ALLiance of the Libertarian Left Central TEXAS

By Crystal

There is no doubt that reasoning is championed as the cornerstone of libertarian philosophy and that it is held in such high regard among those who hold the philosophy, yet there is a missing or often forgotten component when talking to others about liberty. What seems to take a backseat in regard to garnering more support for the efforts of liberty is minimal or no access to turning on the empathetic centers of the brain during interactions. For this reason libertarians are often consider cold and uncaring to the very real struggles of other peoples, and often time the reality of others can and will be dismissed without so much as opening up the empathetic centers. This creates a butting of heads in a reactionary sense and further pushes away the chance at creating comrades fighting for the same ends. Instead, a libertarian might ignore the opportunity to having a real conversation with a person of a marginalized segment of society and close off roads to effective communication this may and often does cause a reactionary response. 

A scenario by my friend Ross Kenyon in his article for The Association of Libertarian Feminists, “Empathy: Is the Non-Aggression Principle Enough?”, newsletter points this out:

Member of othered group: Myself and others like me are systematically marginalized in a way which makes us feel like lesser members of our society. Please join with us in confronting these humiliating and degrading barriers to better and more welcoming culture and law.

Reactionary: Change the way we treat one another so that you feel less marginalized?! What kind of pc liberal left bullshit is this?! You’re not marginalized! You have more privileges than white men do!

Member of othered group: Really? You won’t even listen and try to understand how our humanity suffers under our current culture, and try to pursue some reasonable adjustments in order to make our lives more dignified and livable? Fuck you. I guess we’ll need the force of law to make our lives more tolerable.

Reactionary: These feminazis/[pick your term] are trying to change the way we treat one another through the state! Statists! ¹

See how they react off one another. What is missing here is connecting to the empathetic centers and hearing people out, and one might learn how very real these issue are and stifle progress of all of humanity. The collusion of libertarianism with the political right, those who desire and protect cultural conservatism, has created a “Cultural Intellectual Property” style hindrance to human progress within libertarian circles; in other words protection of privilege. If a libertarian can open up to empathy for various groups then progress of liberty can move forward with greater speed, but if a libertarian cannot do this the philosophy may be doomed to be labeled a philosophy of privileged white males. It doesn’t require that much effort, and in doing so one can describe how the state hurts said group rather than helping.

Language is an important part of seeking empathy; there is a lot of research out there that tells the story of how language and the context can play a role in keeping others down rather than lifting them up. How it can diminish and marginalize their realities. For much of history racism and sexism was overt in language, often extreme, and of course in actions, but today it is often more subtle. But does the subtlety somehow change how it can diminish the realities of others? No. One of the more subtle forms of this language comes in humor; lets see what psychologists have to say about humor and the role of sexism.

A research project led by a Western Carolina University psychology professor indicates that jokes about blondes and women drivers are not just harmless fun and games; instead, exposure to sexist humor can lead to toleration of hostile feelings and discrimination against women.

“Sexist humor is not simply benign amusement. It can affect men’s perceptions of their immediate social surroundings and allow them to feel comfortable with behavioral expressions of sexism without the fear of disapproval of their peers,” said Thomas E. Ford, a new faculty member in the psychology department at WCU. “Specifically, we propose that sexist humor acts as a ‘releaser’ of prejudice.”²

The research found that the sexist jokes appeared to normalized sexist behavior, more so than non-humorous sexist statements, and the men were far less likely to choose to donate to a womens organization. Furthermore, when videos were shown to the participants depicting demeaning and stereotypical female social roles against neutral videos, the participants chose to cut funding from women’s organizations more than any other.

I offered some hypothetical commentary about sexist joking in a disturbing conversation on a friends Facebook page that one or more participants continued to sling jokes of gender inferiority…

Suppose you have a young daughter, full of life and a joy to know, and suppose she were to over hear you and your friends make some jokes about girls being stupid and inferior (“bitches need to stay in the kitchen and make me a pie”)… what do you think that effect would have on her young beautifully inquisitive mind? You think she would think of it as just a “joke” as you are laughing and trading jokes that are tied to a long history of women and girls being kept uneducated, therefore “stupid”? You think your young daughter would not make connections that daddy and his friends laugh and think mommy and little Lisa are stupid and inferior? Think she won’t make that connection as she grows and continues to hear these jokes, and see the culture of negativity? How do you suppose she would grow up and feel? Do you think she might grow up to be a bit meek and do things for the pleasure of men, or would she grow up confidant and independent and in search of a vast world of knowledge after hearing “jokes” from daddy’s lips about girls are only as good as the food they make for their men? It could happen either way, or even somewhere in between, but why would we take the chance of stifling our human children’s progress?

Recent research has found that sexism and racism is tied to authoritarian personalities and a leaning toward social dominance, those who consider that such groups of people marginalized deserve their place in a social hierarchy. The researchers also found that sexism and racism are likely to occur in the same people. People with high sexist tendencies also tended to score low in intercultural sensitivity, or empathy and interest in other cultures. ³

Ross had made many poignant statements in his article, and it echoes my feelings:

Perhaps most disappointing is the fact that our interpersonal relationships are the relationships which are the most accessible for transformation. These aren’t distant state actors we’re talking about; it’s us. I don’t think these are ridiculous things to challenge and change, and if it has the potential power to make people feel more respected and dignified members of our human community, I’ll do it.

The costs to one are a few small adjustments, and the potential benefits are huge. ⁴

The mistake I see is to reduce most relationships down to a sort of math equation: the” free market”. And that once we rid ourselves of the state and we have that “free market” that things will be more right as rain. Without seeking empathy for our fellow human issues and “demand a world of virtue and kindness” (as Ross stated), I believe the market is less likely to actually flourish and it may end up as just an experiment. Now I imagine that there are plenty of reactionary thoughts to using the word “demand”, but this is not a demand of seeking forceful social changes for egalitarian life. This is a “demand” you give to yourself because you care about humanity. Don’t care about humanity? Then why are you here? Why are you seeking liberty?

So what can you do? Listen to others, read points of others be it feminism of varying stripes, queer rights, black liberation, and so on. Have some damn empathy for once. You can “demand” of yourself to learn. You can open up the empathetic centers of your brain and help society evolve as a whole, and all you have to do is let go of the tunnel vision of “abstracting all responsibility as a market actor” (Ross) or that those who challenge society for egalitarian life and consideration only seek the state for the ills.

Is human progress part of libertarian values or not? Consider: Lift up, not pushing down or protect stagnation of progress. Consider adding empathy to your repertoire.