Tell Us What You Want (What You Really, Really Want): Why Won’t the Left Just Ask for More Compassion?
There is growing division between the political Left and Right.
I know, this is not a very astute observation.
Bears defecate in the woods.
Birds fly.
Grizzly Adams had a beard (which I didn’t know until that guy from the movie Happy Gilmore confidently reassured us).
The above are all statements of fact. There is hardly a need to say them out loud.
Yet there is something seemingly obvious — something that should be named — about the spiral of polarization occurring between Left and Right that is rarely said. The fact that it remains unspoken is what makes it insidious. I believe that if we could bring this topic into our collective discourse, it would help reverse the spiral of polarization that is threatening to sink our society.
I believe we need to talk more explicitly about compassion — what it means, and how to implement it. Let me offer some context.
It is probably fair to say that the desire for a more compassionate world has motivated the social and political Left for decades, spanning from East to West. Socialism, Communism, and the vision of Capitalism today are undergirded by the wish to see people suffering less. You won’t find any objections from me here: seeing a world with more compassion and acknowledgment of our shared humanity is one of the things I care most about in life. Yet the underlying intentions of a movement are not necessarily the same forces that perpetuate it; the wish for more compassion can be obscured by the mechanisms contrived to serve the idea of compassion, rather than compassion, in effect — what actually reduces suffering. This was evident all throughout the 20th Century.
In this article, I will attempt to make the case that because the modern Left, or “woke,” initiatives are failing to explicitly name their core aim — which I see as “being more compassionate to people” — this aim is becoming a “shadow” version of itself, leading to increasingly outlandish, distracted, and desperate attempts to install “compassion” into the minds of others as these projects are repeatedly resisted by the Right. This, in my opinion, is producing a facsimile of a compassionate movement — anti-racism, gender-affirming medicine, and body positivity appear empathic and kind — yet the ideas and behaviors being propagated under these banners are increasingly detached from the underlying aim, serving more so ideology than the people purported to benefit from these endeavors. As these ideas continue to enter the spin cycle of polarization, they become more extreme as the Left and Right continue their political tug-of-war.
So, it begs the question: Why won’t the Left just say what it really wants?
How Did We Get Here?!
Oh oh oh Ozempic! It’s magic! Did you know?
In case you haven’t heard, there is a new weight loss drug called Ozempic that is taking guts by storm. Celebrities, lay people, and (not surprisingly) the drug’s manufacturers are billing Ozempic as a miracle weight loss drug. (The line above referrals to Ozempic’s catchy jingle that plays off the 70’s hit song Magic by Pilot). The drug is only approved to treat diabetes, however its weight loss side effects have led to widespread efforts to obtain the drug, so much so that it has led to a shortage for people that actually need it.
Ozempic and the topic of medical weight loss interventions, more broadly, has been the subject of a growing debate in the United States: Is it sane, let alone effective, to doll out medications to individuals (including teenagers) who struggle with weight loss? Is weight loss a matter of personal control or biological pathology? (See, for example, this Bari Weiss podcast episode of “Honestly”). An increasingly popular stance taken by U.S. doctors, including many at top-tier universities and medical centers, describes obesity as a “brain disease” — something more akin to Alzheimer’s or ADHD than avolition.
Why, suddenly, is there a push to classify obesity as a “brain disease?” What is going on in this current cultural moment? Of course, there are new studies pointing to genetic and neurobiological factors involved in obesity; yet there is no one “obesity gene” (nor are we likely to discover one), and viewing obesity as a deterministic biological process ignores the obvious role of psychology and behavior. So, why the jolt of ambition to relinquish responsibility away from the individual?
I see this phenomenon as tightly wrapped up in the social and political winds of our time. The effort to label obesity as a “brain disease,” in my opinion, is an attempt to garner more compassion on a social level for those struggling with obesity — a group that is undoubtedly marginalized and stigmatized in our society. The reasoning may go, albeit on an unconscious level, something like this: If we can prove that obesity is genetic, and not a matter of personal will, then people will be nicer and more understanding! This phenomenon is likely caught up in the “body positivity” or “healthy at any size” tailwinds swirling through our current climate. Within this mix are a whole range of other social movements, which I believe are essentially saying: Don’t be mean! Be nice to people who are struggling! Again, no argument from me about being a nice person.
