Empathy
and Compassion in 21st Century America
In
a memorial service held last month in Tucson, Arizona for the victims
of the 2012 mass shooting that took place there, President Obama
called on Americans to "sharpen our instincts for empathy"
so that we can become a more civil people. The President's call for a
more empathic culture and civil society raises these troubling
questions: What has gone so terribly wrong with America? Why are we
becoming more aggressive, violent, self-interested and intolerant as
a society? The problem goes far deeper than just blaming the
escalating rhetoric of political pundits and talk show hosts, or of
vilifying the so-called “gun culture”. Like it or not, we are a
country governed by the rule of law, and the Second Amendment is part
of that law, which is the Constitution of the United States. Instead,
it has been my observation that they are playing off a deeper
sensibility – or fear – that has become engrained in the thinking
of many Americans.
It
is our core beliefs about the very nature of human beings that make
us so susceptible to the rising plague of hate and mistrust, even to
the point of paranoia, and of the intolerance and unfocused rage that
is spreading across the land. The current manhunt in California for
an apparently berserk ex-cop is only the latest example. The American
character was forged, in large part, on a skewed idea about who we
are as a people that was spawned hundreds of years ago in the
Protestant Reformation. From the very moment John Winthrop and his
flock of Puritans landed on American shores in 1630, we came to
believe that we are God's chosen people, when in fact the Bible
states clearly and repeatedly that it is the nation of Israel that is
God's chosen people. For Scripture that backs this up irrefutably,
please see Deuteronomy chapter 34, verses 1-4 (“Then Moses
climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah,
across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land –
from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and
Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negev
and the whole region from the valley of Jericho, the city of palms,
as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, 'This is the land I
promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I will give it to
your descendants'”, and
Joshua chapter one, verses 2-5 (“Moses my servant is dead.
Now then, you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan
River into the land I am about to give to them – to the Israelites.
I will give you every place that you set your foot, as I promised
Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert in Lebanon, and
from the great river, the Euphrates – all the Hittite country –
to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against
you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with
you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”) For the most
detailed explanation found in the Bible, see Joshua chapters 13-20,
which is the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict that simmers to
this day.
The
ideology that God has a unique covenant with America that makes us
special among the peoples of the world is a load of bull. We have
become the fiercest supporters of the erroneous belief that the naked
pursuit of individual self-interest in the market – the pursuit of
profit based on greed – is the defining feature of human nature. We
have by extension become believers in "American Exceptionalism,"
that our political ideology and our capitalist economic system are
somehow superior to all others. This political hubris was the basis
for the Cold War of the late 1940's to the late 1980's. In our social
life, we are the strongest supporters of Social Darwinism, that life
is a combative struggle in which only the strongest survive. These
highly regarded core “beliefs” are antithetical to a mature
empathic sensibility, an antidote to compassion, and they are
mean-spirited and selfish to say the least.
It's
no wonder, then, that when President Obama spoke of empathy during
his first year in office, and again at the memorial service in
Tucson, mentioning that it is the guiding philosophical principle in
his life, he was pummeled and excoriated in the main-stream press as
being weak and unfit to be the "Commander-in-Chief" of the
most powerful nation on Earth. The question that is bothering me here
is: What is there about the interrelated concepts of empathy and
compassion that conjures up so much derision? Why does this seem to
frighten so many people? Perhaps it's because being empathic and/or
compassionate requires giving up the pretense of being special and
anointed, as being “God's chosen people”, which is tantamount to
being usurpers of God's holy covenant as stated in the above passages
of Scripture. It means being mindful of other points of view, which
requires the maintenance of an open mind, not to mention tolerance of
those who are different from ourselves. It also means abandoning the
idea that narcissistic self-interest is the only thing that matters.
And, most important, it means being sympathetic to the plight of
others and being sensitive to their needs. That's what Jesus meant
when he said, “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren,
that you do for me”.
New
discoveries in human evolutionary development that encompass
mankind's anthropology as well as advances in psychiatry and
psychology are challenging our long held shibboleths about human
nature. We are learning that human beings are biologically
predisposed – not for aggression, violence, self-interest and
pleasure-seeking utilitarian behavior – but rather for intimacy and
sociability, and that empathy and compassion are the emotional and
cognitive means by which we express these drives. To empathize is to
experience the condition of others as if it was our own. It is to
recognize their vulnerabilities and their struggle to flourish and to
become something more than what they are. To express compassion with
others requires that we first acknowledge our own vulnerabilities and
to confront our own feelings of insecurity. It is because we realize
that life is fraught with challenges, that we are all imperfect,
fragile and vulnerable, that life is precious and worthy of being
treated with respect, that we are then able to reach out and, through
our empathic regard, express our solidarity with our fellow beings.
Empathy is how we celebrate each other's existence. To empathize is
to civilize, and to have and practice compassion is what sums up the
two greatest commandments of Christ (“Love the Lord your God
with all your strength, with all your might, with all your heart and
with all your spirit. And the second command is like the
first: Love your neighbor as yourself”).
Empathy
is the real "invisible hand" of history. It is the social
glue that has allowed our species to express solidarity with each
other over ever broader domains. The advent of the internet in the
last 20 years, and more recently social media, has increased this
phenomenon exponentially. Empathy has evolved over history. In
forager-hunter societies, empathy rarely went beyond tribal blood
ties. In the great agricultural age, empathy extended past blood ties
to associational ties based on religious or racial identification.
Jews began to empathize with fellow Jews as if in an extended family,
Christians began empathizing with fellow Christians, Muslims with
Muslims, and so on. In the Industrial Age, with the emergence of the
modern nation-state, empathy extended once again, this time to people
of like-minded national identities. Americans began to empathize with
Americans, Germans with Germans, Japanese with Japanese. Today
empathy is beginning to stretch beyond national boundaries to include
the whole of humanity. We are coming to see the biosphere as our
indivisible community, and our fellow human beings and creatures as
our extended evolutionary family.
This
doesn't mean that our national loyalties, religious beliefs and blood
affiliations are not important to us any more. But when they become a
litmus test for defining the human sojourn, all other beliefs become
the “alien other”. For a long time, we Americans have been
obsessed with "creating a more perfect union." Maybe it is
time to put equal or greater weight on creating a more empathic and
compassionate society. The hard economic times that have been ongoing
since the economic implosion of 2008 up to the present serve to add
even more emphasis to this timeless truth. We have the stark choice
of either upholding each other for the mutual benefit of all, or
facing mutually assured self-destruction. It's all up to us.
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