Kindness and Cruelty: The Empathy of Humanity

This isn't going to be like most of my other posts, this is just a free thought piece, not any kind of research or info piece.

I'm writing after seeing yet another onslaught of cruelty from the regressive faction of YES and it's a lot to take, to be honest. I'm having a bit of a hard time trying to comprehend the cruelty and hate they have at the best of times, but this one has really thrown me.

The current regressive faction of the YES 'movement' - I would struggle to call it that now -  has been playing a large part in the hate campaign against trans and non-binary people, and it seems set to go on, and on, and on, relentlessly like a tornado destroying everything in its path. 

Disabled people are now one of the focuses of this faction to target with cruelty and hate.

Disabled people 

I honestly can't even believe I'm having to say that

The current YES 'movement' is attacking disabled people. 

Pushing old stigma and narratives about 'faking disabilities' and mocking everything they can think of from Tourettes to depression. 

This is the same people, the same faction, who are adamant they are 'feminists' while they sit online defending a man charged with rape, while also verbally abusing women and survivors who have the temerity to stand up to them and say 'NO, you are NOT an ally to me'.

If they aren't harassing and being abusive towards trans and non-binary people online, or harassing and being abusive towards women online, they are harassing and being abusive towards BAME or disabled people. It's something I can't fathom. I don't know why any person would do that.

I've written already about transphobia and gender critical 'feminism' and, like many other people, I have talked about how one bigotry never comes alone, it is always co-morbid with a few others, if not all others.

So, when any bigotry is enabled and legitimised, it opens the door for more which has been lying underneath the veil of a 'good person', and this has happened in YES and its involvement in the hate campaign against the trans and non-binary community. 

It has opened the flood gates of hate and nothing but seems to pour through.

I don't know when this started exactly, it's most likely that it was always there, underneath in much the same way the misogyny has been in YES, but I'm not even sure it matters when it started, or even how, it matters that it is. 

The transphobic regressive faction of YES - the movement which was once all-inclusive, tolerant and progressive - have descended into a bunch of bullies and thugs who apparently get their rocks off most in life by going online to harass, verbally abuse, and bully marginalised groups including the LGBTQIA community, BAME and other PoC and disabled people.

I don't recognise the YES 'movement' of 2021, nor do I belong in it anymore and I'm struggling to see what it offers anybody at this point but more of the same, except in an Independent Scotland.

And many of yous will know this is a big change for me from 2014. I've had judgments and abuse for this, for saying 'NO you are not an ally to me, I no longer regognise you as such' and that's fine, it's in keeping with this 'new' brand of YES. 

I've lost friends over this, both irl and online, because I refuse to just sit back and pretend this isn't happening, and that's ok, that's what always happens when you make a stand and refuse to give in to bigotry when it's from your own side.

I'm quite willing to accept that, what I can't and will never accept is the abject cruelty I see from these people.

The truth of it is, YES has changed, its values have changed, It no longer holds the values it once did in 2014: inclusivity, equality, fairness, tolerance, community, supporting and solidarity; but I still do.

My question to you would be, after seeing all that's going on, how can you ignore it?

It's always so much easier to point at all the flaws of  'the other side' condemn, and demand they do better, it's much, much harder to accept the responsibility of being the person who has to do that within your own side.

And this is what YES needs now, it needs people who will call out the bigotry within it, not people who will pander and pretend, and repeatedly shout 'vote yes no matter what'.

Why are they so cruel?

So much of human behaviour makes me wonder a lot about how people can be so cruel. I could go into all the psychological or sociological probable causes, but to be honest, I don't think it will help here, I don't think it will even help me with this, I can't always rationalise away what I'm seeing, hearing, experiencing and feeling (although I really would love to). 

There is a simple answer to how people can be so cruel,  erasure of empathy, but it has so many complexities that I still can't really understand how and why a person or group of people willingly end up throwing away empathy for cruelty.

In a world which is already so cruel without anybody doing anything, we have so much to deal with as individuals, as communities, as countries and as a species, and yet some people seem to go out of their way to just make it even harder, go out of their way to be completely and utterly cruel and throw their empathy to the wind for a few points online.

I don't understand people like that, I truly don't.

I don't understand how they can dehumanise people to such a degree they seem to forget to empathise, sympathise and have compassion with them.

