I feel like apathy is how we got here in the first place, and I’m really struggling with how and whether to keep people like this in my life. — Name Withheld

KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, THE ETHICIST:

It’s not just that everyone is different; it’s that different people are differently situated. For people who live in our great urban centers, protests of the kind you evoke are about as contentious as an ice cream social. They’re cost-free. Most people you know will be pleased to see you out there. For her, in a small Trump-supporting town, it’s another story. Neighbors who see her at a protest are neighbors she’ll see at the supermarket and the school board. That could mean living with their disapproval; it could also mean ostracism. And unlike in cities, where numbers can swell to visibility, protests in small, homogeneous towns may achieve little beyond reinforcing the majority’s sense that the minority is odd or out of step.

Is it fair to call her a hypocrite? Hypocrisy means professing beliefs you don’t hold. She shares your views but confronts some very different costs when it comes to public action. And then, because she’s married to a Trump supporter, those costs run right through her daily life. She may also see that there are other, sometimes more effective ways to persuade. Research on what’s called “deep canvassing” shows that half-hour conversations — listening first, inviting people to think about their views, sharing your own experience — can shift attitudes in a way that slogans and signs seldom do. (By contrast, a large-scale study of data from 2017 to 2022 came to the discouraging conclusion that, when it comes to U.S. electoral politics, protests mainly failed to change minds or voting preferences.) Simply being a person to whom others feel safe expressing their doubts can make a difference. In that light, choosing low-key conversations over public performance could count as another strategy, and perhaps a better one.

You say apathy got us here; some researchers would say that condescension played a part. The political scientist Katherine Cramer, for example, has explored how rural resentment has been fueled by perceptions of urban disdain. As you ask whether to keep people like your low-key friend in your life, I fear that the failure of empathy here is on your side. Your small-town friend may have assessed her circumstances more carefully than you give her credit for. Maybe the question is whether she should keep someone in her life who refuses to consider that possibility.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/magazine/magazine-email/friend-protest-liberal-ethics.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5786152&forum_id=2Elisa#49346934)