In the world of purposeful change, empathy means taking a whole new look at each of the individuals who make up our environment, not just once, but continually. Like the patterns of a kaleidoscope, our perceptions shift and merge and reappear transformed. At the same time, the frame we use to capture it all and the lens we use to keep it all in focus shift in their own unique patterns. We cannot rightfully claim that we 'know' anything, because neither the knower nor the known remain the same long enough to be fully grasped.
Social groups differ entirely from 'categories' of people. Social groups consist of human individuals who share a common bond: a common origin, a common language, a common worldview, a common experience, a common plight, or a common goal or purpose. 'Categories' of people employ convenient 'tags' that we use to identify people by some criteria that we've imposed on them. Our tragedy derives from our tendency to make the categories more real than the people to whom they apply.
Consider your favorite categories: 'employee', 'customer', 'vendor', 'politician', 'patient', 'client', 'co-worker', 'American', 'Hispanic', 'Black', 'White', 'immigrant', 'gay', 'convict', 'athlete', 'celebrity', 'boss', 'socialite', 'cop', 'soldier', 'patriot', 'illegal', 'terrorist', 'Muslim', 'Evangelical', 'gangster', 'criminal' — need I continue? Any and all of these 'tags' seem very reasonable characterizations of other people (at least until they're applied unfairly to us).
Yet, if we take the life strategy of comprehension seriously, we'll soon realize that slicing and dicing the world up into these convenient little chunks dehumanizes the people to whom they're applied. Each one of these characterizations describes a person exactly like you or me: with hopes and dreams and fears and needs. If we ever want to become the people we aspire to be, we're going to have to use both of these strategies (comprehension and empathy) to counteract our personal — and social — need to dehumanize people and turn them into disposable objects.
We need comprehension to remind us that the categories that we impose on others are mental constructs and do not actually exist in the real world. We need empathy to look at others as selves and mirrors of our own humanity. Failing this, we set our feet firmly on the path that leads to genocide: turning the Other into the 'Foreign' and, from there, into 'Garbage' which we can gas, shoot, incinerate, rape, or deport with impunity. In fact, we can delude ourselves enough actually to believe that we are doing ourselves — and humanity — a service.
When we fail to appreciate the plight of individuals (like those who are currently suffering under racism or our popular fascination with punishing illegal immigrants) in the name of some artificial category (no matter how 'honorable'), we are only dehumanizing ourselves. Individual suffering can never be justified as merely 'collateral damage' whether it's the demise of immigrant communities in the name of legal immigration, the erosion of our civil rights in the name of terrorism, or the ghettoizing of minorities in the name of law and order.
"No [one] is an island; no [one] stands alone; each [one]'s joy is joy to me; each [one]'s grief is my own. We need one another, so I will defend each [one] as my brother, each [one] as my friend."
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
Comments