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“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Love calls us to look upon anyone and say: You are a part of me I do not yet know. Love calls us to be brave with our grief and take in those wounded, neglected, and abused as our own flesh and blood. Revolutionary love calls us to harness our rage in the face of injustice.” — Valarie Kaur
“Learn to love the humanity in people, even the ones you hate.” — Justin Dart, Jr.
We are living through a profound moral crisis, one that transcends politics and touches the very core of our shared humanity. The world around us is increasingly shaped by fear, division, and disconnection. In this climate, empathy—the basic capacity to see one another as human—is being eroded. The consequences of this empathy deficit are not abstract; they are deeply personal, especially for people with disabilities, who have long lived on the front lines of dehumanization.
For many of us in the disability rights movement, survival has meant developing a kind of emotional armor—a thick skin forged by years of being ignored, infantilized, pitied, or erased. We are taught to be strong, to be unyielding, to never let them see us cry. And too often, we come to believe that love is softness, that care makes us vulnerable, or that empathy is a luxury we can’t afford in the fight for rights and recognition. But what if the opposite is true? What if love—fierce, grounded, and justice-driven—is the most radical form of strength we have?
This essay is a meditation on that strength. On how love and empathy are not only tools for personal connection but essential ingredients in the fight for justice and human dignity. It draws on painful truths: the long history of dehumanization endured by people with disabilities, the internal fractures within the disability community itself, and the global empathy deficit that threatens our collective wellbeing. But it also draws on hope: that by reclaiming love as a radical, organizing force, we can re-humanize our society—and ourselves.
As people with disabilities face despicable attacks on our very worth as individuals and as a community, our primitive drives might lead us to believe that we must pick up arms, figuratively or literally. But there is growing consensus that, in order to sustain our efforts as a social movement, we must embrace love, not as a vague ideal, but as a force capable of transforming society. The disability rights movement, when rooted in love and collective care, can be a powerful antidote to the empathy crisis now facing our nation.
In the face of rampant dehumanization, we can, must, and are leading our nation in a vital process of re-humanization.
But this is not a story of uncomplicated triumph. It is also a reckoning with how, even within our own community, competition, scarcity, and internalized oppression can fracture solidarity. If we are to survive and thrive, we must reject both the external dehumanization we face and the internal dynamics—how we treat each other as brothers and sisters in this movement—that replicate it.
The Empathy Deficit and the Crisis of Dehumanization
While recognizing the limits of psychiatric labels, we can note that the absence of empathy is a defining feature of severe and potentially dangerous psychiatric disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy. On a societal level, a nation devoid of empathy opens the door to individual and state acts of violence. With its emphasis on authoritarianism, nationalism, and often discrimination, fascism can be seen as a direct counterpoint to empathy, which involves understanding and sharing the feelings of others. Fascist ideologies push the “us vs. them” mentality that leads to the dehumanization of targeted groups of people. Empathy, conversely, encourages us to see the shared humanity and common ground between people, making it difficult to justify discrimination or violence.
Nevertheless, today we frequently hear politicians, commentators, and other influencers openly deriding empathy. Journalist Julia Carrie Wong wrote last month in The Guardian about the “growing wave of opposition to empathy from across the American right.” It has reached such a proportion that it is being called a War on Empathy.” Katie Jgln is a social scientist and writer “pushing for a better humanity.” She writes that “the war on empathy is really a war on humanity itself,” and that it speaks to a profound moral erosion in our culture.
This is not merely an abstract problem. When empathy is seen as unnecessary or harmful, policies become cruel. Care becomes transactional. Systems prioritize efficiency over compassion, and those of us whose lives do not conform to able-bodied norms are left behind. In the absence of empathy, even well-meaning structures fail to uphold basic human dignity.
We don’t have to look far to witness these dynamics at work, as Elon Musk and the Trump Administration undo the very programs, policies, and enforcement that people with disabilities desperately depend on. Musk’s chaotic mission to dismantle our government, and even our democracy, is being done without regard for the lives impacted, because he has declared that empathy is the “fundamental weakness of Western civilization.”
Empathy—the ability to understand and share the feelings of another—is increasingly being painted as naïve, weak, or even dangerous. In this landscape, people with disabilities are often among the first to be “othered.”
Historical Amnesia and Present-Day Parallels
From a history of eugenics and institutionalization in the United States to modern-day inaccessibility, involuntary commitment, and forced treatment, people with all types of physical and mental disabilities have consistently borne the brunt of systemic dehumanization. What we have come to label “ableism” is not simply the result of ignorance—it is the product of a society that equates worth with productivity, autonomy, and perfection.
