Understanding Does Not Equate to Agreement.
⏱ 4-minute read
If you’re someone capable of understanding multiple perspectives at once, chances are you’ve been accused of sympathizing with Wrong People™, engaging in Wrong Think™, and are therefore a Bad Person™.
If you’re someone who can hold opposing views in the same gaze, you’ve probably been told you have “toxic empathy,” “misplaced kindness,” and that you are “on the wrong side of history.”
If your brain allows you to connect dots explaining behaviors others seem baffled by, especially when such behaviors are deemed morally offensive or criminal, odds are people have mistaken your intelligence for enabling, your wisdom for weakness, and your compassion for endorsement.
They are wrong. Not you.
Don’t let other people’s quick assumptions, brash judgments, and lack of critical reasoning skills dampen your intellect, crush your compassion, or cause you to doubt your own integrity.
There is nothing wrong with a capacity to understand, comprehend, or make sense of why people do the things they do. Your gifts of insight do not mean you are a fool. Rather, you are beyond the confines of tribalism. The world needs people like you. Without us, there would be no criminal psychologists to help recognize and stop murder; no authors to write books like The Body Keeps the Score that help millions self-forgive and heal; no masterpieces of art like Les Misérables.
The ability to step into another’s shoes is not an approval of their actions or motives. It is a capacity for knowledge that makes other people uncomfortable. Their feeling threatened does not mean their resulting assumptions about you are true. They are on their own journey. Don’t let the limits of their brain cause you to deny yours. Don’t let their short-sighted presumptions inhibit your broad-minded curiosity. Don’t let their inabilities cause you to feel shame about being able-minded.
Your understanding is a gift. Not evidence of “wrong think.” When people try to tell you otherwise, invite them into curiosity if you have the energy for it; otherwise, don’t feel bad because of their ineptitude. It is not your burden to make the world a more understanding place. Yes, the misunderstanding hurts. Yes, the vilification provokes self-defense. Yes, it’s hard to be an eagle in a world of turkeys.
And yes…your understanding extends even to those who so willfully refuse to see you. That’s how smart you are and how big your heart is. You don’t need to act on it—in fact, a wise person once said not to cast your pearls before swine. The important thing is you know yourself, so that you can accept and love yourself, and keep gifting the world with your insight, grace, and brilliance as you so choose. It’s so much better than trying to be a narrow-minded, black-and-white someone you’re not.
I know exactly what you mean. I have exactly one friend who I can say things to like "All humans start out being susceptible to influences that could make them hold those views, but you and I were lucky to have experiences and learn things that helped us recognize coercive control. Have some compassion for a fellow human even though they have abhorrent views." Almost everyone I interact with now-a-days thinks it is wrong to have any tolerance for people with views they think are evil.
It took me a long time to give myself permission to interact courteously with people I view as enemies. I finally realized that I want to be compassionate and courteous to everyone, and that I should not let someone's horrible views or the intolerance of my people to people with horrible views change me to be less compassionate than I want to be.
On another note, Alice, do you have many real-life friends that really value your meta outlook on people? I often feel that it is my most important quality, but also the quality most people I know don't care that I have. Do you get frustrated by that, or do you know a lot of people that feel the same way so you can appreciate each other when ideas like this come up?
I need this advice as a person that can be on both sides of this, especially in these times where reality is made up, it seems, by every individual. You've taught me to take some time to understand why someone may think the way they do. I'm still not great at it, but I'm learning.
Thank you, Alice!