Empathy and alcohol

With Lil 5 week finally behind us, I’ve been looking back on the best and the worst of it.

And throughout all the terrible concerts and binge drinking that I’ve seen, the one thing that will always stick in my head will be the drunk fights I saw.

Anyone who’s been at a party for more than 10 minutes knows what I’m talking about. Two normally level-headed people have too much to drink, start getting a little rowdy and then someone steps on someone else’s shoes and shit hits the fan.

All-out warfare begins.

Sometimes it’s a long bout of simple name-calling, other times it’s a flat-out boxing match. But these drunk fights happen all the time, and they’ve made me think about why people fight.

I think most of it has to do with our inability to empathize. Sure, Drunk Douchebag #1 is angry his shoes have been smudged, but he should at least try to understand why Drunk Douchebag #2 did it.

Maybe he was bumped or pushed, or maybe he has more on his mind than a pair of $75 Nike shoes. Whatever the case, insta-punching him in the face probably isn’t the right answer.

But this inability to see the world from someone else’s view isn’t strictly confined to drunken brawls.

Things like racism and homophobia thrive off of the human inability to sympathize with someone who doesn’t think or look like them.

Homophobia, a key example of an inability to understand a different view point, is causing serious problems. In fact, gay teens are five times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers.

Homophobic people ostracize and fight against what they can’t understand, just like Drunk Douchebag #1. But instead of a pair of shoes, these people are literally gambling with the lives of others.

It’s a shame to see something like this in modern society, but luckily there’s a somewhat easy cure.

Use your words. Conversation among these types of people is absolutely essential for us as a society to move on.

They need to talk with those they don’t understand, and at least attempt to see their point of view.  

­— kevsjack@indiana.edu