Fair Comment - Don Sawyer

Empathy – Or Else!

AS IS OFTEN THE CASE, I am currently reading three or four books at the same time. (Which might explain why it seems to take me forever to finish one.) But what’s interesting about my current crop of readings is that while they are from dramatically different genres, they all focus on one overriding issue – empathy, and its importance not only to personal happiness but to politics and even our very survival.

Empathy is commonly defined as “the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes,” and in his fascinating book The Political Mind, noted cognitive scientist George Lakoff tells us it is key to developing an understanding of our interdependent connections with the natural world and with each other.

Developing such an “ecological consciousness,” he contends, represents a break from the concept of “economic man,” who acts out of unbounded self-interest and is fast “bringing death to the earth.” While making the shift from “how to raid our environment for profit to how to live within it safely,” will not be easy, Lakoff tells us, it is possible – and necessary. Based on years of brain research, he demonstrates how we are hardwired for empathy and thus have the equipment necessary to act in our collective self-interest rather than simply for individual aggrandizement. “We are born to empathize and cooperate,” he concludes.

From a dramatically different perspective, the Dalai Lama reaches remarkably similar conclusions. In his book The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World, the Dalai Lama, along with his collaborator Howard Cutler, sees empathy as the key mechanism for breaking down destructive “them and us” attitudes and for creating a society freer of loneliness, intolerance, racism and distrust through a focus on “our common humanity.”

“As modern society becomes more multicultural,” Cutler writes,” and we come into contact with diverse populations and a wider array of people, our capacity for empathy becomes increasingly critical.” Empathy, he continues, “has a powerful and almost magical effect in shifting our perspective to view others based on our similarities rather than our differences.”

Research shows that when we practice empathy toward one person in an “out-group,” we not only see the individual as a fuller, more complex human being, but we extend this understanding to the group as a whole. This “self-other overlap” makes it much more difficult to be biased, hateful or prejudiced since you are now seeing “the other” as being an extension of yourself. The outcomes read like a recipe for a better world: greater forgiveness, lower intergroup conflict, reduced distrust, reduction in social aggression, improvement in attitudes and evaluations of out-groups, and greater use of dialogue to resolve conflict.

The Dalai Lama, Cutler and Lakoff not only emphasize the importance of fostering empathy as part of our quest to create a more sustainable, peaceful, and equitable global society, they also agree that there are specific, effective strategies for developing our innate empathetic tendencies in families, schools and through the media. I’m feeling more optimistic already, aren’t you?

Well, now for the bad news. At the same time Lakoff and the Dalai Lama and Cutler were writing their books, a study that measured the empathy levels of university students was being conducted at the University of Michigan. Ongoing since the 1970s, the study is able to measure the increase or decline of empathy over periods of time. The results of the 2008 study? Hope you’re sitting down.

“College kids today,” the report concludes, “ are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, as measured by standard tests of this personality trait,” with the biggest drop in empathy occurring after the year 2000.

So why such a dramatic decline in empathy among young adults? The researchers speculate that it may have to do with the simple overload of information, three times what it was 30 years ago. Another factor: this group of students grew up with video games, “and,” as the study notes, “a growing body of research...is establishing that exposure to violent media numbs people to the pain of others.”

The recent rise of social media may also play a role in the drop in empathy. Some studies indicate that relying on facebook, messaging and e-mail has actually reduced people’s capacity to perceive and recognize non-verbal cues, especially facial expressions. As well, online “friends” are easy to tune out, discard or decline when we are not in the mood to listen or respond, attitudes that could carry over to real life.

Whatever the case, this is not good news. But all is not lost. With the emergence of the New Enlightenment Mind, as Lakoff calls his vision of 21st century thinking that recognizes how the brain and mind actually work, Lakoff believes it is not too late to engender an understanding that “our brains evolved for empathy, for cooperation, for connection to each other and to the earth. We cannot live alone.”

But, he warns, “We’d better hurry up. The ice caps are melting.”

Don Sawyer is a writer, educator and former director of Okanagan College’s International Development Centre. He lives with his wife in Salmon Arm. You can contact Don Sawyer by email at donsawyer@telus.net or by mail at Don Sawyer c/o North of 50, Box 100, Armstrong, BC V0E 1B0. For more information on Don’s writing and development work, visit his web site at www.northerned.com.