Empathy and Dis-Empathy in Political Conflict

Empathy and Dis-Empathy in Political ConflictAuthor(s): Rafael MosesSource: Political Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1985), pp. 135-139Published by: International Society of Political PsychologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791274 .

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Political Psychology, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1985

The Forum

Empathy and Dis-Empathy in Political Conflict

Rafael Moses'

There's a spectrum of intensity of empathy ranging from excessive empathy to extremely negative or dis-empathy. Empathy from the extreme positive or negative may serve various functions in daily living and particularly in politics. Variations in empathy in political conflict are discussed in relation to the Middle East and the interpersonal relations of Israelis. There are ad- vantages as well as disadvantages in allowing oneself to empathize, as well as to withhold empathy. It's concluded that it would be of value for the Is- raelis, as well as nations to look at themselves in regard to special reactions to empathizing with others.

KEY WORDS: Israel; empathy; dis-empathy; political conflict; victimization; narcissism.

Empathy is that faculty which enables us to feel with another human being, to cognitively and effectively put ourselves into his or her place, and therefore to become aware of the other's feelings, needs, and wants. A good mother is empathic with her child: She knows when it wants to eat, to sleep, to be cuddled, to have its diapers changed, to be held.

A terrorist who throws a grenade at innocent bystanders must guard against empathy with his victims-to-be. Otherwise he cannot carry out his planned action. Empathy on his part with his intended victims would not allow him to go through with it or would inhibit him. Hired killers in the United States have been known to convince themselves out loud that their intended victim is evil and does not deserve to live (Arlow, 1973). Thus they "ideologically" eradicate their empathy so as not to interfere with their task of killing.

19 Molcho St., Jerusalem, Israel.

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136 Moses

When soldiers fight at close range, where they can see their enemies, they must work more strongly against a natural tendency in themselves to view the enemy as equally human. Those who have difficulties in such de- humanization end up by being in disharmony with themselves and with their consciences, both about what they actually did and about what they wished to do unconsciously. The psychological casualties of the Yom Kippur War in Israel showed such difficulties in dehumanizing themselves and the other. They also suffered from pangs of conscience about more or less uncon- scious death wishes (which we all have at times), mobilized and galvanized (paradoxical as this may seem at first) by the deaths and injuries of friend and foe alike. In brief, empathy is anathema to killing, to torture, and to the waging of war. It stands in contrast and in contradiction to the demoni- zation of the enemy, to scapegoating, to that polarization of good and bad which creates a world view as in the old films of the Wild West: a world of heroes and villains, and little else.

Empathy, then, has a vital function to perform; as in the safeguarding by the mother of the physical and emotional viability of her infant. This function prevents people from committing acts of violence against those with whom they empathize. But does empathy have a function in daily living, in everyday politics? And further, is there anything specific about the use of empathy by the citizens of any nation? But I know Israelis best, and will therefore use them-us-as an illustration (Moses, 1978, 1982, 1983; Moses and Kligler, 1979).

Some of us empathized with the now evicted settlers of Yamit, with Bedouins evicted in the Negev, with Gush Emunim settlers or with the Druze of the Golan; some clearly did not. Some of us have empathized with Mr. Begin when he resigned after the Lebanon War, some with those who demanded his resignation. But to empathize is not the same as to take sides. It is true that when we espouse someone's cause we will usually identify with them. Even more definitively, when we disagree with someone's cause, with his viewpoint, we will close off our willingness or our ability to empathize with him or her. Our ears become deaf to them! to phrase it differently, our empathic faculties will be opened and sharpened vis-a-vis those for whom we have an interest; and blunted or closed off, often hermetically, against those from whom we turn away, or who arouse our ire. There is a facilitat- ing of empathy-or of its converse, which we might call dis-empathy-in certain directions (favored or disfavored people), at certain times (when we identify with victims or when inner processes open up, or in times of crisis, when inner processes tend to close off). Yet we may grieve for people, feel their suffering - if we let ourselves - even when we do not agree with their viewpoint.

