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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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this heavy humanness

Summary: Spencer leaves the oven on overnight, and Derek - whose pent-up emotions get the best of him - loses it, exposing secrets neither of them expected to be spilled, for two very different reasons. They get there in the end.

or; Spencer's suffered far too much abuse in his life and Derek knew about none of it. He shouldn't have found out like this.

Tags: est. rel., past abuse, arguing & making up, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, angst with a happy ending, hurt spencer TW: implied/referenced - child abuse, abuse & csa. trauma response that could be perceived as dissociation. misplaced frustration at neurodivergence. nothing graphic but message me for more info if needed.

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 3.9k

Masterlist // Read on AO3 // Bad Things Happen Bingo

This fills the "Domestic Violence" square of my Bad Things Happen Bingo. It's a heavy one folks so please heed the tags, but fear not, as always we have a happy ending ahead of us! <3 Title by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Spencer knows it’s ridiculous. Derek will not hurt him: this much he knows for certain. Derek is safe, he is home, he is his person. Derek would die before laying a hand on him.

This objective knowledge does not stop the fear from building in his chest, fizzling through his veins until his whole body is alight with it, simmering under the surface of his cold skin as Derek shouts, his face contorted in anger. Spencer might know that Derek won’t hurt him, but that doesn’t mean he can forget what’s happened in the past when he’s put that same expression on crueller people’s faces.

“How could you be so irresponsible, Spencer?”

He doesn’t know. The sinking feeling of failure, of disappointing someone he loves so much settles deep in his stomach as he watches Derek pace up and down the living room while he stays firmly planted on the sofa, pressed as far into the corner as he can.

He didn’t mean to leave the oven on overnight. Again. It’s just that sometimes he gets so lost in his head, in the studies he reads just before bed that getting ready for bed happens on auto-pilot, and small things like turning the oven off slip through the cracks. Derek’s never got this angry over it before, but that’s probably because he’s never said “yes” when Derek’s sleepily asked him if he remembered to turn it off, not when he actually didn’t.

He answered on auto-pilot. He didn’t mean to lie, but that doesn’t seem to matter that much to Derek as he wears down the living room carpet with his pacing, visibly seething. He tracks him with his eyes. He can’t afford to not see the blow coming.

The blow isn’t coming, he tries to tell himself. It’s not all that convincing when Derek stops mid-pace, turning to look at him dead in the eye.

“We could’ve died, Spencer! Does that mean nothing to you?”

Spencer doesn’t reply. He wants to, he really does, but the words are stuck in his throat, choked by fear and confusion and emotion and regret, God why didn’t I turn off the oven, I should’ve been better, it’s all my fault—

“Do you seriously not have anything to say?”

Spencer stares. He has so much to say. All of it is trapped in his throat, tangled in a mess of please don’t leave me and please god don’t hit me.

“You know, I can’t deal with this right now,” Derek mutters, throwing his hands up in the air, “this is unbelievable.” Spencer watches as he shrugs a coat over his shoulders, pulls on his shoes, pauses only to grab his wallet and keys, and walks out the door without looking back.

The door slams behind him and Spencer jumps at the loud noise, jolting out of his fear-ridden stupor, wincing as he’s forced out of his head and thrust back into reality. It’s only ten past ten in the morning; a nice, sunny Saturday in late Spring, and maybe in a different universe, Spencer and Derek are packing a wicker basket with a picnic, heading off to their favourite park to feed each other strawberries and enjoy jam-filled sandwiches.

In this universe, though, Spencer drags his heavy bones to the bathroom, and peels off his clothes. He feels weighed down, tied to some point of gravity far below his feet as he avoids the mirror at all costs and lets his pajamas lay where they fall instead of gathering them into a ball and throwing them into the hamper like he usually does. He turns the water on and steps under the spray, allowing himself to revel in the warm rivulets of water caressing his cold skin.

Shampoo bottles stand untouched in the caddy to his left. He’s not there to get clean, he’s there to forget and to think all at the same time. Slowly, he sinks to the floor, leaning against the wall as the water cascades down his front, but not before he turns the heat up. It’s a small comfort: the water just on the right side of too hot running down his face and his torso and his legs, pooling at his feet momentarily before sliding down the drain, never to be seen by him again.

Today shouldn’t have started like this, and it’s a hard pill to swallow that if he hadn’t left the oven on, it wouldn’t have. Derek would have smiled when Spencer stepped into the kitchen, pulled him into his arms and kissed him gently before making them pancakes while Spencer sat on the counter-top and told him everything running through his head. Derek would listen, enthralled, whether to the sound of Spencer’s voice or the words he’s saying, and he wouldn’t shut him up, not even when they sat down to eat.

They’d finally get ready for the day late in the morning, they’d decide what they would do that day, and they’d make a point to steal as many kisses as they could; making up for the affection lost during long cases.

Spencer knows this because it’s happened so many times before. They may have only been dating for just over six months, but they already live together, having fallen hard and fast; Emily teases them for it, calls them her favourite lesbian couple, and they don’t care because they’re in love.

Despite that, though, Spencer still hasn’t told Derek.

There are nights he lies awake pondering how unfair that is. He’s held Derek as he sobbed over memories of Buford, as he spilled every awful detail of the abuse he endured; he’s comforted him after he’d tried and failed to bottom, falling into a flashback every time, no matter how much he wanted to try it.

