump was victorious. All hail President Trump! He showed Putin (and the world) who is boss, bigly.

Consequences

Is it too much of an exaggeration to say that last Friday’s berating and insulting of the prime minister of Ukraine by the president and vice-president of the United States marked the end of the Cold War? The USA and Russia are no longer at loggerheads, no longer foes, but rather in harmony with respect to global affairs. This is not because Russia has changed—we have. I want to trace out the likely consequences of this new alignment, this ideological chumminess. First, Cuba (near where I live): what is to stop Russia from invading that island, taking it over, installing troops there? Nothing, as far as I can see. Would the US government take a firm stand against this? Apparently not. They would recommend a “deal” between Cuba and Russia, i.e., territorial concessions. Cuba could become a Russian outpost, with Russian the official language. In the case of Europe, we already see a fundamental restructuring, as European states seek to develop independence from American protection. They can no longer rely on American deterrence of Russian (or other) aggression—they will need to militarize. The issue of nuclear arms will come to the forefront. No longer will America’s nuclear capability prevent the Russian deployment of nuclear weapons. NATO has been decimated and is likely to have to survive without American membership. It is not clear in the short term whether Europe alone can deter Russian depredations. The end of the Cold War might well be the beginning of a Hot War in Europe. If Putin had waited a few years before invading Ukraine, he would have encountered little to no resistance from the American government under Trump; Ukraine would already be a Russian satellite. Without the transatlantic alliance to fall back on the European states are vulnerable to Russian expansionism. At the least there will be political tension, saber-rattling, incursions of one kind or another. Think of Chechnya. Further afield, Taiwan: it’s hard to believe that China will not be emboldened to make a move on Taiwan. Do you think Trump would do much about that? America first, remember. Will North Korea continue its nuclear build-up? You bet.

It is fairly obvious that this loss of traditional alliances will be accompanied by new alliances. America-Russia-North Korea: ARNK. It’s already happening. America will become more of a dictatorship, so naturally aligned with other dictatorships. The rift with Canada will deepen: a trade war is still a war. Talk of annexation will not go down well. Animosity will result. This will be coupled with domestic turmoil as anti-Trump states assert themselves. Tariffs will cause inflation and breed discontent. There is a danger of serious economic collapse. Canada will seek new trading partners and alliances. America will become isolated from its neighbors and its traditional allies—Britain will lose its love affair with America. It will become a pariah state, disliked by the civilized world. It will become a pariah state to most of its own population. Trump and Vance will become hated figures (they already are). The complicity of the Republican party will be viewed with complete contempt all over the world. Meanwhile the Democrats will provide no real alternative, unable to get beyond pronouns, trans rights, obsession with sexual harassment, abortion, DEI disputes.

Let me try to say something about the mental state of the world under the new dispensation. Fear, anger, disgust, despair, hatred—all of the above. The nausea generated by the spectacle in the Oval Office will not be soon forgotten or forgiven. Trump and Vance played the role of the ugly American perfectly. The nastiness and brutality of their behavior is now imprinted on the world’s psyche. Attempts to excuse it only worsen the impression created. Real despair about the future is written on the faces of intelligent commentators, here and abroad. This will only get worse. I shudder to imagine the next stage in the Ukraine war. The Cold War has ended only to be replaced by depression, disgust, and a feeling of hopelessness.