Warm people (against polarization)

Our affection for the suffering of others often fades once we board the express train that takes us away from reality—dragging us into endless discussions and counter-discussions about the Great Lies and the Great Truths, without ever truly engaging with the people in need whom we are debating about. This is what so often happens at the level of discourse.

But I cannot judge any of my interlocutors, because I do not—and cannot—verify what someone is really doing outside the world of words.

“

When the discourses make us insensitive to human suffering, we become cold-hearted.

What do we need instead? We need structures in our society that nurture a counter-narrative—one that resists the radical and cold-hearted tone of so much public debate. We need warm, inclusive communities built by people who can see through the heart-numbing effects of radicalized language, who do not turn away from the world of suffering human beings, and who keep their focus on how to remove misery from our marginalized and polarized societies.

Change begins within us.
It starts when visionary power becomes compassion —
when thought warms into empathy, and words begin to serve life again.

— Thierry Limpens