But Spencer stays silent. He doesn’t tell him about his dad beating him, or his mom getting confused off her meds and smacking him, shoving him, even punching him that one time. He doesn’t tell him about Matthew, his first real boyfriend, trapping him in an abusive relationship that took him months to get the courage to leave. About how when a third person hurt him, he began to wonder whether it really was his fault. Whether that was the only kind of love Spencer Reid deserved.

He stays silent now, staring at the shower wall. The fear has left him now the threat has too, and a cold type of numbness replaces it, and even once the water runs cold, he doesn’t leave. He traces the same four tiles with his eyes, drawing the same pattern with his gaze over and over again as his thoughts turn to an endless cycle of he’ll leave me, he’ll stay, he’ll hit me, he won’t, until he’s not really sure what he believes.

Derek is a good man, but Spencer knows how he can be. He messes up, he forgets things, he doesn’t read situations right, he doesn’t behave the way people think he should, he doesn’t think like a neuro-typical person does. And a good man can only put up with that for so long.

The proof is in the pudding, after all. Derek has always been understanding of things like this in the past. He’s given him a hug and told him not to worry about it, that mistakes happen, and no one can be expected to remember small things like this all the time. But this morning, he was furious. Spencer’s not sure he’s ever seen him so angry in all his years of knowing him, and it was directed at him. All because of an oven left on.

Eventually, a sound from the upstairs apartment drags him from his head again, and he’s suddenly aware of the cold water, of the way his body is trembling and his fingers are pruning. He pulls himself out of the shower, turning the water off, but he stands in the middle of the bathroom, aimlessly, for a long time. By the time he finally has the sense to wrap a towel around his body, he’s basically dripped dry. His hair is soaking wet and the dripping water is freezing, but he doesn’t have the energy to find a towel for his head, too, so he leaves it.

He walks towards the bedroom and climbs into bed, pulling the fluffy duvet over his damp skin and laying his wet hair on the pillow. It feels awful, being wet and damp under the dry bedding, but he doesn’t have the energy to move, so he stays there, towel still wrapped around his legs, hair still soaking the pillow, and he stares at the wall.

He doesn’t know what time it is, and he doesn’t know when Derek will come back home. If he ever will.

⭐️

Derek slams the door behind him as he storms out of the apartment, rage consuming his every move, his every thought. The force of it rattles the door frame, echoing down the empty corridor, but he can’t find it in him to care as he marches towards the elevator. The buttons are pressed with perhaps a little more aggression than socially acceptable, but the woman already on board takes one look at his face and has the sense to stay quiet.

He gets in his car and steps on the gas, the squeal of his tyres against the floor of the garage as he speeds out satisfying him more than it probably should. His jaw is locked and tight as he drives through the streets of DC, his thoughts going a million miles an hour, quieted only when he turns the radio up loud, a blasting soundtrack to his ferocious getaway.

Adrenaline pumps through his veins as he speeds down the highway, heading out of the city towards Baltimore. He doesn’t have a destination in mind: he’s just driving straight. Straight away from the apartment. Away from Spencer.

It’s after more than an hour of driving that his jaw finally loosens and the anger that had simmered in his blood so fiercely fades into reluctant rationality. He’s somewhere in the middle of Baltimore, and the traffic — the tangled road system he actually has to focus on — drags him from the absent headspace the highway had allowed him to slip into.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and turns off the road he’s on, onto a quieter one. As soon as he’s able to pull over, he does, and he hits the steering wheel angrily. “Fuck!” He leans forward, pulling off his sunglasses and burying his head in his hands. It’s not the same kind of anger he’d felt earlier, no. This time it’s directed purely at himself, fuelled by dismal regret.

Before he can stop it, his brain replays the fight with Spencer over and over, the wall he’d put up to block it out crumbling down as images of his boyfriend flood his mind. He hadn’t registered it in the moment, but looking back, God. There was something on Spencer’s face, something so broken, so scared and he feels nauseous at the realisation that he put that there.

Over something as fucking stupid as an oven.

Truthfully, he wasn’t really angry at Spencer. Waking up to see the oven left on again, even after Spencer promised he’d turned it off, was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He’d fought with both his mom and Penelope yesterday, and he went to bed feeling like an utter failure, made even worse when Spencer had declined to join him, deciding instead to keep reading the series of papers he’d started earlier that evening. He woke up in a foul mood, and not even the sight of his peacefully sleeping boyfriend could make him feel better.

It’s his own fault. He should have communicated with Spencer: he should’ve told him about letting his mom down and saying the worst thing he possibly could have in his conversation with Penelope, but he didn’t. He silently stewed, and felt irrationally angry that Spencer wasn’t reading his mind. He knows for an absolute fact that if he’d asked Spencer to join him in bed last night, he would’ve dropped his studies immediately, and cuddled him until he felt better.

But he didn’t. And then he’d screamed at Spencer, in a way he never has before, over something he simply forgot to do. Derek swore to himself that he would never shout at or put Spencer down for his neurodivergent traits. Not in the way he’s seen so many people — regrettably, far too many of them on their own team — do before.