These are people who,  in any other circumstance, probably consider themselves 'good people' with 'left values' but reading their comments about disabled people and disability, invisible disabilities in particular I can't fathom why they would believe this. They clearly are not good people, they clearly do not have left values. 

Why would you feel the need to hurt people like that, who have done nothing to you, for no reason what so ever other than a few points online, and still think you are a 'good person'?

None of us are perfect, that's ok, but surely at the very least, we can try to be better?

The abject cruelty these people I once stood beside as a fellow yesser are capable of has been truly disturbing to me and I can only conclude these people are radicalised.  This kind of hate and cruelty is common in radicalised people and groups and it always ends badly.

What we are seeing in YES, and wider left, seems to be a form of radicalisation of people in the left, who somehow think they are immune to radicalisation.  A key part of radicalisation is removing empathy for the 'other' and this has happened in the case of regressive YES and almost every marginalised group.

These people seem to forget that they are just a human being, fallible and messed up like the rest of us, and yes are susceptible to hate campaigns, propaganda, moral panics and radicalisation against margianlised minorities. And that yes, sadly, these things can impact and lessen your empathy for other human beings you deem 'other', and this can lead to a variety of forms of cruelty towards them.

All of this often makes me wonder about their own family and friends who are looking on. How do they feel? How does this affect them?

I can't imagine it would be a nice experience seeing your own mum or dad, brother or sister or friend talking to other people like you the way they do. It would be hard not to wonder, is this how they really feel inside about you? Is this what they don't say to your face?

If I were sitting online harassing women, LGBTQIA, BAME and disabled people, I would not be able to face myself in the mirror, I just couldn't look at that person, at who I had become, because that is the worst possible version of me. I would feel like an empty human being if that was who I had become. 

Cruelty is not strength, it is weakness, kindness is not weakness it is strength.

In a world such as this, where we suffer loss daily, whether personally or socially, kindness is the truest form of strength there is, because it's easy to be cruel when things feel hopeless, it's very easy, and hurting others is a temporary and false boost. It makes you feel that wee bit better, just for a second, because you are distracted from your own problems, your own pain, your own flaws.

These people are cruel because they cannot fathom any other way to express their own pain but by reflecting it and deflecting it back on others.

The people who seem to take immense pleasure in being cruel are not being strong, they are not being the best version of themselves, they are allowing their most toxic traits and nature to pour through and it rots away at who they are. 

Mostly tho, they are scared, scared of their own weakness, and they see kindness as such, so run from it at every opportunity. It's sad, it's not a happy story, and they are not happy human beings.

I call this the Dawkins/Gervais mentality, cruelty is paramount, the crueler you can be the better, and they compete to see who can be the cruelest; this seems to gain the most points within their own group.

If you say something which 'upsets' enough people, or the right people, you win.

I wonder at what point these people realise, there is no winning that game? That it is from the start a losing game. Because it means you have already relinquished the part of you which differentiates you from the right-wing, you've relinquished your empathy.

The right-wing, the tories, are cruel, they are often unimaginably cruel, with heartless policies, heartless views and opinions on those they deem as lesser.

All I can say is, if you have become like those you claimed to stand against that is not a win, that is the biggest loss a person who believes themselves to be left-wing can face in my opinion.

I find it tremendously sad when people emulate particularly cruel individuals, but this is what we do as human beings, we emulate people we spend our time with, whom we respect and admire, if they are kind, we are more likely to be kind and if they are cruel, well, you know...

In a world such as ours, where there is so much pain and loss,  it can be very easy to forget kindness exists at all, so often even the smallest act of kindness can make a huge impact and if you could be the person who reminds someone else that kindness existed, why would you choose to be otherwise?

One of the regressives recently said on Twitter that those of us who support trans rights are "brainwashed Manson wives" my reply to this was as it is now, if I'm brainwashed into being an open-minded, tolerant, inclusive, nice and kind human being, as opposed to willingly choosing to be a hateful, cruel, resentful regressive bigot, I'll take it ta!

10 more brainwashes, please!

Because I would rather be a kind and empathetic person, than an emulation of a bigot, no matter how I achieved this. 

TL;DR

Our very humanity relies on our empathy, we often define ourselves by it, we are intelligent and we are empathetic, but, sadly it seems right now, we are neither. And if we abdicate our sense of empathy, our compassion for one another, this dooms humanity as a whole.

Without empathy, without compassion, without even an ounce of sympathy, independence is a losing game, there are no winners.