A nation divided should practice Lincoln's empathy

By Christi Parsons / Chicago Tribune

In our era, they might seem like performative gestures for the president. A quiet visit with the wife of a wounded soldier. A conversation with a battlefield nurse or a kitchen worker. A hand extended to a Black woman who had once been enslaved.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t publicize these moments, though. He prioritized them for personal reasons.

Because even as he held the Union together with the force of his will — even as he buried his own child and bore the weight of a nation at war — he made time for mercy. He listened to the voices of those without power, a practice that steeled him for wielding his own.

Empathy is getting a bad rap these days. Elon Musk recently declared it the “fundamental weakness” of Western civilization, summing up the ethos of the administration he just left. Even those who defend empathy speak of it mainly as a private virtue, not one that compels any particular action by public figures.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-a-nation-divided-should-practice-lincolns-empathy/