He’s always been understanding in the past, kissed Spencer’s hair and promised that it wasn’t a big deal, and he has always meant it. Because as dramatic as he’d been this morning, leaving the oven on wasn’t really the end of the world. He remembers ranting about the electricity bill, about how they were going to afford the house they were going to buy if he kept this up, about lying to him — even though he knew that was clearly an auto-pilot thing — about how dangerous it was. It’s a fan oven. They were never really in any danger.

What a god-awful way to let off the steam he’d built up and chosen not to let go.

As if he’s not already feeling shitty enough, though, his mind won’t stop circling back to the fear on Spencer’s face. The way he shouted back, but instead crammed himself into the corner of the sofa, never taking his eyes off him as he paced angrily back and forth.

He feels sick.

He digs his phone from the pocket in his sweatpants. He’s still in the clothes he sleepily pulled on in the dark this morning, and he hadn’t thought to bring his phone out with him, but luckily he’d picked it up off the kitchen counter that morning.

He clicks on Spencer’s name, listens to it ringing out as he desperately begs him to pick up. “Come on, baby, please,” he whispers, ignoring the tears burning behind his eyes. “Pick up, please.” He tries three more times before throwing it angrily on the seat next to him, allowing one more second of feeling the blind panic and the fury at himself before forcing himself to calm down.

Reaching over to his phone with one hand to turn the ringer up, he turns the ignition on and pulls back onto the road, heading back towards DC.

The traffic infuriates him, cursing as it takes thirty minutes to get back on the highway, but finally he’s back on the open road. It takes everything in him not to speed past the other cars, knowing that getting pulled over would only slow him down in the long run. He doesn’t turn the radio on. He just replays the fight again and again, each time remembering something new: something he said or something Spencer did.

He doesn’t wipe the tears away as they fall, lets them slide uncomfortably down his neck, under his collar, lets them drip into his lap, lets his nose run. It’s the only punishment he can afford himself right now.

Finally, finally, he pulls into their apartment building’s garage, finding their spot and parking roughly, abandoning the car as quickly as possible in favour of sprinting towards the elevator. He curses at the slow moving carriage, but it eventually spits him out on his floor, and he’s walking down the very corridor he stormed down just a few hours prior.

He pushes open the door to their apartment, closing it behind him softly. Suddenly, the nausea swimming in his gut isn’t just borne from regret, now fuelled by nerves and dreaded anticipation.

“Spence?” he calls softly.

He doesn’t know what to expect: he doesn’t know whether Spencer will be sad or angry, whether he’ll be screaming or crying. The kitchen and living room are empty, and the bathroom door is wide open, so he ventures into their bedroom.

Whatever he was expecting, it isn’t this.

Spencer’s tucked up in bed, duvet pulled up to his neck, facing away from the door. He doesn’t move so Derek thinks he might be sleeping, but when he circles the bed to check, he finds his eyes wide open, staring vacantly at a fixed point on the wall. They don’t flicker or blink or move when he steps into his field of vision, and Derek’s heart sinks, panic beginning to grip his chest.

“Spencer? Baby?”

When he still doesn’t move, Derek crawls onto the bed, and the movement or the sound or something must finally catch his attention, because all of a sudden his eyes are widening — in shock, surprise, fear, Derek doesn’t know — and he’s shifting under the covers.

“You’re back,” he says, and it’s so uneasy that Derek wants to cry.

“Yeah, baby, I’m back,” he says gently, “and I’m so sorry about earlier, I—”

He cuts himself off, because when he reaches to tangle his fingers in Spencer’s damp hair, he flinches. His hand freezes, but his stomach twists, because this is the confirmation he was both expecting and dreading. This is the confirmation of everything he prayed he had wrong, everything he wished he’d misinterpreted the whole drive home.

“Spence,” he whispers brokenly, withdrawing his hand, “I would never— never do… I’d never hurt you, God, I—”

A choked sob cuts him off this time, and another follows when he sees a tear sliding down Spencer’s face. A previously blank, emotionless canvas, his face is now full of sadness, tinged with the fear and guilt Derek hates himself for even suggesting was warranted in the first place.

“Derek,” he says softly, and his voice is so mangled with emotions he couldn’t even begin to decipher, it breaks his heart a little. He doesn’t say anything more though, eyes sliding shut instead as tears continue to stream down his face.

“What do you need, baby?” he asks, because it’s the only thing he can think to say. “Anything, I— anything you need, you can have, Spence, I’d give you the world, you know that.”

Spencer’s quiet for a long time, and Derek sits there on the bed anxiously awaiting a response while trying to summon all the patience he doesn’t have as he stares at Spencer’s crying face.

“A hug,” he decides eventually, and Derek almost collapses in relief because, God, he can do that.

He crosses the small space between them, and carefully folds Spencer into a hug, sighing in relief as he melts into Derek’s side, placing his head on his chest and cuddling into him. Their legs tangle together and Derek holds him as gently and as closely as he can, carding his fingers through Spencer’s damp curls while his other hand rests on his waist, his thumb caressing the bare skin there.

He’s still in his towel, he thinks sadly. He didn’t have the energy to properly dry himself before crawling into bed. As if Derek could possibly feel shittier.

