"Yeah, I'm that old. When I was little, the up and down was hours of fun. But bouncing from sky to dirt in a bipolar fashion loses its charms with endless repetition. As we grew older, my friends and I would try to balance instead, making the bar hover horizontally off the ground through a mix of physics and what seemed like magic."
"There is a new attack underway by the far right that some of you may yet be unaware of. Those who seemingly disdain values I hold dear - solidarity, compassion, freedom - have launched a war on empathy. Yes, empathy, the ability to share and understand the feelings of another - the gateway drug to emotions including mercy, and values including tolerance and justice. Some on the right have gone so far as to declare empathy a sin."
A childhood teeter-totter illustrates the need for balance between opposing motions. Balance requires empathy toward fellow Americans and clarity about political realities, including what is possible, what is practical, and what decency demands. Empathy enables sharing and understanding others' feelings and fosters mercy, tolerance, and justice. A growing movement on the far right seeks to denigrate empathy, with some declaring empathy a sin and portraying resistance to "woke" as belligerence toward equality. That denigration is gaining followers on parts of the Christian right and threatens solidarity, compassion, and freedom unless countered by equal measures of empathy and clarity.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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