According to philosopher Michelle Maiese, it also opens the door for us to stop empathizing with others and eventually violate their basic human rights. Dehumanizing quite literally severs our shared humanity. Women on both sides are called bitches President Trump is photoshopped as a pig, and Eric Trump says critics of his father aren’t even people. “We want to be part of something, but we need it to be real-not conditional or fake or constantly up for negotiation,” Brown writes.Īt the same time, she says, we’re seeing a trend toward dehumanization: using images and language to paint the “other” as subhuman. Even with members of our own political party, we may start to feel anxious about saying the wrong thing, expressing the wrong opinion, and being excluded. That attitude may encourage people to fall in line, but it isn’t a recipe for belonging or contentment, Brown explains.

them” mentality: “You’re either with us or against us” “You either use this language or you’re a racist” “You either support this policy or you want America to fail.” With emotions running high, many political discussions are dominated by an “us vs. We’ve turned away from one another and toward blame and rage. “We’ve sorted ourselves into factions based on our politics and ideology. “The world feels…heartbroken to me right now,” she writes. When Brown talks about a spiritual crisis, she’s using a very specific definition of spirituality, one that emerged from the research behind her book The Gifts of Imperfection: the recognition that we’re all “inextricably connected to each other” through love and compassion.īut according to Brown’s research, people today feel they are losing that sense of shared humanity. From the GGSC to your bookshelf: 30 science-backed tools for well-being.

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