The Loss of Moral Imagination

When Sides Matter More Than People, Humanity Loses

I've never approached politics or policies through a partisan lens. I don't plant my flag with Democrats or hunker down with Republicans. What matters to me is how society is shaped, and how that society, in turn, shapes the lives of its citizens and, more importantly, the people I love.

When I first heard about the Obama administration's deportation policies, my ears perked up. But when I watched the Trump administration's chainsaw approach to immigration, I locked in. I'm an immigrant. So are my mother, father, and close relatives. That reality lives in the background of everything I see unfolding.

So when I see videos of ICE agents smashing windows, grabbing people from their homes and cars while their loved ones watch helplessly, I cringe. My immediate response is horror, then sympathy. Sympathy for the wife, the husband, the child forced to watch someone they love disappear without warning.

And then came deeper questions:

What if it were my son? What if he were taken without warning, no hearing, no defense? Or what if I was taken from him?

That might sound dramatic, but everyone taken is someone's child.

I think, as we fall deeper into our digital lives and tribal battles, we've lost something essential: our moral imagination. The ability to see others not as abstractions or statistics, but as real, vulnerable human beings, like those we love most.

The more I research, the more I realize most of us are more concerned with "winning" than "protecting." I saw it firsthand while writing my essay on online arguments. People are blinded to facts, to logic, to basic empathy, because breaking with their tribe would mean breaking with their very identity.

Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said that ethics begins with the face of the Other. Meaning real morality doesn't start with policies or parties. It starts the moment you recognize that another person's humanity is staring back at you. It’s a practice we should all adopt. If that were the standard, the world would look less cruel and more humane.

But it's not the standard, and history shows us what happens when it isn't. Hannah Arendt called it the banality of evil. Not the horror of monsters, but the quiet obedience of ordinary people, following orders, filling forms, and turning away. Like filing the paperwork that deports someone without a hearing. A stamp that approves a foreign detention center. A budget cut that weighs dollars against human lives... Cold, mechanical decisions that slip in unnoticed, disarming us little by little until one day, indifference feels like common sense.

Evil, in Arendt's view, isn't committed by villains. It's carried out by ordinary people who stop seeing faces and start seeing statistics. When our moral imagination dies, people become numbers, cruelty becomes acceptable, and a once-humane system turns cold. Sadly, the people most affected are the ones with the least power to defend themselves, and eventually that spreads so no one stays safe.

I'm not saying that's exactly where we're headed, and I'm not laying it all on either administration. It's bigger than that. It's an evolution. The signs have been here for a long time. It's undeniable we're sliding deeper into an "us" vs "them" society where tribal loyalty matters more than human decency. Speak out, and you're immediately labeled the opposition, like there is no other option. The real fight isn't Left vs Right. It's people vs dehumanization. We have a responsibility to use our moral imagination because the ones who inherit this world, our children, or the powerless, can't speak up for themselves.

Every lever pulled today ripples into the world our loved ones will have to navigate tomorrow.

If you can still see everyone as someone's son or daughter, if you can still step into another's shoes—even when they don't look like you, or follow your beliefs—if your hair stands on end when justice is stripped away from a stranger, then you're still alive in the ways that matter most. Stay that way, and when the time comes, stand that way.

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Thanks for being here. Stay Curious. Question Everything.

–Luis

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🔍 Further reading:

The Myth of Rights

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—Hannah Arendt

• A biographical sketch of Hannah Arendt | READ

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—Emmanual Levinas

• A biographical sketch of Emmanual Levinas | READ

Ethics Unwrapped—Moral Imagination

• Moral Imagination is creatively imagining the full range of options while making moral decisions. | WATCH + READ