Rage and Salvation
I think that people who have suffered have an easier time sympathizing with people who are suffering, and people who feel they've been treated unjustly tend to be more upset when they see injustice toward others.
When someone who hasn't had any serious trouble in their life sees someone who is having a rough time, their tendency is to keep their distance and rationalize why it could never happen to them, as though being compassionate puts one at risk of misfortune. But when a person who has been through trouble sees someone else struggling, it can be triggering. Even if they've overcome their own hurdles, if they see someone else facing obstacles, it's a reminder that those obstacles still exist.
When those obstacles are an abstract, or a natural phenomenon, like illness, there's only so much you can get worked up about them. You might hate cancer, say, but there's never the sense that cancer hates you back. But when there's a conscious agent behind the trouble--say, when the trouble is how other people treat you because of the color of your skin--then I think you've got to be a saint not to hate them, because it's clear that they hate you. When a motherfucker is actively undermining you and making your life worse, it's upsetting in a way that nature just can't be. I mean, whether a hurricane blows your house away or a city council exercising eminent domain bulldozes your house, you're still without your house. But to me, it feels like it's easier to be philosophical about it in the case of the hurricane, whereas the bulldozer demands retribution. A hurricane is unstoppable. It's a powerful natural force and you just need to learn to work around the fact that it exists. But politics, especially in a so-called democracy, that's something we're supposed to be able to alter and influence. Someone can choose not to bulldoze your house. There should be a way out. There's at least the theoretical possibility of victory when you go toe-to-toe with a human opponent. And that, I think, amplifies the pain that much more. Being victimized by another person, or a group of them, makes one feel even more vulnerable than one already is to nature. We all get rained on, but only some of us get bullied.
I see that, for me at least, when I get passionate about a disagreement with a stranger on the internet (or even someone I know well), it's generally because we're disagreeing over a topic where someone is victimized and my opponent is siding with the oppressor. I couldn't care less whether you prefer this sports team over that one, or which muscle car is your favorite. Those choices are of no consequence and thus don't concern me. But when you say that this or that person or group of people ought to be locked up, ought to be fired, ought to be denied rights, ought to be deported, ought to be killed...then you're every son-of-a-bitch that ever did me wrong. You're the teachers who punished me for things I didn't even know had happened. You're the boys who'd sneak up behind me at the urinal and punch me in the kidneys. You're the Army officials who told my mom that if she tried to sue them over my dad's death, her great-grandchildren would never see a dime. You're the aunt who always believed my lying, bratty cousin over me. You're the employer who didn't hire me because I wasn't a woman or wasn't a minority or wasn't a friend of your family. You're the employer who wouldn't hire me because you thought I was too smart and would get bored with the job that I desperately needed. You're the girl who broke up with me because you thought I deserved better. You're the unfaithful wife who dumped me because you feared I would eventually be as infidelitous as you. You're the ex who lied to keep me from seeing my children after a court ordered you to honor my visitation rights. You're the HR official who recommended I be fired because I dug up proof of your malfeasance. You're the department director who approved my termination because you thought I was breaking into your office when I wasn't even aware that anyone had been. You're the bank that delayed my deposit just long enough to charge me a fee for insufficient funds. You're the guidance counselor or military recruiter who funneled me into whatever was convenient for you rather than telling me about opportunities for which I'd have been better suited. You're the teacher who shepherded the rich kids into internships while not telling the rest of us that this was even a possibility. You're the person who destroyed and disposed of things I could have used. You're every person I ever saw harm someone and get away with it. You're the asshole who puts fresh food in the dumpster and pours bleach on it to force hungry people to choose between starvation and poisoning. You're every authority figure who's ever abused their power. You're every person who ever devalued the humanity of another. You're every soldier and executioner who "just followed orders." And Godwin be damned, you are Hitler.
And so their fight becomes my fight. My struggle to not be held back and mistreated, having already hit a brick wall in my own life, finds expression in another fight where it looks like I can win, where just maybe I can argue persuasively enough to drive back the devils that seek to hold back others. The more my own life frustrates me, the more driven I am to remove hurdles for others. This, I believe, is why, when I was trapped on welfare with no prospects in Scioto County, I wrote half the manuscript for a book detailing the many ways in which the Bill of Rights had been violated, but when I had a comfortable job with middle-class pay, my social activism was limited to an occasional appearance at a protest and sharing links on Livejournal. And it's why, now that that job is gone and I find my livelihood dependent on doing things that the law won't allow me to do, I rage once again about the very concept of our economic system. It's why my more comfortable acquaintances see me as mentally unbalanced, and the poor or frustrated ones see me as a preacher.
And I don't think I'm alone. It's sad to say, but I think you can gauge how screwed up a person's life is by how dedicated a Social Justice Warrior they are. Think of PETA and Earth First and all the anti-abortion groups. Those people are absolutely screwed up, but the only people you'll find who are more sincerely passionate about their cause are the ones blowing themselves up for Allah. What do happy, comfortable people do to show they care? They write checks to charities. They participate in a fun run for disease research. They buy shit from businesses that make them feel warm and fuzzy by being green or local or donating a portion of sales to charity. Nothing that actually requires sacrifice. Nothing that causes more than a slight bump in their happy routines. Nothing that's going to traumatize them too badly.
And this is why I find it so hard to relate to middle-class people. It's not that I'm envious. It's that I'm filled with such emotion over situations that they try very hard to not even be aware of. I'm down here in the trenches watching my comrades being gored, while up above us, the shiny, happy people see only a meadow full of flowers where everything is lovely. How do you relate to someone who's in such a stupor? It's frustrating, and it's very hard to draw a line between being frustrated with a person for curtailing their awareness out of a need for psychological self-protection and being angry at them for throwing the rest of humanity under the bus.