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Psychology of Understanding
Many have asked about the psychological insights behind The Enemies Project. For others, though, psychology is beside the point. Anyone who watches “enemies” go from rancor to tenderness intuitively gets The Enemies Project. If, however, you want to understand the mind in conflict, and make use of the insights, here we go...
The Enemy Trance
The psychological state called the Enemy Trance is at the core of human conflict, and so too, peace.
1. Threat Perception —> Empathy Collapse
When we believe we are threatened, a series of physiological processes dial down empathy in the human brain. And this starts a cascade toward war. Let’s take an example: a Republican believes Democrats favor mass immigration and wish to give away free money to immigrants--all so they’ll vote Democrat. Democrats will be perceived as a threat to the Republican's family: higher debt means their kids and grandkids will have to pay it back. Immigrants might vote for politicians who don’t care about unborn children. And bringing in people who don’t speak English well (and won’t learn it) might cause ethnic strife. Whether their beliefs are correct is not relevant to understanding war. They believe the risk exists and thus perceive a threat. What happens next is evolutionarily smart. When we think we are under threat, we stop feeling the internal experience of the ones who we believe threaten us. Human beings are naturally deeply empathetic. If you felt the aching fear and humiliation of a man stealing your last bite of food, you might not do what’s necessary: prioritize your family by beating him back. Instead, we naturally experience empathy collapse, which, when under direct threat, keeps us alive. And so, a Republican who believes that Democratic leadership favors immigration so as to manipulate the vote will actually stop feeling for Democratic leaders. Depending on the perceived threat level, the Republican might also stop feeling the internal experiences of Democratic followers. Empathy collapse does not make the Republican evil. The response is natural. It is human. It happens in every human being to some extent when we believe we are threatened. Empathy collapse is the first step in a psychological cascade that I call the Enemy Trance. And the Enemy Trance is the cause war.
2. Empathy Collapse —> Evil Delusion
In normal, good times, we understand our fellow human beings through two complementary psychological mechanisms. The first is we feel what they feel. If someone is telling you a story about rafting in Peru, where they were stuck under a raft and couldn’t breathe, you know what they felt. The parts of your brain that would experience panic if you actually lived this go live. People call this neural mirroring, mental simulation, affective empathy (often just empathy), or inside-out guessing. Whatever we call it, the process is unconscious and results in us simply understanding the motivations of those around us. No effort required. The second way we understand our fellow human beings is through ideas, theories we hold about them and those like them. Immigrants are lazy. Immigrants are hard working. Jews are cheap. Jews are smart. Indians are dishonest. Indians are hard working. Long nosed people are evil. Yankee fans are dishonest. Californians are selfish. Theories are a witches’ brew of historical myth, self-serving exaggeration, and personal experience. See the difference: empathy is us attempting to understand another person from the inside out. Theories are how we understand others from the outside in. Theory-thinking is what many refer to as cognitive empathy (as opposed to affective empathy). In normal times, human beings use empathy (inside out) and theories (outside in) to understand all the people around them. These two systems correct for each other, making sure we don’t make stupid errors about others. But when we are threatened, boom: empathy goes dark. We cannot feel what others feel. Their motivations are hidden to us. And so the only way we understand them is through our theories. What I’ve noticed in decades of mediation is that when a person is threatened and they are relying only on outside-in thinking, they will always conclude one of three things about the other side: 1. They want to hurt me. That is their deepest motivation. 2. They want to control me. They are control freaks. 3. They are motivated by badness. One version of this is that they are psychopaths. Another version is that they are simply evil. Of course, those are NOT people's motivations. People want something human for themselves. Food. Opportunity. Joy in heaven. Something. When someone hurts us, and empathy shuts down, the eventual outcome of thinking is that they are motivated by malice. We can't correct with inside-out thinking because we are numb to it.
