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Character Matters — Empathy
This article is part of our Principled Voter series. A principled voter asks: Is this candidate empathetic? “Democracy, in its essence and genius, is imaginative love for and identification with a community with which, much of the time and in many ways, one may be in profound disagreement.” — Marilynne Robinson What does it mean to be empathetic? A principled voter supports leaders who seek to understand and connect with those they represent — and not just people who vote for them. Empathetic leaders know their own experiences are not universal, so they make sincere efforts to understand how policies (or their absence) might affect all of their constituents. What is…
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Practical Peacemaking Week 3: Preparing to Understand Others to Create Peace — Listening, Perspective Taking, and Empathizing
In a world of increasingly loud and divisive voices of people, organizations, and governments, too few of us are truly listening well enough to really understand each other. As the Swiss psychologist Paul Tournier once said, “Listen to all the conversations of our world, between nations as well as between individuals. They are, for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.” Yet even when we do desire to listen deeply to each other, we often lack the skills and attitudes needed to bridge expanding chasms of belief, facts, and purposes that lie between us. This week, to strengthen our peacemaking skills, we are focusing on three critical skills for preparing…