We can see another variation in the difference of the levels of readi- ness for empathy or dis-empathy which are found in different people, or



Empathy and Dis-Empathy in Political Conflict 137

different types of people. Among the "helping professions," those generally considered most empathic are social workers. They identify with their clients, with the clients' needs and interests, and fight for them. Mostly- though not invariably-this requires a good deal of empathy with the individual client and the client group. Yet there are some "helpers" who become aware that their empathy serves as an obstacle to their helping function. They overidentify. A doctor of excellence once confided in me that he could not let his patients talk to him about their worries and problems, because they moved him so. He felt he just could not afford this degree of exposedness, of vulnerability. Sometimes, then, what may be "too much" empathy must be prevented from exerting a harmful effect. Thus the function of dis-empathy is, in certain circumstances, a protective one for its holder. This is so either when the individual is particularly sensitive; or when the task to be carried out requires it; or last, when there is much suffering around us. At least the last two, and perhaps all three conditions, seem to exist in our country, in Israel.

It is therefore, perhaps, not surprising that a psychoanalyst friend from abroad told me: "You really should write about empathy in Israeli life. It is so strikingly different here from abroad." On the face of it, we meet more abrasiveness in our daily contacts than empathy: while driving, going to the post office, jostling in queues, being kept waiting needlessly by bureaucrati- cally trained civil servants, or by others. Many of us Israelis do not tend to empathize with our neighbors - be they next door or on the other side of the border - with our competitors here, our brethren abroad, our partners, our allies. No one would expect it vis-a-vis our enemies. We do appear more aggressive than others to our visitors, if not to ourselves (Moses, 1983). A colleague, returning from 2 weeks' vacation in Europe, was struck by the overflow of aggressiveness in his daily contacts. After having been away, it takes 2 to 3 weeks to become accustomed once more to everybody's -

including our own - old ways. To feel empathy is crucial in order to protect and help those who are

vulnerable. Only by feeling the other's pain, by anticipating his needs and wants; only by feeling - with him - how crucial it is that his needs be met, can we be aware of the other's suffering, and thus make an effort to lessen it. But we pay a price for such an empathic ability: We experience per- sonally, even if vicariously, some of the other's pain; we are moved by him. We also feel urged to act in order to relieve the suffering. Through such experiences, we perforce relive some of our own past losses and hurts.

When empathy becomes dysfunctional, when it is necessary to hurt someone to achieve a goal considered "right," empathy is shunted aside. For most "helpers," an excess of empathy becomes an encumbrance because it causes too many painful feelings in them. And even when empathy is



138 Moses

exercised-and when its exercise is vital-a price is often paid in pain, in uncomfortable introspection, and in some inhibition of action.

Is my friend right when he claims that we Israelis have less empathy for people than some others? Or is this just one more instance of our being maligned by those who should be more friendly to us? Our history in the Yishuv (the pre-State Jewish population of Palestine) and in the State of Is- rael shows us not to have been very empathic toward others: We did not very much take into account the feelings of our new immigrants. They were sent to where we thought they were needed; and they were dispersed for the good of the country (Moses and Kligler, 1966). Nor did we display much empathy toward the holocaust survivors whom we gathered in. It took us many years to become aware of what they felt, to try to empathize - to some extent - with the terrible events which they had experienced (Moses, 1984). We certainly did not - and do not - empathize with Jews from abroad: We tell them that it's about time they gave up their existence in the Diaspora, did what we did long ago: to settle here! Those who have just arrived for their first visit, we will ask straight away how they like Israel-before they can catch their breath. Those who come to tour our country, we keep busy from early morning till late at night. For how else could they enjoy our mag- nificent country sufficiently? And if it tires them out-well, they can take a vacation from their vacation when they get back home! We make de- mands, but we do not feel with them. There are other countries in which people also act like this. But that is not the point.