3. Empathy Collapse + Evil Delusion —>
Drive to Destroy
We are now deep in the psychological cascade of war, initially triggered by danger perception. An obvious outcome of empathy collapse (not feeling people's pain) is that we no longer care about them. We are, therefore, willing to hurt those we consider aggressors. (Rip into them on social media). Hurting them might be a path to an end and not our goal. But it’s acceptable because we cannot feel their pain. What is less obvious is the mental distortion (Evil Delusion) is a massive problem in the creation of war. Why? They were truly seeking something for themseves. But we don't believe it. We think they're evil--which means they must be destroyed. That’s because evil is endemic to a person (or a people). Evil is unalterable. We cannot be safe as long as it exists. So much so that destroying evil is considered holy, in service of something greater than ourselves, even by those who do not believe in God. And so now, we are not only willing to hurt the other side. Very often we seek it. Caring people go hostile. The Enemy Trance is remarkably similar to Delusional Psychopathy. We incorrectly perceive that other people are out to get us, and in fact that they are evil. And we are then willing to do what’s necessary to destroy them. In any functioning society, people with severe Delusional Psychopathy would be considered very dangerous and kept separate from the rest. But when our people are at war, the Enemy Trance (or Delusional Psychopathy) is largely regarded as a positive trait: those deepest in the Enemy Trance are unquestionably loyal. And might even be chosen to lead.
The Enemy Dance
The Enemy Trance evolved so that human beings could prioritize themselves and defeat those who threaten them. In nearly every broken intimate relationship, one person has concluded the other person is a danger. For example, he goes to a bar every night to meet his friends, leaving her alone. She concludes he is “selfish”, probably a “narcissist”. Now she is willing to hurt him, and maybe even desires to hurt this man she once loved. She tells everyone. But understand, she’s not in this alone. He’s dancing the dance with her. Once she has fallen to the Enemy Trance and is willing to hurt him, he now also perceives threat. After all, she told her friends that he is selfish, a narcissist. His social world is at risk. He now experiences parallel empathy collapse, incorrectly concluding that her intention is to control him or hurt him. He can’t see inside her: she is in pain because she wants to share her life. We now have two people who are not only willing to hurt a person they once loved, they may seek it. They are locked in the Enemy Dance, spinning and re-spinning each other, the spirals growing ever faster and more chaotic, like some tragic, comedic Waltz. This cascade does not exist only in individual relationships. The purpose of The Enemy Trance in human beings is to prepare us for war against a threat. Of course, wars are not simply personal (me against you) but between groups of humans (us against them). When many of us agree that another group is a threat, we experience a collective empathy collapse, reinforced by both our desire to fit into our own group and the belief that the morality of our loved ones can't be wrong (Republicans vs Democrats). With empaty gone, butressed by belonging and collective moral outrage, we are now willing to hurt them, with words and actions. That is the critical shift: hurting them, which is a form of defense, is good. They will then of course see us as a threat, experience a collective empathy collapse, and eventually conclude we are evil—because why else would we try to hurt them? Both groups are mistaken about the other. Neither is evil. Both are effectively trying to defend against perceived evil in the other. But it doesn’t matter. In every tribe that is dancing the Enemy Dance, an opportunistic and impassioned want-to-be leader is yelling that they are evil.
Enemy Makers
When a people believe they are under attack, they crave strong leadership—authoritarian leadership, to be exact. Research shows that, whether left or right, people prefer harsh, even vindictive leaders when a threat is existential. If you think you wouldn't, consider this: A virus that is killing 85% of those infected, and Congress is debating what to do.(Note: this is different from COVID, which had a lower than 2% death rate). Would you not want a strong leader, who by any means took control and quarantined the infected against their will? If the virus spread by air over long distances, my guess is that you’d even support involuntary euthanasia—meaning killing the infected for the sake of the rest of us. When a threat is sufficient grave, democracy is a luxury for another time. Research also shows that when we are under existential threat, we don’t care about our side's corruption. We tolerate, and actively dismiss, outrageous behavior from our leaders because the evil on the other side is considered far worse. We cannot under any terms accept their criticism of us. We cannot legitimize them. Enemy Makers know this. In every society, opportunistic (meaning deeply self-interested) people intentionally stir threat perception, stoking the Enemy Trance. "They are evil, vermin, inhuman. They have no heart. They are corrupt. They are lunatics. They are…" In the simplest terms, an Enemy Maker profits from hatred between their group and another. Their power or status depends on generating moral hatred on their own side and sustaining reciprocal hatred from the other. In today’s society, Enemy Makers are found most often in media and politics. They intentionally create enemies. What is interesting is that Enemy Makers are in symbiosis with their enemies' Enemy Makers. They need the other to attack their people to maintain their own financial or political power. It’s not uncommon for warring leaders (political and media) to try to undermine moderates on the other side (claiming they don’t represent their people), even sometimes clandestinely financially supporting Enemy Makers among their enemies. At the least, an Enemy Maker will threaten the other side, stirring retribution--because when the other side becomes the evil fear, fulfilling the prophecy, no the Enemy Maker has a deep hold on their own society. The true danger is that we, ordinary people, are driven against each other with age-old psychological tricks. The key to unravelling the damage is to understand how the whole cascade begins: an Enemy Maker has convinced us that ordinary people on the other side are a danger.
