Weaponisation of empathy, Re-humanisation of the Elite

I find it incredibly striking how contrasting the news can be at times. When, for example, an MP is assassinated, or a member of the royal family gets diagnosed with cancer, or some former notable politician dies after a prolonged battle with dementia – the news of these ‘tragedies’ flood news sites, social media, and any other means of communication available to those who control the narrative. This often takes precedent over deaths related to poverty, or to genocide (especially in regard to the current genocide being committed against the Palestinian people), or to countless wars, conflicts, and famines. That is if the latter are even reported at all, and they are never given anywhere near the same reverence as the former if they are.

The critical analysis we employ as anarchists, as anti-capitalists, as anti-statists, to this situation is nothing new or exciting for me to write about. However, for the sake of being as thorough as possible, the process is, in many ways, twofold:

It is a process of dehumanisation. It is a process of distraction. The numbers of dead due to capitalism’s failings and imperialist wars are insurmountable. It is a number that we cannot calculate, and we cannot comprehend – and that is only the dead, it is not even including the millions who live in a practical state of death, as wage slaves with little to call a life. This makes it easy for those reporting on this to ‘take the human cost’ out of these figures, and to make us view these victims as not human or even real. This dehumanisation also occurs in often incredibly racist and colonial fashions, with those who do not conform to the western ideal of the white man being perceived as inherently inferior and undeserving of empathy when compared to those who do conform to the western ideal. This can be observed particularly in recent years in regard to the contrast of how the western media has presented victims in Ukraine compared to victims in Palestine, but hundreds of examples exist.

This dehumanisation is coupled with presenting alternative stories (usually of the woes of the ruling class, or of the usual distraction media by presenting other random stories) or downplaying the stories of capitalism’s terror as a tactic of distraction. Often, the distraction is not even via the ruling class, other ‘more deserving’ peoples are instead put on a mantle, whereas the ‘undeserving’ victims are cast aside. However, multiple tactics of distraction exist, including using the ruling class themselves. So much more can be said on this, but I instead refer readers to the countless writers who have said it better and in far more detail than myself, especially regarding episodic and thematic framing.

However, something else is also happening, especially when the ruling class attempt to present themselves as the victims in times of crisis. It is not enough for the ruling class to employ tactics of dehumanisation and distraction. They also employ the opposite, but to themselves, a tactic of humanisation, a weaponisation of our empathy, to try and bridge the unbridgeable gap that exists between us and them. It is no longer enough for them to dehumanise their victims; they must re-humanise themselves.

The most obvious reason for them doing this is as a placation tactic. The ruling class thrives off those who it oppresses not being aware of them being oppressed. One of the ruling classes worst fears is us gaining class consciousness, or whatever term you wish to insert here. Therefore, not only do they sow discontent and arbitrary divides within our own ranks, but they also wish to bring us closer to them, so that we see them as our equal and our friend, and not our enemy and oppressor. When this is done well enough (as it unfortunately often is), it can get to a point where they do not even have to defend themselves from criticism anymore, they will instead have an army of those who have been tricked into thinking they are worth defending to do it for them.

How do they go about this process in the context of death and illness? Various methods are employed. The first is, as already mentioned, an attempt at humanisation. The ruling elite, politicians, royals, CEO’s, have in many ways shed their humanity and have instead taken on the cold soulless face of capital. They no longer really exist as individuals; they exist instead as personifications of oppressive systems. The individual politician becomes a representation of the state, the individual royal of the monarchy, the individual CEO of capitalism.

However, they are (much to their dislike) still human. They can suffer the same tragedies that the workers can face, albeit it on drastically different terms and with drastically more support. Murder, illness, natural disasters – even our oppressors struggle to escape them. So, when they are affected by them (and not wanting to let a good scandal go to waste), they weaponise our empathy towards themselves. As noted as well, this weaponisation does not just serve to help their own image as individuals, by virtue of them existing as personifications of the system itself, it also serves to humanise this representation. It is usually irrelevant which royal or whatever CEO suffers in this manner, what matters is that their weaponisation serves both their own image (and how they use it for the benefits of themselves and these systems) but also the system itself. Even if we want to claim that the individual is irrelevant in the system of oppression, this tactic serves to defend that system also.

It is a deeply human thing to feel empathy for others, and I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people do wish to do good for others and to care for them, it is one of the many reasons why I have so much faith in a better world. However, when the ruling elites try and use this empathy for their own gain – we should not feel bad for resisting it. When tropes such as ‘cancer can affect anyone’, ‘dementia knows no class’ etc. are peddled – it is important to remember how these things affect someone who is working class and someone who is a monarch. Whilst it may be true in a very literal sense, it does not mean we should be willing to abandon all critique or cancel all actions against them out of respect. They want this, they want us to humanise with them, they want us to view them in the same way we view our own sick loved ones – and they want this, so we feel worse about fighting back.

This also occurs in the context of oppressors fighting back against the oppressed. When the ruling class terrorise, destroy, and pillage those who are under them for their own profit and gain, they initiate processes of dehumanisation to try and ensure we do not feel outrage at their slaughter. However, when similar attacks happen against them, whether it be decolonial, anti-capitalist, or a myriad of other struggles, they attempt to show this as being a horrendous attack on other human beings. They present themselves as humans too, with families, with friends, with lives, who do not deserve what has happened to them (by virtue of their own actions no less) to make us feel bad for having ever fought back. They maintain a society built on violence and misery, that they are more than happy to inflict on others, but when the same comes back onto them, they immediately seize it as an opportunity to re-humanise themselves, and to make them more palatable and ‘loved’ by those they exploit.

This re-humanisation also serves an interesting dual function of individualisation. It firstly exploits the fact that there is a small ruling elite and an impossibly large, oppressed class. Empathy often comes easier with a known face, so they exploit this to get us to feel empathy towards them, and to struggle to feel empathy for the countless dead at their hands. A fact that may even encourage the ruling class towards inflicting greater destruction. It secondly creates a counter-narrative for reformers, the idea that the targets are these individual personifications of the system, trying to distract us with their own issues, when in reality the target is not JUST them, but also the systems that they personify and represent.

I am not saying this to argue that you should feel amazing when another person gets cancer or is assassinated. I am also not saying that you should fight back against empathy that comes naturally to you. I am saying this to remind you that these stories are generated to have political effects. There is no neutral reporting on the ruling class, it is done to serve their interests, and the interest here is the protection of oppressive systems and the continuation of their destruction of our planet and its people.

To conclude, I ask that the next time you see the individual woes of the ruling class being reported with more rigour and prominence than the deaths of millions to poverty or to genocide, that you rightly recognise the dehumanisation and distraction tactics that are being employed, but also recognise the more subtle attempts at weaponising your empathy for their re-humanisation. Remember that you are not a bad person for continuing to criticise our oppressors, and that you can, and should, focus your empathy on the real victims of our deeply sick and oppressive world – and use it as a catalyst to fight for them.