“Once upon a time, there were six blind men, who had never disagreed with one another. One day, they were presented with an elephant, which they had never perceived or known about in their lives. One by one, they approached and felt this strange creature, coincidentally feeling a different part of the beast. From this, they each likened this ‘elephant’ to a different object, creating their first disagreement, and forever driving apart these six men, for each believed the others to be wholly in the wrong, while all being partially in the right.”
— James Baldwin in “The Blind Men and the Elephant” (2019)
Today, people all across the United States have found it more difficult to connect with others who have opposing political views. According to recent polling, almost 80% of Americans have few, if any, friends who support the opposite political party. Polarization is a serious issue in contemporary politics, and it is only being exacerbated by social media algorithms and echo chambers that repeatedly affirm preconceived notions and dismiss opposing ones.
But how should we mitigate these effects? How can we reunify as a nation and work together not just in spite of, but because of, our differences? Many point to active listening or compassion as the answer, but utilizing those skills simply as a matter of etiquette or performance in conversation is often actually counterproductive; it can cause people to become more defensive and argumentative than before.
What is needed in today’s discussions, then, is more than just presence or listening or general empathy. Rather, we need to take on a mindset that involves actively welcoming and gathering different views and perspectives in hopes of widening our own knowledge, rather than simply understanding others’ emotions. In short, we need more cognitive empathy.
Polarization and the Need for Cognitive Empathy
To understand cognitive empathy, we need to understand how polarization is increasingly plaguing our nation through the rise of social media. To garner viewership and activity on their platforms, social media companies utilize algorithms to increase viewer engagement, curating videos and feeding viewers exactly what they want to see. In doing so, however, the algorithm inadvertently feeds viewers with more content that aligns with their political views. As people continue to consume more and more like-minded media, they start to accept more and more extremist views on their side of the political spectrum. An echo chamber is born. And people who continually experience reaffirmation of their views without any challenges will only become more confident that their beliefs are the right ones, shifting them toward the extremes and closing their minds to opposing viewpoints and compromises. This is what Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein calls “group polarization.”
Increasing group polarization threatens the fabric of democracy in our nation. Without a willingness to grow with a variety of experiences, we lose our ability to progress through compromise. Just like the illustration of “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” democracy works best when it enables people who look at the same problem from many different angles to come together freely so that society can gain a better understanding of the problem as a whole. Compromise can thus leverage shared knowledge and discourse to create a solution that transcends the ability of any single decision-maker. The problem with extreme polarization is that people are now becoming isolated within their own echo chambers, closed into their limited view of the proverbial elephant.
Fortunately, this effect has not gone unnoticed by the public. Americans are concerned about growing polarization, and, as such, we have seen increased calls for empathy across the country as a way to promote open-mindedness and mitigate the effects of polarization.
But what exactly is empathy? Well, there are two types, and the distinction between them matters deeply for our depolarization efforts in the U.S.
When people traditionally think of empathy, they often think of “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes.” This kind of empathy focuses on how emotion is shared and understood between people. Yes, this can help; it humanizes people and turns someone who may be viewed as “the enemy” into a fellow person. However, “affective empathy,” as this sort of empathy is often called, does not focus on increasing a person’s knowledge base. Instead, “cognitive empathy,” or understanding how a person thinks and gathers information, is incredibly important to broadening one’s own scope. Just as one blind man’s conclusions in the story are limited to the single area he managed to feel, one’s own experiences only go so far, as they are developed from a limited background. No matter how extensive a person’s affective empathy can span, it is still limited by the stories that the specific person has accumulated. It would be difficult to relate to a person who has a completely different background.
People often have reasons for believing what should happen politically. These reasons may stem from their surroundings or experiences. The fact that these experiences exist means that they are legitimate and realistic, and must be regarded seriously when trying to find a solution. Any circumstance often is far more complex than “one side is good, one side is evil” and any solution comes with its benefits and drawbacks. Gathering as many perspectives as possible allows for a more comprehensive look on all the benefits and drawbacks associated with a given policy or action. Through open discussion, people can truly unite for mutual benefit rather than fight amongst themselves in the belief that their viewpoint is the best and only “right” plan of action. In fact, actively widening one’s own perspective has been found to boost creativity and problem-solving, both individually and collectively, which can ultimately lead to less polarization and more unity.
In order to realize its benefits for our political discourse, we cannot treat cognitive empathy simply as a performance. Instead, it must be a mindset, which requires genuine curiosity and acceptance for different — even opposing — people, viewpoints, and experiences. This is because simply displaying cognitive empathy outwardly often ends up backfiring. If group polarization has already taken root, then when someone tries consuming media from an opposing viewpoint, they find themselves becoming more defensive and shifting even further to the extreme side of their own political views.