Kin Makers
Enemy Makers exploit tribal psychology for personal power. Most of us are susceptible to their manipulations—which is why we see Enemy Makers only on the other side, not our own. There are, however, those who resist Enemy Makers on both sides, and they do so either because they intellectually understand the psychology of manipulation or because they are naturally predisposed against tribalism. Partisanship is a mystery to them. Yet, these people who want a different society will struggle: should I do more than personally resist? Should I actively seek to heal society? Why would a person who seeks goodness for humanity struggle in decision? Because we all know that peacemaking, whatever its form, comes at a cost. Many on our own side, in the Enemy Trance, will see us as disloyal if we reach across to the other. And if what would we even do to help create peace? Condemn all those partisans? They won’t listen. In fact, nobody will listen. That is where efforts like The Enemies Project come in. We are creating an active movement that undermines the power of Enemy Makers. We do this through education—both passive (millions watching episodes) and active (tens of thousands reading what you are reading now). Our hope is that these people, these Kin Makers, will be the real force in society. They will not only resist, they will repair. In the name of all of us. And we will help them to do so. What we will soon discover is who among us is willing to be a Kin Maker.
A Hopeful Future
What you’ve read so far is more like the Psychology of War than the Psychology of Understanding. But it is by seeing how war is manufactured -- and it is manufacturd -- that we ordinary people can resist Enemy Makers together, and create the world we want. The good news is that the Enemy Trance, the cause of war, is a temporary psychological state. The most meaningful experiences in nearly every person’s life involve caring for other people. We love cooking for them, helping them grow or learn. People will risk their lives to rescue even their “enemy” from a car accident. To be in communion with others is for most really good stuff, and for some transcendent, experienced as being at one with God. Along a similar line, you might be surprised that only 15% of soldiers on the battlefield fire their guns. This is in hot wars, where others are actively shooting at them. Most people just really dislike hurting other people. As soon as we see their soft, suffering eyes, as soon as we hear about their beautiful families, their laughing kids, we go back to kindness. Yes, Enemy Makers will always exist. As will sociopaths. But because they seek to lead by fighting against our predominant nature, they must constantly reinforce the vision that the other side is cruel and evil. They must forever spin the Enemy Trance. And this is where The Enemies Project comes in. If the psychological cause of war is believing that someone is a threat to me, the solution to war is learning that they are beautiful. Full-on good people. This is not some kumbaya story. I’m not saying selfish people don’t exist. I’m not advocating for allowing others to trample us. I’m saying that ordinary people of the enemy are not our enemies. Never have been. The Enemies Project not only shows, over and over, two enemies discovering this truth, it also allows millions of viewers, over and over, to witness the discovery, and begin to believe it themselves. The act of understanding our enemies is inherently subversive. It destabilizes Enemy Makers. Want to know the simple key to rebuilding our societies? The problem isn’t that our enemies are evil. The problem is that they have been led to believe that we are evil. And that is something we can fix.
Conversation Skills
Conversations are easy and fun—until they aren’t. The key to returning to normal is to remember why healthy relationships (and conversations) break down in the first place: threat perception. Once one person sees the other as a danger, the mind shifts from exploration, curiosity, and enjoyment to defense, attack, and distancing. If someone is treating you badly, and especially if they’re offering you no understanding, it’s almost certain that they see YOU as a danger (even if they wouldn’t use that word). That may seem like an absurd conclusion, especially if you think that they are abusive or that power imbalances favor them. But that’s the key insight. THEY think YOU are a threat (in some way). And if that’s the case, you'll see them as a danger in some way too—because threat perception is almost always reciprocal. (See Enemy Trance in the Psychology section). If you want to take some control and right the ship, remember, the goal is not to be right. At least not now. The goal is not to have a normal back-and-forth conversation. At least not now. It is to demonstrate to them that I’m not a danger. And here’s how.
