One of the great intellectual puzzles that daily life forces all of us to consider on a slightly too regular basis is: ‘Why are other people so awful? How come they are so unreliable, aggressive, deceitful, mean, two-faced or cowardly?’ As we search for answers, we tend quite naturally to fall back on a standard, compact and tempting explanation: because they are terrible people. They are appalling, crooked, deformed or ‘bad’; that’s simply how some types are. The conclusion may be grim, but it also feels very true and fundamentally unbudgeable.
However, when things feel especially clear cut, we may be goaded to try out an unusual thought experiment, which stands to challenge a great many of our certainties and render the world usefully more complicated: we can try to look at our fellow humans through the eyes of love.
The experiment requires particular stamina and is best attempted at quieter, less agitated times of the day. When we manage it, it may count as one of our highest ethical achievements.
We are normally resolutely on our side, deeply invested in our own point of view and prone to trade in settled and moralising certainties. Yet, very occasionally, we have the strength to look at other people through a different lens: we notice that their reality is likely to be far more complicated and nuanced than we first expected – and that, contrary to our impulses, they may be deserving of more sympathy and consideration than we thought, even though they have hurt and frustrated us, even though their behaviour runs contrary to what we expect – and even though the temptation is to call them idiots and numbskulls and move on.
Looking at another person through the eyes of love involves some of the following;
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