They lay like that quietly for a while before Spencer finally speaks. Derek wishes he hadn’t. The words “I’m sorry”, uttered so brokenly, so miserably, have no business leaving Spencer’s mouth.

“Baby, you have nothing to apologise for,” he says fiercely. “This is all on me. I’m sorry. Sorrier than I’ve ever been, Spencer, because this is completely my fault. I wasn’t actually angry at you, that’s the first thing you need to know, and I know that makes what I did so shitty, because you hadn’t even done anything wrong, but I was so pent up and frustrated with myself and I didn’t communicate that with you and— fuck, I’m doing such a bad job of explaining, I just. I need you to know, Spencer, that I’m not angry, okay? And I’m so sorry for losing it like I did, that never should have happened.”

He pauses and takes a breath in, burying his face in Spencer’s hair as he holds him even tighter, trying to keep his grip as gentle as possible.

“I never told you,” Spencer whispers after a couple beats pass.

Derek’s heart seizes tightly and he swallows. Prepares himself. “Never told me what, sweetheart?”

“My dad, he… he wasn’t a good man and he… you know, he hurt me a lot. And then my mom, when he left and she stopped taking her meds completely, she’d get so confused,” Spencer admits, voice so quiet as he murmurs into Derek’s chest that he has to strain to hear him. “She didn’t mean to, but she’d… And then my last boyfriend, he—”

He cuts himself off as a heaving sob that seems to come out of nowhere strangles his words and it’s all Derek can do to hold him tightly as Spencer cries, whispering every reassurance he can think of through his own tears. It shouldn’t be like this, he thinks. I shouldn’t know this just because of an argument we had; just because I lost control. Spencer should’ve been able to tell me on his own terms, in his own time.

He tries to cry as silently as possible, but it’s not easy when the grief of knowing the pain Spencer’s suffered in his life is weighing heavy on his chest, and the acidic taste of guilt abounds.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Spencer’s hair. “I’m so sorry, baby.” He’s sorry for so many things he’s not sure he could list them all out, neatly and coherently, if he tried.

Spencer fists his hands in the soft cotton of Derek’s t-shirt. “I’m sorry I never told you.”

Derek balks at the guilt in his tone, as if he actually believes he has anything to apologise for. “Baby, you could’ve waited until we were old and grey to tell me and I wouldn’t be mad, okay? Trauma like this… it comes out in it’s own way in it’s own time. I’m not sure how or when I would’ve told you about Buford if everyone hadn’t found out the way they did. And if I’d waited to tell you, you wouldn’t be mad at me, would you?”

Spencer shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry that I triggered you the way I did, Spencer,” Derek says seriously, gently twirling a loose curl around his fingers. “It was inexcusable, and it was a problem of my own making. I know you didn’t mean to leave the oven on and I know you were operating on auto-pilot when you told me you turned it off last night, and nothing I said was true. I was mad about stuff that happened yesterday and I failed to communicate that. It’s all on me. Nothing about this is your fault, you hear me?”

“Really?”

The way Spencer cranes his neck to look up at him, the trusting innocence in his eyes both breaking and warming Derek’s heart. “Really.”

“I want to tell you, Der, it’s just—” He sighs. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone, and it’s hard. I don’t… I don’t know where to start.”

“We have all the time in the world for you to tell me, baby. You can tell me everything all at once, or drop tiny pieces of information when you feel like it, or never tell me anything else ever again, and any of that is perfectly okay. I just need you to know that what happened this morning will never happen again, okay? I promise you.”

Spencer shifts, moving from his position curled around Derek to prop himself up with one arm, facing his boyfriend properly. “Thank you,” he says earnestly, before leaning down to kiss him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby. More than anything.” He kisses him again before moving the duvet and making to get up. “Now, how about I order us some pizza for lunch and we spend the afternoon in bed. You can read or we can watch some documentaries or a movie, whatever you want.”

A small smile crosses Spencer’s face, and nothing’s ever felt more like a win.

“I think that sounds like a plan.”

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @moreidtrash @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @oliverbrnch @enbyspencer @im-autistic @thataveragenerd @anxious-enby

#my writing #moreid #derek morgan #spencer reid #derek morgan/spencer reid #spencer reid/derek morgan #criminal minds #derek morgan x spencer reid #spencer reid x derek morgan #cm #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #moreid fic #moreid angst #tw domestic violence #tw abuse #tw csa mention #moreid fluff

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piduai · 3 years

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that part when sugimoto kills jack the ripper and he says "rather than worrying about who gave birth to you, the important part is what you live for" is a nice allusion to ogata being all like: if i had present and loving parents i wouldnt've turned out so fucked up :/ like naaaah man i dont believe it, you would still be the same insane man you are, ogata had present grandparents who cared enough about him to feed him and take care of him when his mother couldnt, (and he liked his granny enough to not kill huci) but still poisoned them for no reason before going to the army. also killing your mother at cold blood at the age of 8 thinking your doing something good for her is not something a good and sane person would do im sorry. i wish he could find peace one day but as you said, he wouldnt recognize it even with a microscope, that man was broken from the start. sad