This defensiveness explains why the wide range of views expressed on social media exacerbates rather than mitigates polarization. When someone is already confident in their well-established opinion, consuming media that supports the opposing side without also exercising cognitive empathy will only create further backlash as they decide that the opposing belief is completely off the mark. This leads to distrust in rival media, with people labeling information that conflicts with their worldview as misinformation or fake news. Viewers who increasingly distrust media sources then ultimately dismiss any opposing views as willfully ignorant or even malicious, unwittingly becoming more ignorant themselves. As echo chambers solidify, so too do their pernicious effects on society.
Putting Cognitive Empathy into Practice
So with this in mind, how can we all practice cognitive empathy without treating it as a performance?
The answer lies in listening to the stories behind a person’s positions. Simply listening to opinions or viewpoints themselves is not always the essential part of gathering new information. Many stances are based on personal experiences and stories. By gathering different people’s stories, one can build a wider lens with which to view issues. Being willing and excited to learn about the person behind the opinion, the stories behind the conclusion, is far more valuable than knowing the opinion itself.
Take the controversial topic of immigration, for example. The California Democratic Party’s website outlines one of their points of action to be providing a pathway for undocumented immigrants with a transitional path to legalized residency and citizenship.
On the one hand, many would argue that it is inhumane for people to be stuck in limbo without any path to belong in the place that they live. In addition, those with temporary protection, such as asylum seekers awaiting a court trial, are increasingly being grouped into the category of “undocumented immigrants.” Thus, especially recently, having mass detainments of “undocumented immigrants” invalidates those who are pursuing a legally recognized path to citizenship.
On the other hand, critics believe providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is akin to rewarding criminal behavior. To those who applied for a visa and are in the long line to immigrate to the U.S. legally, such a policy choice might seem unfair or even insulting. By advocating for those who broke the law when entering the country through giving them a pathway to citizenship, the U.S. would be helping people who sidestep the law achieve their goals.
Cognitive empathy can be used to consider both of these standpoints and increase understanding of the possible effects that this issue and solution may present.
The perspectives of immigrants offer valuable information for policymakers seeking to build an immigration system that functions well. For example, those applying for Humanitarian Parole can apply while in their own country, but they do not have any pathway to citizenship. Combined with the uncertainty caused by the limited supply of open spots for immigrants, those in critical humanitarian situations may be tempted to cross the border and try the asylum route, driving up wait times to years or even decades. This would in turn drive up incentives to enter the country illegally, which would increase the number of undocumented immigrants in the country.
The concerns of American citizens are also important to consider, and can be incorporated into parts of our border security. Affirmative asylum seekers wait on average 4.3 years for the court to review their claim. All the while, more people are coming in and entering the waiting pool, increasing the backlog and creating even more uncertainty for everyone in the system, both with and without liminal status. As the lines for legal immigration become more congested, more people may enter through the borders illegally, and the lack of documentation becomes a source of concern for the safety of Americans. The possibility of dangerous actors slipping through the border naturally leads people to fear the uncertainties surrounding undocumented immigration.
Through cognitive empathy, we can piece these perspectives together to arrive at a more comprehensive solution. One possible solution could be to rework avenues like Humanitarian Parole to allow applicants a pathway to citizenship, while hiring and training Border Protection officers to enforce more regulated criteria for asylum seekers. With continued deliberation and consideration, the U.S. will be able to create a more efficient system that both welcomes the benefits of immigration and protects the integrity of our legal system and safety of our country.
Even though others’ conclusions may seem different, even fallacious, the stories and experiences those conclusions stem from are very much real and legitimate. They paint valuable pictures from different angles — hidden characteristics of the elephant revealed by combining the perspective of every experience from every environment. When people open themselves to curiosity, they can piece together why a situation can bring someone to a particular opinion. Then, they can discuss how best to take that situation into consideration, and combine interests and efforts to create a more comprehensive view than before. This creates a positive feedback loop, where openness and discussion lead to better understandings, better solutions, and then further collaboration on solving greater problems.
Ultimately, had the six blind men truly considered each others’ descriptions, perhaps they could have realized that, by pooling together all of their varied vantage points, they can come up with a more complete image of the monstrous elephant that they were experiencing for the first time. In similar fashion, the solutions we develop through shared understanding can transcend any individual approach. By acknowledging our differences and commonalities, and using our various lenses as unifying forces rather than divisive ones, we can better diagnose and solve the problems that we face together.