But what if it’s possible to be both exceptionally compassionate and rebuke the ideological axioms being promulgated? Can one both empathize deeply with the struggles of weight loss and simultaneously recognize the role of personal responsibility (as well as genetics)? In fact, if it turns out that negating the role of psychology and behavior favors the status quo in the long run (as opposed to favoring more weight loss), for example, we must ask ourselves whether our efforts are truly compassionate. True compassion continuously comes back to what works. To do what works, we must release unhelpful attachment to ideology.
Let’s look at some other examples of how these spirals of polarization are occurring.
The Left’s advocacy for gender-affirming medical interventions in youth can be mapped to a similar process. What began, I believe, with caring intentions to support kids who are struggling — I personally can’t imagine how difficult it must be to confront the sense of being in a mismatched body, let alone facing the social stigma and psychosocial stressors that come along with this — is evolving into hasty and unequivocal encouragement of interventions that, at best, have minimal scientific support (in fact, many European countries are restricting these interventions based on a lack of favorable evidence).
Here’s how this process unfolds: the Left begins bringing attention to the struggles of transgender youth — struggles that are very real and should concern us all. This is the first plea: Pay attention. We need to be more compassionate. Now, there is a small faction on the Right who might be skeptical of trans anything, due to religious beliefs (or who knows what). This bleeds out a little into the Right. The first signs of resistance are evident. At this point, the Left perceives this resistance and is forced to up the ante: You’re not being compassionate! You want to harm transgender kids! So, the Left goes a step further. We’ll show you how compassionate we are! And force you big meanies to be the same! The Left flirts with the idea of hormone therapy and surgery — we are compassionate, and you are not (na na na boo boo) — but still exhibits discernment and restraint about if, and when, these interventions are appropriate. The Right resists: the rhetoric ramps up on how outlandish and out-of-touch the Left is. Ideas are floated about introducing legislation that block these interventions. The Left goes a step further: greenlight every kid for surgery who feels they are in the wrong body. The Right introduces legislation to block this. And on and on we go as this ratcheting process leads to increasingly extreme and unhelpful ideologies on both sides.
The creeping effects of discarding nuance and discernment (in favor of ideology) were also on display in the #MeToo movement: what began as a wake-up call about the preponderance of sexual assault towards women turned into a campaign to “believe all women” and, one might argue, a largescale shift in attitudes towards men in society — much of it justified, yet perhaps taken one or two steps beyond its justifiable aims. The emotion behind this movement superseded its logical applications. The plea to “believe all women” is a plea to show compassion towards woman who have been sexually assaulted — it is a campaign meant to change hearts. But that is not how it comes across. Instead, many see and hear the words of the campaign instead of the emotion behind it: “throw away nuance and discernment” is how many read it, and thus it is met with resistance and falls into the cycle of polarization. The Left is trying to make people act compassionately but it is using the wrong tactics: it is trying to appeal to people’s hearts by stretching the mind beyond its logical boundaries. But stretching reason just creates backlash in the opposite direction; logical errors are easily sniffed out. Instead, I believe we can directly appeal to people’s hearts without toying with people’s cognitions. We can be more direct by asking for what we really want: more compassion.