In all these examples, we tend to close off our minds to the feelings of others, to the particular quality of their subjective experience. Some aspects of this lack of empathy, I believe, we in Israel took over from our heritage, from the Shtetl, the Eastern European little Jewish town (Zborowski and Herzog, 1963). And how was it in the North African or Middle Eastern Jewish quarters? Perhaps not too dissimilar.

There are two psychopolitical explanations that might help us understand such a trend, if indeed it is corroborated. One seems illogical at first glance. How can it be that those who have been victimized by others would not, in their turn, feel and empathize with those who are now victims - as indeed they themselves were not long ago? True, to have been a victim often sensitizes one, even inordinately, to the fate of other victims. Indeed, such ex-victims sometimes fight the battles of other victims in many places. And yet there is, at other times, a marked insensitivity to the suffering of others (Mack, 1979). This is particularly striking in those who themselves have had a similar experience. One's own suffering seems to loom so large then, that one cannot free enough sympathy to feel with other sufferers. One is too busy licking one's own wounds; there is no room for yet more suffering.



Empathy and Dis-Empathy in Political Conflict 139

The second explanation comes from those who discuss a now fashionable phenomenon: narcissism. Certain people are so concerned with themselves, as a result of their emotional development, that they view others only in relation to their own needs and satisfactions. For that reason - say experts like Christopher Lasch (Lasch, 1979), the late Heinz Kohut (Kohut, 1971, 1977), and Kernberg (1976)-they are unable to empathize with others. They are too filled with their own urgent wants and needs to be able to feel those of others. How such narcissism of the individual affects the national level is still a moot question; but one worth thinking about.

The point I wish to make is the following: It might pay nations to look at themselves, and us Israelis to look at ourselves, to see if indeed they or we have special reactions to empathizing with others. Politically, as in everyday life, there are hazards both in allowing oneself to empathize and in the withholding of an empathic response. However one responds- whether with empathy, with dis-empathy or in-between - will affect the out- come of one's actions, for a social worker, a doctor, a soldier, a terrorist, a politician, a citizen. To understand such behavior more might be useful for both citizens and States - in Israel and elsewhere (cf. also White, 1983).

REFERENCES

Arlow, J. (1973). Motivations for peace. In Winnik, H. Z., Moses, R., and Ostow, M. (eds.), Psychological Bases of War, Quadrangle Press, New York; Academic Press, Jerusalem.

Kernberg, G. (1976). Borderline States and Pathological Narcissism, Aronson, J., New York. Kohut, H. (1971). The Analysis of the Self, Int. Univ. Press, New York. Kohut, H. (1977). The Restoration of the Self, Int. Univ. Press, New York. Lasch, C. (1979). The Culture of Narcissism, Viking Press, New York. Mack, J. (1979). Preface to: Cyprus, War and Adaptation, Volkan, V., University of Virginia

Press. Moses, R. (1978). Self-involvement in the Middle East Conflict, No. 103, Group for Advance-

ment of Psychiatry. Moses, R. (1982). The Group Self and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Int. Rev. Psychoanal. 9: 55-65. Moses, R. (1983). Psychological aspects of stress in Israel. In Bresnitz, S., (ed.), Stress in Is-

rael, Van Nostrand-Reinhold, Princeton, N.J. Moses, R. (1984). An Israeli psychoanalyst looks back. In Luel, S. A., and Marcus, P. (eds.),

Univ. of Texas Press and Ktar Publ., Austin, Texas. Moses, R., and Kligler, D. (1966). The institutionalization of mental health values. Isr. Ann.

Psych. 4: 148-161. White, R. K. (1983). Empathizing with the rulers of the USSR. Pol. Psychol. 4: 1, 121-137. Zborowski, M., and Herzog, E. (1963). Life is With People, Schocken Books, New York.



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Empathy and Dis-Empathy in Political Conflict