Start Here...
They Speak First
Attention is perceived as love. If you are deeply interested in what someone has to say, even though they are the one talking, their view of you will change. The deeper your interest (particularly if sincere), the more likely they will come to think of you as a good person. It’s really hard to listen, though, when we are pissed off. We think: If only they understood this one thing, then they’ll finally agree. I’d be a fool not to speak it. And it’s really freaking hard if they don’t show any interest in you. It seems like: if I listen to them and they don’t ultimately listen to me, they’ll think they’re right, and worse, that I agree they're right. And that might occur. But they’ll start trusting you, which is the long game.
Slow it Down, Keep It on Them
Normal conversations are easy. Quick responses, back and forth. But when you’re tangled up with someone, it’s time to stop thinking of this as a normal conversation. Because normal conversations are amazingly complex. We normally don’t even understand our own motivations. And forget their motivations. To manage a difficult conversation, you’ve got to slow it down. Ideally, you take turns. They may not know that you’re taking turns. But you are. And you’re letting them go first. You fully dedicate yourself to them. Though you want to respond, you don’t. Though you want to provide your opinion, you don’t. It’s not time yet. You stay with them, though it’s hard to do.
Reflect
If you’re silent and preparing your defense while they're talking, that ain’t listening, and it’s not going to go well. You must show active interest in them. The easiest way to do this is to reflect back what you’re hearing them say. “What I’m hearing is…” Do it in your own words. Remember that they are really used to not being heard by you or someone like you. They are used to having to repeat themselves or walk away, concluding it was a waste of time. If you can reflect something back so that they say, “Yeah, you got it!” their nervous system will deliver a cool shot of welcomed ease. And they will associate that good feeling with you.
The Whats and the Whys
Along with reflecting stuff back, you ask them all about the details. What do you think about this or that? What did you then do? What do you think they’ll say? What do you plan to do next? All this shows interest, especially if sincere. And it’s your sincerity that they interpret as love. But what is most satisfying to them, and what offers you the best understanding of them, is diving into their Whys. By this I mean: why is this important to you? I use many techniques to understand people’s whys. (I gave a whole TEDx on it called, The Secret to Understanding Humans). But ultimately, you don’t need sophisticated psychology to get a person’s motivation. A Republican might ask a Democrat, “Why do you care about immigration?” And the Democrat might answer, “Because people should all be treated well.” After the Democrat speaks for a bit, the Republican should keep going: “Why do you care if they are treated well?” And he might respond, because everyone should be treated well”. The Republican should follow, “They’re not your friends, or your family. Why do you care? I’m not asking rhetorically. Why do you care?” You know you’ve arrived at a person’s true Why when you yourself have that same Why in you. When the Democrat finally answers, because I experience pain when I see people suffer, particularly children, we are likely there. Because the Republican also feels pain when they see people suffer, particularly those they care about. They feel pain when they see children in pain. Our deepest “Whys” are universal, built into all human beings. When they say something that you too are move by, that’s when the magic occurs. Why magic? Because when we get to the universal need underneath, the listener gets it. And they start to feel for the person speaking. And the person speaking sees that. Feels it. And they conclude, “I’ve really been understood.”
I Understand You
Sometimes it seems like you can short-circuit the long road to understanding by telling them I get you. You say, “Yeah, I understand.” Almost always, this will be taken as you not understanding them. That’s because, one, you didn’t actually allow them to talk very much. You might have cut them off because you’re bored, which they will pick up on. And you almost certainly didn’t penetrate the whys. Even more, they will feel uncomfortable with your statement because it is for them to judge whether you understand them. Saying “I understand you” when they aren’t sure you do is interpreted as a lack of respect. It’s weird because your intention might be to settle them, to connect with them, but most likely, those words will undermine understanding.
That Also Happened to Me
Very often, people will quickly offer a similar story of their own. Though the intention may be to show that you understand the other person, if it’s offered too early, this too will often be interpreted as a lack of care. Taking the energy back from them to share your experience will feel to many as a subtle threat. They likely won’t know why they feel this way. In the case where a relationship is broken, remember that this is not a normal conversation: the goal was to reduce all perceptions of threat. You’ll have your chance to tell a story. Later.