The polarizing effects of misguided compassion campaigns are also clear in the anti-racism, abortion rights, and climate battles taking place in the U.S. and abroad. On the climate front, for example, early warnings about our warming earth were full of heart and free of politics: there was simply a desire to save the planet. Today, that desire still exists, however the toxic effects of polarization have clouded our ability to see pragmatic solutions. The agenda to cut carbon emissions, because it has generally been resisted by the Right, has increasingly become a matter of moral signaling and superiority. Because of this, we have become myopic to other causes and solutions (what some call “carbon tunnel vision”) on the climate front; we know that soil degradation, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity are also key contributors to climate change, but the game is no longer about doing what works — we’re stuck in a battle focused on who is nice and who is mean. Cutting carbon is nice. Anything that threatens that story is mean. And the more mean “they” are, the nicer I will try to make them become. The only problem is that I’m not asking them directly to be nice — I’m trying to make them nice by doubling down on the behaviors that symbolize being “nice” (or at least I think symbolize nice). I am working for an ideology — trying to change people’s minds — instead of going directly for their hearts. Capisce?
The Middle Way
I don’t know about you, but on some level, I feel like this all somehow circles back to Trump — or rather what Trump represents and the forces that preceded him (but these battles have certainly picked up since Trump came on the scene). Essentially, what this means is that the Left is in a moral tug-of-war with the Right, which it perceives as a bunch of big meanies, and it certainly didn’t help when Trump threw his weight behind one side of this match. The problem is that — just like in actual tug-of-war — the harder one side pulls, the harder the other side pulls. As long as we’re holding onto the rope for dear life — clutching our identities and ideologies — we’ll continue to see big momentum swings in both directions… until one side completely collapses (do we really want that?) or the rope itself tears apart.
Here’s the thing: I believe that radical compassion is possible without the polarizing initiatives we’re relying upon today. It is possible to have profound empathy for those struggling with weight loss without pretending that it is a “brain disease” they have no control over; combining empathy with personal responsibility might even be a more powerful tonic than relegating ourselves to pharmaceuticals alone. It is possible to feel the psychological pains of, and wish nothing but happiness and thriving for, transgender youth, without jumping immediately to surgery. It is possible to fully accept and validate different gender identities without putting your pronouns in your Zoom name. It is possible to work on healing racism, inside and out, without putting a BLM sign on your front lawn. It is possible to love the planet without condemning those who don’t use recycled paper to wipe their ass. In fact, all of these strategies — efforts to contrive compassion without actually saying so — may reduce the likelihood of compassion being evoked. While these strategies are good at waving the woke flag and eliciting a call-and-response from the tribe, they may fail to serve the people they are aiming to help, in practice, for two reasons: first, they create increased polarization, and therefore more resistance and, yes, meanness towards the marginalized and stigmatized. Second, they distract us from what actually works.
True compassion is pragmatic. It asks, what works? Leading with true compassion forces us to continue coming back to the heart — not remaining fixed in ideological games. True compassion allows us to see beyond identity and ideology. So, we must appeal to people’s hearts and not just their minds. We must ask for compassion. We must listen to people who disagree with us. We must meet people where they are at. We must find common humanity in our ideological “enemies.” These strategies open the heart.
I believe this can allow us to move forward in a more pragmatic and unified way. It might allow us to leave behind the mess of our past and find a better future.
To quote the great philosophers, the Spice Girls: “If you want my future, forget my past… Now don’t go wasting my precious time. Get your act together, we could be just fine. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT!”
About the Author
Matthew Goodman, Ph.D. is a Licensed Clinical Psychological, consultant, and speaker. He is Founder/CEO of The Middle Way Consulting, where he works with organizations on team building, communication, and wellness strategies. Dr. Goodman has taught mindfulness meditation for the past 10+ years to a wide range of audiences, from healthcare professionals to elementary school students and teachers. He was previously a Clinical Assistant of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. He has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles on mindfulness and mind-body health and published the book, Simple Stress Reduction: Easy and Effective Practices for Kids, Teens, and Adults. He hosts The Middle Way Podcast, which is focused on illuminating our interconnectedness and bridging social and political divides.
Personal website: https://www.matthewgoodmanphd.com/
The Middle Way Consulting: https://www.the-middle-way.com/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-middle-way-with-dr-matthew-goodman/id1566423470 / https://open.spotify.com/show/24QlEy5FOCTSQTWjsoOCRZ
