The Limits of Empathy

I.
In the quantitative section of the GRE, there is a set of questions called Quantitative Comparison. It features four multiple choice answers that are always the same:
A: quantity A is greater
B: quantity B is greater
C: they are the same
D: it cannot be determined.

The best strategy is to try to prove D. The question involves a variable so you want to plug in different numbers (1, -1, 0) to show that sometimes A is greater and sometimes B is greater, so that you can prove D, which allows you to rule out A, B, and C.

This is the same strategy people use to disprove ideas they don't like. Is free speech a good idea? No, because Nazis shouldn't be able to say hateful things about minorities. Is abortion a good idea? No, because what if someone had aborted Ghandi, Einstein, or Oprah. The idea is that if you can find one example that isn't to your liking, you can rule out the whole spectrum of a topic and disprove its merit.

II.
I'm thinking about Ellen DeGeneres and how she defended sitting next to George W. Bush, saying she can be friends with someone she disagrees with. I know I'm Mr. Bipartisan. Mr. Depolarize America. Mr. Find Common Ground With Our Enemies. But I kind of think her critics have a point.

I'm going to stay away from the Iraq War (both because Obama was responsible for many civilian casualties when he was in office and because I don't know what Ellen's stance is) and focus on gay rights. W used his power in office to try to stop Ellen from marrying the person she loved. His actions directly harmed Ellen. For each individual, at a certain point a disagreement becomes an affront you are forced to take action on.

Chloe Valdary talks a lot about the importance of showing our enemies that we believe in their ability to change themselves, and how this is a more effective way of dealing with our outgroup than public shaming. If Ellen's conclusion is that she wants to keep W close in order to change his mind on issues or better understand his point of view, I would have found it to be a more convincing argument. But waving off his anti-gay rights stance as a "disagreement" makes it sound as if the issue is not important to her. And maybe it's not; that's up to her.

III.
I believe in empathy but I understand that it has limits. I also understand that the limits are different for each individual.

Conor Friedersdorf wrote about how it is more important to focus on our personal limits of a given topic, as opposed to being pro or against something. Likewise, I think it is important for everyone to be open about the limits of what they believe in.

I believe in free speech but I don't think powerful institutions, like the media or the president, should be able to lie to the public. I believe religious institutions should be able to ban homosexuality on their turf but the public realm should remain neutral. I believe guns should be legal but more heavily regulated so they are safer.

I also believe that a single example does not disprove the merit of a given stance, it only sets the limitation. Unlike the quantitative section of the GRE, ethics and social norms are fuzzy and debatable. That's why I think people are best served setting their own limitation before the person they are arguing with sets it for them.

I'd be curious to know what view on gay rights would be so extreme that it would cause Ellen to disassociate herself with Bush. Because that's the problem with the "be friends with people who disagree with me" mantra: it doesn't acknowledge extremism. Some people are not open to reason and not worth the time. And even the most tolerant human can think of a stance so horrid that they cannot be friends with a person who holds that stance.

So if I were Ellen's PR person, I'd have her clarify her limitations to the "I can be friends with people I disagree with" statement. Then I'd have her state that, in spite of Bush's war policies and gay rights views, here are the positive qualities about him that make him a valuable person. "I don't like his views on marriage equality but I've found that we can work together to do a lot to improve immigration reform." Or something like that.

Otherwise, it looks like her stance is "I disagree with war and anti marriage equality, but not as much as I like watching football with a former president."