Don’t ANSWER Rhetorical Questions
If you are arguing with someone, don’t answer their rhetorical questions. If you are a Republican, a Democrat might ask, “Would you even care when you saw a masked ICE agent throwing a bunch of kids into a van?” That’s not a question that is asked with sincere interest in you. It’s a question designed to demonstrate that you are unreasonable. It is very difficult for people to identify rhetorical questions. But if you feel threatened by a question, sensing in some way that it is a setup, the best approach is not to answer. So what do you do? You guess why they are asking the question. You might say, “Are you asking because you’re worried about kids not being with their parents?” If your guess is sincere and not designed to convince them they are in the wrong, chances are you will create a connection between the two of you. Even if your guess isn’t right, and they sense sincerity, they’ll go on to correct you without offense. “No I’m asking because masked agents could do lots of terrible things to people. People who are prone to abuse others will now want to be ICE agents”. You’ve turned their rhetorical question into an opportunity to understand them, which means an opportunity for them to feel closer to you.
Don’t ASK Rhetorical Questions
If your relationship is strained, you should be asking sincere questions, meant to provide deep insight into their Whys. But very often we ask questions with an ulterior motive: to prove a point. We ask to embarrass the other side or to show them that we are right. If you don’t want to worsen the relationship, you must have insight into your own motivations. At least, you must catch yourself. You must be dedicated to the job at hand: right now, I’m trying to solve the puzzle of them. I am plunging their depths to understand them. Not to prove my point.
What if They Never Listen
That can happen. And it might be really frustrating—because ultimately, in your mind, you were listening so that you could eventually speak. So that you could convince them of your point. But understand that if after you’ve heard them out, they aren’t at all interested in you, you’ve still won. How? Because you are playing the long game. You were never going to convince them that you were right. Your goal, other than to understand them, was to show them that you are trustworthy, kind, and non-judgmental. By listening, you have improved your relationship, and that is the foundation of their eventually hearing you. And what if they still never listen? What if even after you’ve listened so well, as soon as you speak, the conversation is over? Surely then it’s time to abandon this touchy-feely garbage and show them that you are to be reckoned with. “Listen up, buddy!” Maybe. I can feel the inclination in myself. But I think that the assumption here (that they will never listen) is faulty. It will just take time. They might not even listen to you—because you might not ever meet them again. It might be some other person on your side that they encounter. But if so, they have notched you from an enemy to something more human. They might even view you with some level of appreciation and warmth. You have changed them. Just not at the pace you were hoping.
My Turn to Talk, Low Expectations
In most tough conversations, if you ask a lot about them, they will eventually want to know your thoughts. Once heard, almost all of us seek to hear out the other side. You’ll likely get your chance. But if you do, don’t anticipate that they will be as thoughtful as you were. They haven’t studied challenging conversations. They haven’t agreed to any rules. They don’t know what you know. Expect that even though you dedicated yourself to understanding them, they will automatically attempt to refute your points. If you're Pro-Choice, after you say, “I’m concerned that kids born into families that can’t afford them will live lives of suffering,” anticipate that they will not explore your concerns about suffering. They will say, “If you cared about kids, truly cared, you wouldn’t abort their lives.” They aren’t playing by the same take-turns-understanding rules. They don’t know that they're undermining the relationship. Do you retort with, “If you really cared about life, you would provide the poor resources so that kids wouldn’t suffer once born”? No. As hard as it is, what’s effective is to go back to listening. You explore their concerns (again!). And when they cool down, you ask if they’d listen to you. It might take several rounds of retorts. But usually, eventually, they will tire of trying to defeat you. And they will truly try to understand. Be aware, though, of the trap: don’t expect to get back what you gave them. If you view the exchange as needing to be fair (as opposed to a bridge between people who distrust each other), you will conclude that they took advantage of your kindness, and you will go on the offensive, undoing all your good work. You must keep the point clear in your own mind: I’m not here to convince them, I’m here to lower their defenses, so they don’t regard me or my side as an enemy. There are so many benefits to that.
