Redtree Times

I’ve been thinking lately, as I’ve been painting, about words that have big concepts behind them.  Words like reverence, devotion and empathy.

Empathy is a word that always comes back to me when I think of the chasm between left and right in this country.  I think that empathy is the quality, more than any other,  that really defines and divides both sides.

The right views empathy as a weakness, an admission that one can’t do for themselves and needs help.  Those who are without and need help obviously are out to take what the right has toiled to keep to themselves.  These people deserve only pity.  Not empathy, because how can we empathize with situations that we would never allow ourselves to be in?

The left has a large tent of empathy, looking out for everyone who has ever been down and needs a hand up, perhaps to a fault.  They have a sense of fair play that sometime opens them to being conned by those who would play upon their willingness to help.  They even sometimes treat their adversaries with empathy, giving them the benefit of their own doubt at times, allowing the opposition to hinder and sabotage even as they proclaim their desire for unity.

I know this is over-simplification to the nth degree and, god knows, I could be way wrong here.  But to me it’s just an illustration of how deep the chasm between these two sides remains and how incompatible their mindsets are.  This simple imbalance of a single human virtue on both sides makes any dialogue almost impossible and with every passing day we can see this in the news coming out of our capital.

Solutions?  I don’t know.  Perhaps if those on the left can absorb some of that self-righteous anger that has long been the province of the right and just swallow their empathy for a short time, something may be accomplished.  But until that improbable moment occurs, it’ll be the status quo.  Over and over again.

Thanks to Tom Tomorrow and his website for the cartoon.  I really like his style.