What ever happened to love and humanity?

Society has a problem and it's a lack of empathy. I spent the last couple of days explaining to people that socioeconomic factors affect our health and are often out of our control. Vitriol ensued.

One thing that will always be a guarantee is the internet being a wild ride. There are 8 billion people on this planet, which translates to a variety of personalities, beliefs, and personal stories. One thing that will always be mind-boggling to me is the lack of empathy that I see displayed on a daily basis. I shouldn’t be surprised because we live in an individualistic society which means that we as a society promote the idea that everyone should be able to better themselves with no help and rely on hyper independence. I wrote about this topic previously, so feel free to read it here.

Have you tried working harder?

I’m a dietitian who regularly discusses not only nutrition but the intersectionality of social justice that comes along with that. I work in public health, and I also grew up in a community where I saw the divide in equitable healthcare, food choices, housing, education, and more. In other words, the social determinants of health. I know the importance of discussing how these determinants have an impact on our health, and doing so online in a public way means only one thing. An influx of trolls who want to share their own “words of wisdom” in my comment section.

I have to say that with each passing day, I get more and more used to the commentary being shared under my posts and I am getting more and more intuitive at guessing what comment will be said. “Stop playing victim!” “If you’re lazy, just say that.” See what I mean by words of wisdom?

Please see the case in point with a more recent post below. The post:

My goal is always to make people aware that we are all in different situations in life, and we all cannot adhere to the same life strategy being prescribed by one individual. There is so much generic advice circulating with the underlying theme of “just try harder.” My goal is to make folks realize that not everyone has the same lifestyle where they can “just try harder” because again there are many outside systems and systemic barriers at play. But just as I stated previously, as soon as I hit the post button I already knew what was coming and boy did it come.

Please see for yourselves some of my “favorite” responses. Click on each image for the full details if you so choose.

In general, empathy is the ability to understand or sense another person’s perspective, feelings, needs, or intentions, even when you don’t share the same circumstances. 

One of the most important lessons I have learned from being online is that there isn’t a point in engaging with extremists such as these. Some people wake up and choose violence or the more common saying of woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Honestly I think that they wake up on the wrong side far too often it might be a good idea to seek some assistance, but I digress. I was watching one of Mel Robbins podcasts episodes on YouTube and I’ll never forget the analogy she gave regarding angry people. “You have to picture them in a snowglobe and when you shake the snowglobe there is confetti flying everywhere and these people are trapped inside yelling with the confetti flying.” I’m paraphrasing here but you get the point and she’s not wrong.

I don’t even get upset anymore when I look at these kind of comments, I mean sure it’s frustrating that someone cannot see that 2+2=4 or only see black and white while disregarding the gray area. Frustrating yes but mad no because I’m learning that my energy is too precious. However, I did remember looking into what empathy means a couple of years ago and what it means to be an empathetic person. More recently I started wondering what makes someone lack empathy and why do they lack empathy? 

So where is the love? Well, the answer depends on many things and who you ask. There are many indications and signs of low empathy, but when I see certain comments, I notice that they usually meet the following criteria:

1. An inability to understand others. You know that saying “take a walk in someone else’s shoes?” Some people just do not get it nor want to.

2. Impatience: A person who lacks empathy may be extremely impatient with other people, their difficulties, and their emotions.

3. Poor listening skills. I think this is self explanatory and when dealing with social media, this can be translated to poor reading comprehension as well. You are explaining 2+2=4 with data and pictures, and they won’t listen when something is obvious. You explain that the concept of health relies on many external facotrs and they continue ro say “try harder.”

4. Self-centeredness. Having trouble thinking about others is a big one and usually brings on the “Well, I did it so they can too” attitude. This also plays into the individualistic mindset that our society perpetuates. 

5. Victim-blaming. This is the big one right here. I often think of how when so many women come forward with stories of attacks, it is often met with “what were they wearing?” or “why would you put yourself in that situation?” The same goes for blaming someone for their health status. “They should be doing xyz.” “That’s their own fault, and they chose to live that way.” Always quick to blame the victim instead of the perpetrator or system.

Factors that can impact how much empathy people feel for others include how well they know the other person, whether they like the individual, what they blame for the other person’s situation, past experiences, and expectations. There are also many reasons why someone might lack empathy that fall more into the psychological realm of things (and I’m not getting into that because I’m not a psychologist) however in my humble opinion, I believe that a lack of self awareness stems from our promotion of hyper independence in this society.

We have this idea that there is an abundance of resources at everyone’s fingertips to be able to pull them out of whatever situation they are in. If someone really wanted to improve themselves, they could, is what we are made to believe. Now, there may be an abundance of resources, but does everyone have access to them? Absolutely not, because there is a difference between equity and equality. I think the best summary of what this looks like is this graphic.

I am sitting here writing this newsletter at 12:07 AM because this topic has been on my mind for some time now. My speciality is nutrition but I often think about how we can possibly proceed and improve society with the individualistic mentality. There is a saying that a society’s level of health is determined by its least healthy individuals. Now I do not believe that health is a moral virtue mostly because there are so many ways in which someone will never be able to live up to society’s version of health. But I also think that believing it is up to the individual completely because we should all be independent is where we go wrong and take a serious detour. This way of thinking lacks empathy and social awareness and actually does nothing for society as a whole.

Maybe we can get there one day, but until then, I will leave you with this snippet from the throwback gem Where Is the Love? by The Black Eyed Peas. Remember them?

What happened to the love and the values of humanity?

(Where's the love?)

What happened to the love and the fairness and equality?

(Where's the love?)

Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity

(Where's the love?)

Lack of understanding leading us away from unity

(Where's the love?)