SPEAK No Judgment
Though way down on this list of dos and don’ts, this may be the most important point of all. When human beings are in conflict, we have two different ways we can make the same point. First, we can say what is wrong with you. “You are selfish.” “Your side is heartless.” Alternatively, we can say what we want and are not getting. “I see suffering in children. Is there any way we can talk about how to reduce that?” Understand that these are two sides of the same coin: in one case, you talk smack about the other side; in the other case, you talk about what’s important to you that you're not getting. Which is more effective? Truly, I could write a book about this (and I’ve outlined it many times). But let me offer the basic idea: the purpose of moral talk (you are evil; you are selfish; you are a bad neighbor, a bad person) is to convince people to take your side. This type of language is very effective in group settings, when you’re trying to convince a group of people to take your side. Why? Because that’s how we evolved. In tight-knit groups, conclusions of good/bad carried the penalty of exclusion. Being on the wrong side of right and wrong likely meant you would die. But we human beings no longer live in groups. There is no community to pressure consensus and award us a victory. If we try to convince somebody of something by suggesting their wrongdoing, it will infuriate them without benefit. And if we try to convince another group of something by suggesting their wrongdoing, they will see that as a sign of war. That is why the single most self-damaging statement of any modern politician was Hillary Clinton naming half of Donald Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables”. She held an evolutionary knife at their necks. And so, when speaking to the other side, never suggest their wrongdoing. Don’t call them sexist. Don’t call them racist. Don’t call it white privilege (which implies that they did something wrong). They will listen for your implied judgments of them, even when you don’t expressly offer them—because they are used to hearing condemnation and responding with internal fury. This does not mean you must capitulate. Far from it. It means you must flip the coin: your concerns about the world are what motivate your judgments. Speak to them about your concerns about the world. If you slip into judgments, you will create an enemy.
What happens when they speak their judgments of you and your side? What if they say, “Your people are naïve and corrupt?” What if they call you “Selfish” or a “Bad Person” or any of the other one million variants? Admittedly, this takes skill to navigate. But you must remember that every moral judgment about your side is motivated by their concern about the world. Try as best as you can to NOT hear judgments of you, but instead the needs they are trying to satisfy for themselves. Remember that their judgments are not reality. They are not something to defend against. Judgments are truly insights into their unmet needs.
HEAR No Judgment
Facts Don’t Matter—Yet
Many comments to our episodes insist that we should fact-check because, they say, disinformation is the cause of our social woes. I don’t disagree that disinformation is a huge problem. But remember, when discussing an issue with an “enemy”, your facts will not matter. Do not press them. As long as you are perceived as a danger, your counterpart, as any human, will be on defense. They will reject your “facts” even if they are facts. Our propensity to believe all sorts of made-up stuff is an outgrowth of our belief that the other side is an enemy. Build trust, then facts.
Don’t Seek Solutions
A huge mistake people make is that they think that conversation is always meant to lead to solutions: to agree. What is the likelihood that you (a Democrat) and your uncle (a Republican) are going to solve the issue of ICE wearing masks, or of abortion? And if somehow you did together come up with a brilliant compromise, no one would listen to the two of you. Don’t put that burden on yourselves. The real issue (that is breaking our society) is that your uncle doesn’t see your viewpoint at all. He considers your people a bunch of idiots. And that you think his people are a bunch of idiots. That, in my view, is the problem you are trying to solve. Needing to agree only undermines the relationship.
Seek Solutions
Sometimes, of course, we need solutions. You must decide who walks the dog—or the dog doesn’t get walked. The problem is that hard-earned understanding often breaks down as we work on solutions. We panic. We insist. They resist. It’s over. My principal advice is to care for them when all goes to shit. Why? Because if you go strong, you will trigger in them the Enemy Trance, and they will resist you without realizing why. You will get nothing without force, and then pay the price. How do you care for them when resisting them? Explore the WHY of their NO. Inside their No is usually a yes. But only if you explore gently and without an obvious agenda. Let them know you are dedicated to a solution that works for them. During solution-finding, your goal must actually be to satisfy them too. Otherwise, they are eventually coming for you.
Golden Bridge
Sun Tzu, the great warrior philosopher, advised that to win a war without effort, you must provide a golden bridge of retreat for your enemy. This means, above all, never humiliating your enemy in their defeat. It means never drive your point further than necessary. It means, in fact, that you may publicly allow them to win, even though they lost. I see so often the opposite: if a conservative in the New York Times agrees with a liberal (if David Brooks says something supportive of the left), the comments will yell: “Hypocrite,” “You should have realized that a decade ago,” “You are the reason for the mess”. How much empathy is necessary to prevent these comments from undermining their own cause? Want to win instead of being right? Let your enemy walk with their head high as they join you in a different world.