Maintaining Compassion and Political Will in the Face of Cruelty and Evil

Last week, people throughout the world were shaken and overcome with compassion,  by images of small children being wrenched from their parents and taken to pens and cages to wait their fate. This is not an entirely new development at border crossings in the US—similar punitive measures have gone on for months, possibly years. But finally, this news has captured media attention, and this treatment of would-be immigrants (legal and otherwise) is now out in the open, for all to see.

As a mother and grandparent, I am deeply disturbed by this, and I imagine that many of my generation feel the same compassion. We know small children, and we know what they need. We would have to be insensitive monsters not to feel their bewilderment and pain.

How will we feel about this as time goes by?

But there’s a good chance that we won’t feel like this in a few days. Instead, with the passage of time, other issues will intervene, and our emotional response will fade. Becoming numb to threatening information is a common human reaction. It’s how we protect ourselves from being overwhelmed. And it’s how we stay sane in the face of witnessing terrible things that happen to people. There’s a name for it too—it’s called psychic numbing, a term familiar to psychologists and researchers.

For example, who doesn’t remember the shock of seeing the image of a lifeless toddler, (Aylan Kurdi) on a beach where refugees came to shore after the capsizing of their boat in 2015? The initial outrage has subsided, but at the time,  it woke people up from ignoring the human tragedy unfolding in Syria. A study about reactions to this photograph was conducted by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here is an excerpt, written by psychologist Paul Slovic:

“People suddenly started to care about the Syrian war and the refugees, in ways that the statistics of hundreds of thousands of deaths had not led them to pay attention to. Then we were able to track that, and that lasted roughly a month.”

You can see how dramatically donations to the Red Cross spiked after this story, but it appears that once the number of victims rose and the crisis dragged on, people developed a sense of helplessness and shut down emotionally. They cared immensely about the toddler’s death, but couldn’t process the hundreds of thousands of people in the same situation.

How will we feel by November, when change is actually possible?

Only a change in government can reverse an untenable situation in any democratic country. This seems to be the mindset of many Americans, currently unhappy with their administration.

The stage is already being set for a midterm election in the fall. Federal offices that are up for election are:

• all 435 seats in the United States Congress
• 33 or 34 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate

Grandparents, who in my view, may have a special empathy for young children, are a large portion of those voters—up to 70 million of them, in fact. Because older voters take this process seriously, this cohort has enormous clout when it comes to elections.

Yet older voters are only human, and subject to the responsibilities and distractions of life. Although they may feel disturbed and upset by what happened this week, it is difficult to maintain that level of concern and compassion.

What can be done to combat public apathy?

There are few solutions to combat public apathy and effect change. But three stand out:

• You can make small donations to an agency that is working with these children. This will help to stay connected and involved.
• You can help spread the word by publicizing the initiatives taken by groups like Impact Journalism and One Young World. These groups work directly to fight psychic numbing.
• You can vote for a change in government.

David Ropeik, in a Dec.6, 2017 article for the Huffington Post, Overcoming the Emotions that Discourage us from Giving to Those in Need, says this:

“So, you want to do a little good? Tweet or Facebook or Share this post. Or maybe just tell a friend about what you just learned; that we might be doing far more good in the world if we just try to fight back against the bad feelings we get from feeling helpless against all we can’t do, and stay aware of and enjoy the positive ‘warm glow’ feelings we get from the good we can. Just that…sharing this little lesson…can probably do a world of good.”

Last week, in a comment about my article on narcissism, one of my readers reminded me about the Washington Post tagline, “democracy dies in darkness” (Thank you, Alexandra). That is a powerful motto, with the ring of truth.

If we become numb to atrocity, it perpetuates more atrocities. We—and this goes for all of us living in democracies—can’t let a governing power with a negative agenda inundate and overwhelm us to the point of becoming numb. Because when we become numb, we stop paying attention, and our attention is sometimes the only power we have.