Empathy. Been hearing that word a lot, recently.
Most of us assume we have empathy for other people, when what
we mean is sympathy.
When a friend loses her job, we feel sympathy. We understand
that our friend must be in distress. And we can still express all the support
and comfort needed.
The emotion becomes empathy, though, if we feel her fear and
worry as our own.
Or, following an explosion, we see a woman wail over the body
of her child. We’re an ocean away, watching this horrible moment on a flat
screen. Most of us will feel sympathy—we understand that losing a child is a
heartbreak almost without equal.
If we tear up at the sight, taking that loss to heart as if
it were our own child, we are feeling empathy.
The ability to empathize can be inborn or developed, but it
is never comfortable. Often when we feel the urge, we shut it down as being too
demanding of our energies.
Or we try to shut it down until something happens that breaks
through.
On 9/11, for example, as the second tower was hit and the
full meaning of the attack became clear, people across the country suddenly
choked up. And when the small dark objects began to fall from the highest floors
of the burning building, we sobbed. They weren’t our children, husbands,
fathers, mothers, but we were with them and their families. We felt it.
Empathy.
Empathy is considered a high distinguishing quality of humanity,
one that warrants cultivating.
In Christianity, the great commandment reads, “Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul and mind; and thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.” That last bit is also known as the Golden Rule. It
finds its place in all the major religions.
Empathy.
The divisiveness of recent politics allows very little room
for fellow feeling. Our social media increasingly selects only like-minded
opinions to show us. It reinforces outrage.
The clash of policy and idea in politics generates fringe
elements, on the left and the right. Human nature can be contrary, and as we
all know, some folks enjoy contrariness more than others.
This process isn’t new. American history is full of odd
movements and noisy combative voices, going back to the beginnings of the 19th
century. Hucksters sold their patent medicines or outlandish theories from the
back of a Conestoga or other wagon. From there, they could do limited harm.
Today, they have the internet. They have social media.
Bizarre theories, conspiracies and outright lies go viral in
a time of worldwide fear and uncertainty.
There is always someone, intent on power over others, who
will speed things along, perfectly content to break every moral rule in so
doing. Lies, half-lies, distortions, good intentions gone awry, spin together,
pulling in the fringes, blurring everything.
Only empathy is strong enough to stop the whirlwind.
Only realism can brake the accelerating vortex.
When we’re in the grip of conspiracy-based fear, it’s like
the feeling we have in a horror movie. Breaking the spell requires sunlight,
open air, the presence of loved ones and friends.
These conspiracies are like bad novels, cheap slasher flicks.
They rely on mass hysteria to spread.
Take them outside, away from the artificial world of computer
and mobile screens. Let the warm sun and soft autumn breeze do nature’s
restorative work.
The conspiracies will crumble. And the people ensnared by
their darkness will breathe freely once again.