The legacy of eugenics in the United States—often sanitized in textbooks—continues to cast a shadow. Forced sterilization programs targeted people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities well into the 20th century. Institutions claimed to “protect” us while stripping away autonomy, family, and freedom. These were not anomalies; they were socially sanctioned.
Today, echoes of these policies persist. Guardianship systems and forced treatment rob people of decision-making rights. Medical discrimination persists in subtle but lethal ways. Disability is still too often seen as a burden to be managed, not a dimension of human diversity to be respected. Worse still, disability is often criminalized, and our growing prison populations include far too many people with disabilities.
This is why remembering history matters. Forgetting allows patterns of oppression to repeat. When we name the past with honesty, we make space to build a more just future.
Internal Fractures in the Disability Rights Movement
But even within our own advocacy spaces, we must confront hard truths. Scarcity—of funding, attention, institutional support—can turn movements inward. Competition replaces collaboration. People who should be allies diminish each other’s work out of insecurity or fear of being forgotten.
This is a painful reality. Many of us came to the movement seeking belonging, only to find ourselves navigating hierarchies and harm. Leadership, too often, is modeled on the very systems we aim to dismantle: extractive, individualistic, competitive.
To shift this, we must redefine leadership not as dominance or visibility, but as stewardship. To lead with love means to lift others up, not to secure our own position. It requires emotional courage, humility, and an unwavering commitment to collective liberation.
To lead with love means more than mouthing these words. It means making sure our colleagues feel like they belong. It means checking in with our colleagues during this time when we all have plates that are too full. It means sharing the load. It means bringing attention to our colleagues who are working to advance this mission. It means sharing their work within our networks. It means making sure that our colleagues have a seat at the table. It means amplifying the many voices of our movement, rather than seeking to be THE voice.
Love as the Engine of Justice
Dr. King’s words call us to a higher form of power—one rooted in love. Not sentimental love, but a fierce, demanding love that insists on justice. This kind of love refuses to dehumanize, even when faced with cruelty. It holds boundaries and accountability, but always with the aim of healing, not punishment.
For people with disabilities, this means building communities where interdependence is seen as strength, not shame. It means policies that center care, not compliance. It means redefining power not as the ability to control, but as the ability to protect and uplift.
Love in action looks like access. It looks like listening. It looks like redesigning systems so no one is left out. It is not weakness. It is revolutionary.
Reclaiming Empathy and Building Belonging
In a world that teaches us to harden ourselves, choosing empathy is an act of resistance. But empathy alone is not enough; it must be linked to justice and belonging. Belonging is not just being included—it is being welcomed, valued, and needed.
To build belonging in our movements, we must tell the truth—not only about oppression but about our longing for connection. We must create cultures that value emotional honesty, rest, joy, and collective care. We must celebrate interdependence as an organizing principle.
This means asking hard questions: Who feels safe in our spaces? Who is missing? Are we making decisions that honor the full humanity of all people?
The Role of Arts and Humanities in Reclaiming Humanity
In times of dehumanization, the arts and humanities become more than just cultural expression—they become acts of resistance. Poetry, storytelling, music, painting, and theater give voice to truths that data alone cannot hold. For people with disabilities, whose lives are so often rendered invisible, these creative expressions assert: We are here. We feel. We belong.
The humanities invite us to imagine a world where dignity is not conditional, and where empathy is not a weakness, but a form of power. In every painting, poem, and song that honors lived experience, we are reminded that love, in action, is what re-humanizes us.
We must uplift and invest in artistic voices within the disability community—not as an afterthought, but as central to our movements. Whether in community murals, autobiographical performance, or digital storytelling, these expressions make visible the interior lives of people so often othered or forgotten. In telling our stories, we lay claim to a future where worth is not measured by productivity, but by presence, contribution, and connection.
Conclusion: Toward a More Loving Future
The war on empathy is not inevitable. It is the result of choices—political, cultural, emotional. We can choose differently. We can lead differently. We can organize around love, not in spite of it.
Justice is love in action. Dignity is born from love. Peace comes from reaffirming our worth—and the worth of others—in a time of dehumanization.
If we are to survive, it will not be through domination, but through care. Not through exclusion, but through solidarity. Let us reclaim love—not as sentiment, but as strategy. Let us re-humanize this world, beginning with how we treat each other.
Justice is love in action. And if we are to survive this war on empathy, it will not be by hardening ourselves further, but by daring to believe in each other once more.
This is the power of our movement. This is our radical hope.