I once heard an argument that the best way to design a truly just world would be to require people to do so without knowing anything about themselves—their gender, race, nationality, class, or sexual orientation. The logic is simple: if you don’t know which demographic group you will belong to, you are far less likely to design a society that oppresses any particular group. After all, you might end up being the very person harmed by the rules you create.
Most people want to see themselves as fair, principled, and moral. And indeed, most people are generally good. However, there is an uncomfortable truth we often avoid acknowledging, which is that most people are also primarily self-interested. Sure, some people are much more selfish than average and others are very selfless, but even the most selfless people won’t feel the pain or problems of others as intensely as they feel their own.
This is not necessarily a moral failure. It appears to be a consequence of human evolution. Threats to oneself are directly tied to survival and being able to pass down your genes, while threats to others are not. So, in terms of evolution, it makes sense that humans are wired to prioritize their own experiences.
This aspect of human nature has consequences though. Because people do not feel others’ pain as deeply as their own, they are often quick to dismiss it or justify it. And because most people want to believe they are good, they rarely admit this dismissal openly. Instead, they develop rationalizations: the suffering is exaggerated, deserved, or caused by the victims themselves. In some cases, those rationalizations are true, but frequently they are not and most importantly, people will usually not apply the same justifications if they were the ones that were suffering.
One might expect that people who have been oppressed would be more empathetic toward others who face oppression. Surprisingly, this is often not the case. Research and social observation show that belonging to a marginalized group does not automatically make someone more supportive of other marginalized groups.
Gay people, for example, are almost as likely as straight people of similar education and background to hold racist views. Racial minorities can be just as likely as the dominant race in the society – and sometimes even more likely than them – to be homophobic and to hold discriminatory beliefs against other racial minority groups that they perceive as being beneath them. When suffering does not threaten one’s own identity or interests, it becomes easier to explain it away, even when one knows what it is like to be mistreated.
As humanists, we should not deny this part of human nature. Pretending that most humans are morally consistent does not make it so. Instead, we should learn to notice the moments when we minimize or rationalize the suffering of others and ask ourselves a difficult question: Would I accept this explanation if I were the one in that position? And that might just be the most radical thing we do this new year. Not just declaring what we stand for, but interrogating where, and why we don’t.
By Jamila U. O.
