Was there ever a profession more understanding than farmers? Politicians from left to right said they understand them this week, and about three quarters of the Dutch have understanding, polls by RTV East† Heart of the Netherlands and One today†
My first thought: three quarters, that’s quite a lot. My second thought: what does it actually say? What is that, ‘understanding’? And what good is it if you get a lot of understanding?
I have understood the craziest things in my life. When I was ten my best friend started bullying me because the group she wanted to belong to did too. After another afternoon with the bullies, she often came to my house with sweets to make up for it. But for me she didn’t have to go through the dust: “I understand, you’re in a difficult position,” I said. You’d be torn between your best friend and the cool kids!
I think ‘understanding’ means putting yourself in the other person’s position, and being able to understand why they act the way they do. So it takes empathy. It is therefore problematic that the term says something just as much about the giver as it does about the receiver of understanding: namely, whether he is able to put himself in the shoes of others.
Even more difficult about the term ‘understanding’ is that it is unclear whether it also includes sympathy or even approval. Van Dale is ambiguous about this: as one of the definitions of understanding, the dictionary gives ‘ability and willingness to accept another’s point of view, to empathize with another’. But empathy doesn’t have to follow acceptance, right? You can also empathize, understand and reject. Do you understand or not?
I myself do not believe that concept implies sympathy. I understood that bullying friend, but I didn’t approve of her behavior. Whether I understand someone says more about how easily I can fathom their experience than about my moral judgment. Recently I saw two containers of Wok to Walk on the street, left behind by people who had been eating at the water’s edge. “I don’t understand people who leave their garbage on the street,” I told my sister. “I can empathize with them just as badly as I do with Putin.” “I understand Putin even better than those people,” she said. And indeed: if we delve into Putin’s experience, we can understand why he does what he does. But I find it hard to imagine what goes on inside the head of someone who leaves an empty wok package lying around. Does he think that everyone should do that, and that more money should be spent on municipal cleaning? Does he think that no one should do that, but that he himself can cheat for a while? Or does he not think about it? I can’t understand any of the options. Of course, this does not mean that I think the anonymous wok-eaters are worse people than Putin.
That concept is an ambiguous term is also apparent from the polls. that of Heart of the Netherlands uses ‘support’ as a synonym for understanding, and a opinion poll from Fidelity, conducted by I&O Research, pretends that ‘finding acceptable’ is the same as ‘understanding’. But is that what the respondents meant? Nowhere is it made explicit what they meant by understanding.
Even if we know what people mean when they say they understand, it is not yet clear what the consequences are. If you want you can understand all people in the world, because understanding for one does not have to be at the expense of understanding for the other. In that sense it differs from support: you cannot support everyone at the same time. I can say that I understand pro- and anti-Zwarte Piet activists, but I cannot support them both: either the make-up will come off or not. Understanding can therefore feel gratuitous, a statement of support much less so.
This is visible in the opinion survey of I&O. Of the Dutch people surveyed between 17 and 20 June, 45 percent supported the farmers’ campaigns; this was before last week’s escalation. Only 23 percent believe that the cabinet should do less to reduce nitrogen emissions, while 44 percent want more action.
So you can get understanding from a large majority of the population, but still draw the short straw. That notion is, at most, little consolation.
Floor Rusman ([email protected]) is editor of NRC
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 2 July 2022