hmmm i don't know. sugimoto saying that to jack was immediately picked up as having a connection to ogata (not through sugimoto himself lol he's not aware of ogata's past, narratively speaking), and people being able to overcome natural circumstances and better themselves is certainly a theme in gk, or the opposite. look at usami. i'm fully convinced that usami and ogata are juxtaposed and are supposed to be each other's foils - they might be two peas in a pod, but their backgrounds are pretty much the opposite. usami had most stuff ogata lacked as a child yet he turned out the way he did. look at this, for example:

when i say that noda is a good writer, this is what i mean. it's the way he conveys information subtly and succinctly, his attention to detail and the cohesivity of the story. usami's parents were given exactly one page in the whole manga, but it conveyed quite a lot of information. they loved each other - enough to have four children despite being obviously low income, enough to flirt with each other in front of their children, who are welcoming of their display of affection, therefore it's obvious that they don't lack in affection from their parents either. it's a nice detail, an important one, and noda made sure we know. usami had exactly what ogata is convinced makes him defective - a loving family, a warm home, a happy childhood. yet usami still turned out not alright.

however... people are different and complex. two people can be brought up in identical circumstances, yet turn out nothing alike. human brains are incredibly complicated, any given event in a person's life can have a very long-lasting rippling effect and be a turning point. any given psychology course will dedicate a lot of time to developmental and child psychology and therapy is majorly focused on looking at the core of things and searching for it in early childhood. children are malleable because their brains are developing, but once a neuro connection is strongly established, it's quite hard to change later - not impossible, neuroplasticity is a thing, but hard, and requiring a conscious effort. humans are social animals, community is unimaginably important to us, connecting to others is arguably one of the core needs of a human being. we learn how to connect with others from the moment of our birth, and naturally the first-comers, the people who establish us as human by taking care of us and connecting with us are our primary care-givers - namely, our parents.

the truth is that since the child-parent bond is typically the first one in most humans' lives, the relationship between a child and their parents is tremendously important. the other truth is that if a child is not loved and not desired, it is guaranteed to fuck them up for the rest of their life. we need to be loved early on in our childhood in order to be able to create healthy connections with others later in life, it's a must for natural, lasting, positive relationships. a person rendered unable to form healthy bonds with others will still typically seek connection, except in their case they will do it in negative, (self-)destructive ways. which is exactly ogata's case.

when i think ogata i think tunnel vision. he's incredibly self-aware in some areas while being completely blind in others, his perception of himself and others is so wrapped in itself it gives him an emotional handicap and an utter inability to accurately asses his circumstances. i think he is absolutely correct in blaming the fact that he's defective and lacking something fundamental on his parents being the way they were. i do feel sympathy for both him and his mother. you're saying that his grandparents were good to him because they fed him, but don't forget their circumstances either. they were poor. poor enough to either sell their daughter into prostitution or just accept the fact, though i'm inclined to think that they sold her because it was commonplace to do that in order to cover debt and get rid of a hungry mouth. doesn't strike me as the most affectionate household. people keep pets and feed them, but they don't give their cats or dogs the kind of affection a child needs.

i do agree with you that there was obviously something very off about ogata from the very beginning. thing is, even with extremely mentally unstable parents, even with neglect, even with poverty, children rarely poison their mothers on purpose. sure his logic was simplistic and childish, he didn't do it out of malice or ill will, he even thought that he's doing it for her sake, but he still purposefully murdered her. people who aren't naturally missing a few screws don't do that, ogata was well past the age of not understanding why hurting others is wrong.

he's got plenty of traits that make him unlikeable as a person. he is petty, arrogant, self-absorbed, rude, selfish, treacherous, awkward, has poor social skills, berating, 0 charisma, a liar etc etc... these traits can be found aplenty in people who had happy childhoods too. would he still be an asshole if he had better circumstances? most probably. the difference is that he'd be much less likely to self-sabotage, wouldn't waste so much time on introspection, and wouldn't react to basic, human kindness with murder. at the end of the day he's a fictional character and not a real person, being the way he is is very deliberate and constructed, and if he were different or had a different life then he wouldn't be ogata.

#like he'd still probably be an ass but either more like koito or patrick bateman style lmao #anon #btw bold of sugimoto to talk shit when HE had good and loving parents

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gravitascivics · 4 years

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ELUDING EMPATHY

The last few postings have attempted to contextualize the polarization plaguing the nation’s political arena. Through the citation of various evidentiary information, they attribute this division among Americans to the inability to address various incubating problems and issues. This posting looks at an underlying cause for this inability.

Now, not all readers will agree with what follows, but this posting makes a case that the all-encompassing factor – the root cause of incubation – is identity politics. According to Ezra Klein:

… everyone engaged in American politics is engaged in identity politics. This is not insult, and it’s not controversial: we form and fold identities constantly, naturally. Identity is present in politics in the way gravity, evolution, or cognition is present in politics; that is to say, it is omnipresent in politics, because it is omnipresent in us … It runs so deep in our psyches, is activated so easily by even weak cues and distant threats, that it is impossible to speak seriously about how we engage with one another without discussing how our identities shape that engagement.[1]

Is this true?

When one starts talking about what is natural, one cannot solely depend on the social sciences in general or political science specifically to provide sufficient grounding for any such claim. And surely, the reportage of a journalist (with all due respect to Mr. Klein) does not make the case either. So, perhaps the ideas of an American neuro-endocrinologist, Robert M. Sapolsky,[2] can be of sufficient gravitas in this field to help convince a sceptic.

