As I read through the stories chronicled by one Hochschild I discovered with some help from my own interviews of a person with many of the same beliefs and ideas as her interviewees I discovered a bitter truth, the people I disagree with have reason to disagree with me. Often I liked to imagine that the only reason people believed the counter of my own political views was becathey has been taught to by their parents and were only engaging in group think, but I am very wrong about that. They have a lot of good reasons to believe what they do and they are often affected by government interference and incompetence as much as private corporations.
My empathy walls did change, I stopped thinking of people with opposing political views as obstacles to get over and more like people to reason with. I am more able to question my own ways of thinking as well and understand that I need to reexamine my own positions constantly. I have always thought freedom was important, but now I question if I’ve always championed that or not. I also wonder if I myself have been subject to group think because of my family, community, and education.
Hollow_Archeology 