{"id":103482,"date":"2025-02-22T14:16:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T14:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/creative-empathy-in-a-dangerous-world-by-rowena-house\/"},"modified":"2025-02-22T14:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T14:16:06","slug":"creative-empathy-in-a-dangerous-world-by-rowena-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=103482","title":{"rendered":"Creative empathy in a dangerous world \u2013 by Rowena House"},"content":{"rendered":"


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What have witch trials and Donald Trump got in common? <\/p>\n

Horrifically, I think it\u2019s perfectly possible we\u2019ll learn about a direct link via his so-called Christian supporters before his presidency is over. But short of that ghastly prospect, there have this past month been deeply uncomfortable parallels between fervent belief expressed in \u2018alternative facts\u2019 \u2013 e.g. whether the USA or Europe has given more to Ukraine \u2013 and seventeenth century English witch beliefs, which are the subject of my novel-in-progress. <\/p>\n

Outside politics, which I don\u2019t want to talk about here, there are also extraordinary parallels in terms of the psychology of belief, or more accurately disbelief, and how people \u2013 some people, anyway; let\u2019s call them us \u2013 deal with unbelievable change, denial being one of our first ports of call. <\/p>\n

As in, I can\u2019t believe this is happening. <\/p>\n

One of the best expressions I’ve read about how this manifests was in The Guardian last Monday, February 17th 2025. (Yup, that\u2019s the kind of us I mean. Sorry if that offends). <\/p>\n

In it, Zoe Williams discusses the paralysing shock that for her accompanied evidence of fascism within Trump\u2019s Administration and her deep unwillingness to name it. <\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re dumbstruck for ages, not wanting to call the thing what it is. It starts off feeling like embarrassment or coyness \u2013 what kind of hysteric runs around shouting \u201cfascist\u201d? A very silly one, surely.\u2019 <\/p>\n

For her, this feeling morphed \u2018into something more superstitious \u2013 don\u2019t call the thing what it is because that will only embolden the thing.\u2019 <\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t felt that superstition personally, but I do understand her sense of mental paralysis. <\/p>\n

As she says, \u2018If you can\u2019t respond to the news, you can\u2019t look at the news … When you\u2019re averting your eyes, you can\u2019t even think your way into next month\u2019 because that \u2018feels like asking for trouble. Frozen feels preferable to adapting to a new reality.\u2019 <\/p>\n

So, what has all this to do with writing fiction? <\/p>\n

The connection is creative empathy and the use of extreme experiences as research into character \u2013 characters like us. <\/p>\n

Firstly, with such horror in the world, a caveat. <\/p>\n

I would say that the loss of post-WW2 certainties that the USA and Europe share fundamental values does count as an extreme event, one that causes deep psychological disturbance. It is nothing, nothing, nothing like the suffering in Gaza, the West Bank, Sudan, DRC and Ukraine etc. But even listing those war-torn places illustrates how much suffering we are exposed to these days – all of which will be impacted by the altered reality of the world order implied by Trump. <\/p>\n

For those of us off the front line, it is valid, I believe, to monitor how I, we, you (as in Zoe Williams) react to this change. Do we freeze. Deny. Look away. Have nightmares. Lose hope. Most of all, do we disbelieve? <\/p>\n

For several years now, I have attempted to empathize creatively with a real person from seventeenth century London who believed in witchcraft in an effort to understand and recreate the (fictional) conditions in which he (actually) wrote about a series of witch trials as necessary and just. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s very hard at times to think positive thoughts about him. Instinctively I ask, how could he have been so irrational and cruel? How could he have been so gullible?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Currently, I\u2019m giving him a horrible shock to his profound Protestant faith when King James I\/VI had his Catholic mother re-interred in Westminster Abbey, with an elegy claiming she and not Elizabeth I was the rightful heiress to the English throne. His reaction? Paralysis and disbelief. <\/p>\n

But analysing \u2018our\u2019 reactions to comments by Trump and his Administration which totally contradict everything we \u2018know for a fact\u2019 \u2013 AKA our most profound beliefs \u2013 I am trying to find ways into my protagonist\u2019s mindset that I couldn\u2019t have explored without the existential threats from Trump. <\/p>\n

Such creative empathy can also be turned on its head: Witch trials happened. James I\/VI did that weird stuff. Trump and Vance are going to act on what they believe. The world just changed. Reality flipped. It ain\u2019t about to flip back any time soon… <\/p>\n

Cumulatively, I think this sort of thinking can help lessen the power of I-can\u2019t-believe-this-is-happening and open us up to the reality of change. <\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve waffled about on ABBA before, neuroscience and behavioural psychology tells us that human minds aren\u2019t very good at objectivity. We perceive what we expect to see. We map new information onto existing knowledge. We rely on experience. Hence, we feel lost when experience fails us as a guide. <\/p>\n

Thus, if all fiction is at some level about human experience, reading it and writing it with imaginative empathy might\/will\/should help us adapt to altered realities. <\/p>\n

Yay. Now back to hating on \u2018them\u2019. [Only kidding.]<\/p>\n

Still on Twitter @HouseRowena<\/p>\n

Still on Facebook Rowena House Author<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What have witch trials and Donald Trump got in common? Horrifically, I think it\u2019s perfectly possible we\u2019ll learn about a direct link via his so-called Christian supporters before his presidency is over. 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