zaterdag 23 april 2011

The Paradox called Empathy

Whilst sociopaths lack empathy at all, having too much empathy can be negative as well. If you are highly empathetic, your ever-complaining neighbor is toxic to you. Sucking the energy out of you like an emotional vampire. But even when you have that under control, empathy may also be misunderstood as sympathy. Especially in bi-polarized contexts exhibiting empathy may be a risky undertaking. 
One does not have to sympathize
in order to empathize

Empathy has not limits
Photo by Mykl Roventine
Understanding a person, means sharing their heart and eyes. Understanding their fears, things that make them happy or sad. This mental activity we call 'empathizing' distincts humans as social-beings who are capable to help, cooperate and display altruistic treats. While placing ourself in the skin of another person we learn what triggers their behavior, and how we can solve mutual disputes.

Evolutionary, we have the tendency to divide the world in 'us' and 'them', which interferes with our ability to step in the shoes of someone we dislike. In fact, a lack of empathy allows humans to engage gleefully in cruelty and torture towards the ones we hate. This explains why it's difficult to empathize with a pedophile, or a murderer. Even the thought of it, confuses people and generates frustrated answers like "What to understand about him, he is a lunatic" or "the thought of standing in his shoes makes me nauseating".

Unfortunately, too often we do not see a deconstruction of the us-them dichotomy. When Bush coined the term 'the axis of evil', he obviously did not portray the citizens in that region as humans who want the best for their kids. Instead, they were seen as culprits, potential terrorists. With a scoop, whoever populated this geographical area was impeached with an image of unreasonable barbarianism. Such a depiction dwindles room to review their behavior in an unbiased way.

Illustration by H. Michael Karshis

Sam Richards is one of the people who attempts to revert dehumanization. In what he calls 'a radical experiment' he lets his audience step in the shoes of Iraqi citizens. Then he moves to picturing the live you live as an Iraqi. "You, as an Iraqi, what do you know. What do you want the most, and what do you see around you?" Like any other source of information that helps me understand what people drives, this video had impact on me. Sam's message resonates one of the great lessons on modern warfare that Robert McNamara draw in his documentary The Fog of War. It says: Rule #1: "Empathize with your enemy".


I hear much of peoples' calling out to punish the guilty,
 but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.
Daniel Defoe


Overall, I find myself spending much time on understanding the most distant behaviors people exhibit - much more than other people. It is this personal position that transforms me into a progressive personality. For example, last week a Dutch woman - who is arrested under suspicion of neonaticide (wiki), was charged with 12 years of jail. A popular singer, exclaimed on national television that she should be charged with more years in captivity. It outraged me, since she is not a threat to the society other than to her offspring. After doing some research and empathizing with the perpetrator, my opinion would be that she needs therapy to battle her indecisiveness and overcome feelings of guilt and shame, that led to her atrocities.


But, sending a woman who kills four babies to therapy only, seems unacceptable to most people. My empathy with the perpetrator results in progressive conclusions that more often than not receive disapproval as they contradicts public opinion. The paradox goes that the one who managed to overcome the us-them dichotomy and empathized with the perpetrator, gets grouped with 'them'. I've seen bigots accusing me for lacking empathy for the victims. But here is their fallacy: One does not have to support the cause of the person they empathize with. Maybe there is a lesson here to draw, which goes that 'you do not have to sympathize in order to empathize'



Empathy is trying on someone else's shoes
Sympathy -- wearing them
Unknown



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