But before sharing his thoughts, can one assume that a social arrangement, be it a church congregation, a labor union, a governmental jurisdiction, a corporation, etc., counts on some minimal ability for the participants of the arrangement to feel empathy among themselves? Afterall, scarcity is part of the human condition – not to mention a condition of all organic life – that leads to inevitable conflicts.

To weather social conflicts, one main factor that allows for solution or compromise seems to be, at some level, the ability of those involved to feel what the other parties feel in relation to the conflict at hand. And if so, that begs a question: What causes humans to feel empathy for others?

A lot is involved, but one important factor is whether the other party to a conflict or any interaction – be it a person or group – has some sense of being an “us” as opposed to being a “them.” If that’s true, to what degree does that feeling need to be felt? Well, ostensibly that would be to the degree one can ascribe the idea of mutuality. And that sense of mutuality has to be strong enough to motivate the person to do the work necessary to engender empathy.

Sapolsky explains the mind’s machinations, both biologically and cognitively, and it turns out that empathy does not come without effort, it takes work to engender it. Yes, empathy, under the right conditions, seems to come naturally, but only if certain factors are met. To understand this, one is helped by placing oneself in incidences where empathy is expected – such as in situations of injustice.

Here's one. As one can guess, actual observation of deprivation or exploitation of a victim more easily solicits empathy. Say that one sees a person’s life being snuffed out by a policeman putting his knee on that person’s throat, as opposed to when one hears of the same incident without the assistance of a video. The former is less work than the latter in engendering empathy and even more work is demanded if one hears some abstract diatribe about how minorities are mistreated by those in authority.

As one goes from one exposure to the other, as just described, the work becomes harder and, therefore, less likely to be exerted. A lack of direct experience, Sapolsky reports, acts to diminish one’s ability to be empathetic or the likelihood of it taking place. And along these lines, he claims,

It is an enormous cognitive task for humans to overcome that, to reach an empathetic state for someone who is different, unappealing … That is straight out of Us versus Them … showing how extreme out-group members, such as the homeless or addicts, are processed differently in the frontal cortex than other people … [The] tragedy of the commons versus tragedy of the commonsense morality, where acting morally toward an Us is automatic, while doing so for the Them takes work.[3]

Or, for example, to quote this natural scientist use of nonscientific language, when it comes to empathizing with the plight of the disadvantaged, the rich “suck.”

Why? Because the experiences of the disadvantaged to these well-off people is foreign unless they themselves come from deprived backgrounds. His description of these rich people, in general, is even more self-centered and selfish than this quote indicates, but the reader gets the idea. In general, the more one sees victims as Them, one is more apt to believe the worse of them – they are lazy or dishonest or conniving – and that justifies any unempathetic bias the non-associated feels.

And when one can avoid seeing the individual – as when one hears but does not see the above described incidence of homicide – one can categorize the account as the homicide happening to a group, not a person. That also adds to one attributing the incident not happening to a person in one’s own identity group.

Often, one hears this being a problem of cognition when the solution would be education. At other times, the problem is attributed to feelings, such as one is lacking “brotherly love.” And this leads to a false dichotomy between emotions and cognitions. Sapolsky claims it is a shortcoming of both making the challenge of encouraging empathy more difficult.

A bleak picture, for sure, but Sapolsky offers some hope. Yes, one can easily see from the above that humans are doomed to a tribalistic social disposition if they cannot be sufficiently empathetic. Left to people’s own natural tendencies and allegiances empathy is limited to those who are immediately around as one grows up. Social arrangements under such thinking and feelings will not expand and that limits a group to few resources and stifles economic, cultural, and intellectual enrichment.

So, where is the hope?

Spelled out this way, these findings don’t seem to bode well for humans. We have evolved to support our immediate social groups, a tendency that can be easily manipulated into discriminatory behavior, especially at younger ages. The good news, according to Sapolsky, is that there are always individuals who resist the temptation to discriminate and won’t conform to harmful acts based on othering or hierarchy.

… [Sapolsky] offers suggestions for how we might subvert social tendencies to conform and [instead] aim our behavior towards better social ends. For example, his advice to counter xenophobia includes “emphasizing individuation and shared attributes, perspective taking, more benign dichotomies, learning hierarchical differences, and bringing people together on equal terms with shared goals.[4]

And given this overall concern – that social arrangements depend on good doses of proactive instruction – this message needs to be taught and encouraged for the sake of a common good. In addition, the common good is essential not only for progress, but for maintaining what has been accomplished both socially and individually.

But what one can read between the above lines is: these tendencies can serve those who want to exploit the social/political landscape for their own ends. And its utilization, that of exploiting people’s proclivities to limit their concerns to their own identity, either by using direct language or code language, can prove to be effective.

One notion that seems to be prevalent among those who do not appreciate the challenge these natural tendencies pose is the belief that one needs to be taught prejudices. This is true, but not true. The above indicates a natural predisposition to hold the Them with at least suspicion if not out and out hostility. The teaching comes into play when it sharpens the targets of such disdain.

To counter this bias, one needs proactive instructional efforts aimed at revealing to students

· what is natural – the proclivity to divide the world between the Us and the Them;

· the inefficiency that such biases accrue; and

· the experiences of being exposed to as many Them as is possible in as many settings as is possible.

