Podcast
Tribes and Traitors
Source:
NPR: Hidden Brain
March 6, 2017
Category:
Psychology
This week on Hidden Brain, we return to our archives to ask what happens when you empathize with your enemy? Why does reaching out to another tribe make our tribe so angry? In order to get at this question, we talk with Israelis and Palestinians who took the radical step of empathizing with the other side. From their experiences, we learn that not only can empathizing with the enemy be very difficult, it can also be dangerous. Trauma makes us turn inward: the more trauma an individual or a group has experienced, the harder it can be to acknowledge the suffering of the other side.
Isaiah's Description:
One of the most difficult battles is that of trying to converse and persuade those who identify with different values and beliefs. Our ability to make persuasive progress is dependent upon our ability to understand group dynamics and the mechanisms which make persuasion so difficult.