In the early-1990s, a political operative named Frank Luntz became famous for his pithy talking points. He was really good at creating phrases that could shape the public imaginary. Every week, he’d host a meeting with Republican staffers on the Hill to offer them a new phrase that they should aim to get into news media, attempting to create a “drumbeat” of terms. This was very effective. You know many of Frank Luntz’ terms. Partial-birth abortion. Climate change. Death tax.

When congressional members started using those terms, they got the news media to do the work of amplifying the underlying message. It created coherence. And when you have a term or a phrase that creates coherence, you see how it shapes a cultural logic. Regardless of what you feel about Luntz’ particular terms, there is no question of his efficacy.

danah boyd on names.

This is actually from a much longer essay on internet-based data and news manipulation, which is definitely worth reading in its entirety if you haven’t already. But mostly I’m just pulling this one quote out as a reminder that the same person who invented the terms “partial-birth abortion”1 and “death tax”2 also coined “climate change”…

1. More properly known as an intact dilation and extraction, a procedure almost exclusively used during miscarriages, extreme fetal anomalies, and similar scenarios, including those requiring the viewing of remains for grieving and/or forensic purposes. [↩]
2. Also known as the estate tax, and basically intended to try and mitigate the negative social effects of inherited extreme wealth. Rich people—especially those scheduled to get richer when their relatives die off—fucking hate it. [↩]

The new rule for empathy seems to be: reserve it, not for your “enemies,” but for the people you believe are hurt, or you have decided need it the most. Empathy, but just for your own team. And empathizing with the other team? That’s practically a taboo.

And it turns out that this brand of selective empathy is a powerful force.

In the past 20 years, psychologists and neurologists have started to look at how empathy actually works, in our brains and our hearts, when we’re not thinking about it. And one thing they’ve found is that “one of the strongest triggers for human empathy is observing some kind of conflict between two other parties,” says Fritz Breithaupt, a professor at Indiana University who studies empathy. “Once they take the side, they’re drawn into that perspective. And that can lead to very strong empathy and too strong polarization with something you only see this one side and not the other side any longer.”

Hanna Rosin on dark empathy.

This is from an article that’s basically a press release about Breithaupt’s book, The Dark Sides of Empathy, which does sound kind of interesting. Basically, Breithaupt’s argument is that the pop culture understanding of empathy as a “morally positive” force is wrong, or at least not the whole picture. Because, yes, empathy can lead to compassion (something it’s often conflated with) towards those who are different than oneself… but it’s even more likely (according to Research) to violence and aggression against a group an individual perceives as harming a those they themselves empathize with. Or, to put it another way, punching Nazis is just as “rational” an outcome from empathy as hugging them is.

Breithaupt’s point here is not to malign empathy, or say we need more or less of it. Instead, he argues that it should be seen more as a tool—with the potential to be used both well and poorly—rather than an inherent moral good. Which… hm.

McMindfulness practices psychologize and medicalize social problems. Rather than a way to attain awakening toward universal love, it becomes a means of self-regulation and personal control over emotions. McMindfulness is blind to the present moral, political and cultural context of neoliberalism. As a result, it does not grasp that an individualistic therapized and commodified society is itself a major generator of social suffering and distress. Instead, the best it can then do, ironically, is to offer to sell us back an individualistic, commodified “cure” – mindfulness – to reduce that distress.

David Forbes on commodified mindfulness.

In other words: no amount of yoga or salt baths or mud masks or meditating are going to fix the fact that your job is killing you, you know it and hate it, but nonetheless feel miserable and trapped because you live in a society that works very effectively to give you no other options…