In short, what one needs to be taught is how to battle these divisive tendencies.

The Ogbunu quote above hints at the direction such lessons should take. This blog’s argument holds that in terms of civics instruction, federation theory directly addresses the aims that quote identifies and its postings have, to varying degrees, attempted to share information that helps teachers help civics students acquire the information that would lead to healthy levels of empathy.

One more point: Klein adds to his concern over this dysfunctionality by pointing out that by “wielding” a bias toward identity politics, people cover up many problems. They attribute problems to Them people, not to those individuals or to an Us. Police mistreatment? That happens to blacks. Exploitive labor conditions? That happens to immigrants from south of the border or the under educated. Poverty? That happens to the lazy. This proclivity ignores the details of how Those people are being mistreated much less defining Them as really being Us.

As such, the tendency “forces” an array of factors under that cover so that one is removed from what is at stake for those on the other side of some contentious, festering problem. It assists the general factors feeding the incubation that have led the nation to the polarization currently being manifested. But then what happens, a video appears on TV, and a multitude of viewers see for the first time what is really happening to an individual. And guess what? Empathy among many ensues.

[1] Ezra Klein, Why We’re Polarized (New York, NY: Avid Reader Press), xx.

[2] Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2017).

[3] Ibid., 532.

[4] C. Brandon Ogbunu, “Why Do People Do Bad Things?,” Greater Good Magazine, December 1, 2017, accessed March 14, 2019, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_do_people_do_bad_things . Emphasis added, AND see Anna Rita Manca, “Social Cohesion,” Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research, 2014, accessed July 24, 2020, https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-0753-5_2739 .

#empathy #social empathy #Ezra Klein #Robert M. Sapolsky #C. Brandon Ogbunu #civics education #social studies

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gilbirda · 7 years

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Human courting is confusing. Chapter 20

Here’s the next chapter and the last wedding one. I don’t know when I’ll have the next chapter, my life is going to be difficult next week.

And I’m trying to think stuff for the MTNN week! I’ll do what I can.

[FF.net][Ao3]

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Day 20: Dancing.

The hotel where the reception was held didn't have any grand chandeliers or fancy decorations, but Yako liked it very much. They decided to spend the rest of the wedding money in one of the biggest buffets the city had ever seen, and even if half of it was meant for the bride (who didn't even blush once while devouring the food), there was more than enough food for the people invited to it. It wasn't as private as the previous ceremony, but journalist weren't allowed to enter. Everyone seemed to want the exclusive of the famous Detective Yako Katsuragi marrying her humble assistant.

The blonde could already hear the news tomorrow and was grateful that they wouldn't be here to see their faces all around the place and hear people talk about her early and sudden marriage. She was sure that they'd suspect a child with all the rush. Or even a secret engagement. Anything and everything they could make up, they would throw it at her without mercy.

She wondered if she would still do her job when they came back, whenever that is. Maybe they'd arrive to a burning place and an angry mob at her door or maybe they'd be pressured to more interviews and more jobs. The last option could be beneficial as Neuro needed mysteries to keep living on the surface and Yako wasn't up to spend her eternity in Hell, so she tried not to dwell too much on it. That was a problem for the Yako of the future.

Right now she focused on dancing with her new husband for the first time. They had never danced before, so this new experience was exciting for her. Their eyes crossed paths as she took his hand and put it on her waist, then putting her left hand on his shoulder and grabbing his left hand with her right one. She asked him if he could dance, worried about this very moment, but he answered that the internet had so much information about it that he didn't need to practice.

Well, she did need it; so when she started to step on his feet he chuckled and lifted her so she was barely floating above his black dress shoes, making in easy to look like they had practiced before this and the groom didn't have superhuman strength. She laughed happily as the music coming from the hired quartet (that was the Police department's gift to the detective for everything they did for them) softly swirled around the room, inviting more people to join them in their dance. To her, only them mattered. They were married. It was official.

"It seems that we have company," Neuro muttered before letting her down with a soft thud. Yako turned to find herself before Higuchi, and smiled at her friend.

"Congrats, Detective," the man smiled and patted her shoulder. He had to admit that she was radiant this day, if she wasn't already.

"Thanks," she said happily.

As she looked at him with those big, pure brown eyes, he pondered the hidden feelings he have had about her all this time, how he felt when she was left alone after Neuro suddenly disappeared and how she picked herself up from the ashes and worked to be what she is now. He loved to hear about her. And now she was even brighter than before, with her "assistant" by her side.

He was no fool. He couldn't compete with what they had, whatever that was. That guy was something else and Yako didn't seem to settle with less; heck, not even him was enough for her now. He tried to get her attention, asked her for a few dates even, but she had always that faraway look, like she was waiting for something else, like she was analyzing him until he broke. She was more like him. And a simple human like him wasn't enough to fill the hole.

And he was okay with that.

"You may want to stop your other assistant from drinking his brains out," the hacker pointed something behind him with his thumb, "or from spilling some kind of secret about you."

Yako panicked and looked back at the drinks table, where Godai was gulping down a cup of his drink like it was water, which definitely was not. The bride thanked her friend and walked to the blond man, finding out that he was crying like a newborn baby and hugging a bottle of vodka, mumbling something about monsters and innocent girls lured to their lairs.

