Is this how we learn empathy?

Have you ever been excluded? The world can be a pretty exclusive place. Chances are, you’ve experienced this at some point.

Being left out sucks. Often, exclusion places us in out-groups that wouldn’t exist without the in-group creating the problem. Dark doesn’t exist without light. Up doesn’t exist without down. Out-groups don’t exist without in-groups.

Marginalization, or being excluded from the group, is painful and varies in intensity. As a cis-het white male, it is difficult for me to write about marginalization, but I feel compelled to share these thoughts. I am not looking for pity or to start a trauma competition. Rather, I want to unify the out-group experiencers to recognize the potential power our experiences of exclusion offer us.

Normal People are Stuck in the Middle

Not to bore you, but I’m using the word ‘normal’ in the standardized normal curve sense, but it could also mean ‘typical’. A ‘normal distribution’ (aka, a ‘bell curve’). Most things fall in the middle whereas the two outlying tails have opposing characteristics.

What’s interesting here is that the middle things might not be aware of the tails. Think about a group of normal people you know. As I write I am anchored outside of Palm Beach, Florida so I’ll use the wealthy as an example. Palm Beach seems to be a bubble of extreme wealth. Like, Bently’s and Ferrari’s wealth. Everyone sort of looks the same, talks the same, and has the same stuff. I wonder if that’s all they know?

Sure, these wealthy folks see their servers and clerks where they shop. But do they?

The term ‘echo chamber’ comes to mind where we end up surrounded by people very similar to, if not just like, ourselves. Isn’t this a common complaint about the status quo circa 2025? Our social media become these narrow slivers of the middle part of the normal curves that define our lives.

Neurodivergent People are Marginalized

The term ‘marginalized’ may not be appropriate, but it is one I relate to. Most marginalized people experience severe quality-of-life reductions due to skin color, sexuality, and gender. But I think anyone who experiences the feeling of ‘other’ can be considered marginalized along a continuum.

Neurodivergent folks often complain about feeling like outcasts. We are misunderstood, ridiculed, and bullied. Are these not common experiences of marginalization?

Perhaps there is a better word or words to describe the processes by which one is placed outside the accepted group. Some people might not know what this feels like.

Further, I argue that the closer to the middle of the pack a person is the less likely they are to see people different from them.

More importantly, there are extensive mechanisms to help people in the middle ignore or avoid chance interactions outside the middle. The most glaring example is the caste system or social hierarchies designed to ‘otherize’ varying groups. Once we label someone as ‘other’, we can ignore them.

Marginalization Induces Empathy

If marginalization occurs along a continuum, there is likely a threshold effect. Below this threshold, the experience of being ‘othered’ does not induce a significant change in the individual. Beyond the threshold, however, the feeling becomes ingrained. Further along, trauma is likely to occur creating more severe psychological interruption.

The good news is that marginalization creates empathy. If we believe that normalcy can shield us from being marginalized, and if some people never experience otherness, then the more normal a person is the less likely they may be to experience empathy.

And hasn’t this been your experience? Many wealthy people often don’t treat servers and clerks with respect. To extend this a bit, many white slaveowners owned slaves. Is there a better example of a lack of empathy?

The Future of Marginalization

If a person has never experienced what it feels like to be excluded they are unlikely to have experienced empathy. The Gaussian middle serves as a protective cocoon for mass-produced conformity. As more and more ‘normal’ people compete for the middle ground, they will drive others to the tails.

If the relative proportions of middle-dwelling normal folks and tail-occupying others stay the same the marginalization will continue. Is it possible to upset the balance between those of us who are marginalized and those who are not?

The only way forward is to take a bottom-up approach whereby individuals can overpower the forces perpetuating marginalization. Although we have tried to equalize each other based on race, sexuality, and gender, the normalized middle remains strong. Those of us in the tails are silenced by the powerful people in the middle.

Finding Power in the Tails

What can we do? One thing is for those who feel marginalized and allow this to diminish our presence in the world to find the strength to be ourselves in society. A big part of normalized power is that marginalized people are challenged to participate fully in society.

Many of these barriers are very real. Prejudice reduces our ability to get jobs, save money, and gain wealth. The psychology of being unwelcome makes it challenging to do many of the things we need to do. The conformists have all the power.

I fantasize about a magic wand that would make regular people understand the value of diversity. Much of what I write about is how diversity is the foundation of biological life but has been devalued in human society. Somehow, humans have come to worship themselves outside the natural world in which we live. If we cannot reverse this we have no hope.

The only way forward is to disperse the power across the bell curve. We must stop valuing conformity and realize that diversity is a natural law. Those of us who are (I’m talking to myself here) different need to own our uniqueness and share it with the world. Somehow, we must shift what we value from normal and same to different and unique.

Empathy is powerful. Being marginalized is adaptive. If we can reverse the normalization trend we can return Homo sapiens to a path toward successful evolution. If we can teach each other empathy without marginalization, imagine what we can accomplish.

What can you do today to prioritize diversity and depower the status quo?

I hope you find this idea stimulating enough to share your thoughts.