"Yako! Oh thank God," the stench of the alcohol was too much for her to bear, but she picked him up with a little effort and sat him on a empty chair. "Yako, you can't marry that monster! He is going to eat you!"

"Well, he is not wrong," she heard the voice of said monster, making her panic. She turned and looked around, her face as red as a tomato, checking that no one heard him.

"Neuro! Behave yourself."

"How could you?" moaned Godai, still hugging his bottle, "How could you steal her innocence and drag her to Hell with you! Monster!"

A few people turned their heads to see what the commotion was about, murmuring questions and wondering why the man was talking about Hell. Yako paled. No, please, not like this.

"I suggest that you shut up before you leave this place with a fewer limbs, slave #2," said the demon in a low voice. That seemed to work on Godai, as he gulped and dropped the bottle, his eyes very open. And then, like his most deep secret hadn't been exposed, Neuro turned to the little crowd that had gathered around them, pulled Yako to his body in something that resembled a hug, and laughed. "Well, it seems that someone is jealous! My my, sensei, I didn't know that you were such a two-timer!"

Used to the weird detective and her assistant's humorous gags, people laughed too and let it pass as a quarrel between coworkers.

They turned back to the very drunk man and found him asleep. Well, at least he won't be making trouble again.

"Don't do it," Yako said to her husband before he could move a finger.

"Do what?" he asked with an innocent face, faking again.

"Whatever cruel and inhuman thing you were going to do to Godai-san. He doesn't deserve it even if he almost blew our cover," she looked at him straight in the eyes, serious. He seemed to ponder her opinion.

"Buzzkill," he shrugged.

***

In the end they asked Kanae to bring Godai home, to her utmost horror; but she swallowed her nervousness and unease around the yakuza-looking man (she wouldn't ever know how close to the truth she was) for her best friend and did it anyways.

Feeling more relaxed now, she took a deep breath and winced when her lungs suffered from it.

"Tired already?" asked Neuro leaning on her shoulder, not really caring if she could hold his weight or not, but she was used to it now.

"My heels are killing my feet and the dress is trying to asphyxiate me."

"Wow, if you wanted to feel pain you just had to ask," the demon brought out a rope from a hidden pocket. How could he hide such thing in his black wedding suit, she didn't know, but she sighed anyways.

"Save that for later, I'm hungry and tired," she went to the food table and served herself enough food to feed an entire family for a week, followed by her amused husband, and sat down at one empty table. She started to eat while looking at the people having fun and dancing to the music. Even Usui was attempting to dance, if that was what he was doing.

Neuro sat down beside her and for a few minutes said nothing, he just watched her eat and react at the quality of the food. Maybe it was the festive spirit in the air, maybe it was the new feelings he was having or maybe he was trying to get used to spending so much time with a bunch of humans that weren't mean to be food; but he was feeling… happy? contempt? He couldn't know until he asked Yako about it, and once again that tiny human part of him was basking in thoughts of fulfilment and the woman in front of him.

He didn't like to be ignorant about a part of himself, and he had blamed Yako many times on the last month; but as she made him realize, he was just at fault as she was. He was the one that started this, who embarked in this craziness, as she called the mating, without knowing the risks. But he was no coward and he faced the unknown with enough plans and the ability to adapt.

Maybe this human thing wasn't so bad after all. She looked very happy every time he said that he loved her, every time he asked about human things he experienced. And a happy Yako was a willing Yako.

"Are you smiling, Neuro?" he looked down to the woman, noticing that she was finishing the enormous plate she had served herself. He relaxed the muscles of his face, finding that she was right. He had been smiling. The young woman shivered. "You? A happy smile? Who is going to die?"

"I'm not killing anyone, idiot."

"Please, at least wait until no other human sees you. I don't want to have to explain it."

"I said I'm not going to kill anyone," he clicked his tongue and glared at her, "and if you keep jumping to conclusions I'll bite you. In front of everyone here." She paled.

"Please, don't. I had enough trouble explaining my mother why I wanted to wear a choker with this heat," she pointed to the green accessory hiding the mating mark.

"That's not my problem," it was her turn to glare at him.

"Don't."

"Hm."

He leaned down and got near her throat. When she opened her mouth to express her protest, he attacked her mouth instead, successfully silencing her for tonight. A few people noticed them and 'aww'ed at the newlyweds. What they didn't see was the hidden gloved hand under the tablecloth, caressing her thighs and going up under her skirt.

Yako jumped a little bit at the invasion of her privacy on such a public place, slightly panicking at the fear of exposure. His other hand hold her in place as he teased her on her most private place and his mouth silenced her little surprised sounds and moans. It wasn't the first time he touched her like that, but he knew damn well how it affected her and how much she loved it.

Too soon, he backed out with a last kiss on the lips, followed by a bite on her lower one, drawing a drop of red liquid.

As he licked his lips he watched her fan her face with her hands trying to lower her temperature a little bit, too flustered to relax her racing heart, clearly left unsatisfied and wanting more of that. He smirked. Maybe this human courting thing wasn't so difficult after all.

#majin tantei nougami neuro #mtnn #nogami neuro #katsuragi yako #fanfic #neuyako #gil writes

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