Unitarian Universalist
Minister, Auburn, NY How can we build a culture of empathy?Religious communities need to be more explicit in speaking about it as a
religious value. Instead of spending so much time speaking about personal
salvation or imposing what I see as restrictive religious rules (e.g., birth
control, homosexuality as sins).
This language demeans others and promotes
self-righteousness rather than empathy.
As Unitarian Universalists, empathy has been at the core of
our faith. One might call it our version of “applied theology.” Sub
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How can we build a culture of empathy? i.e. raise the level of empathy in
society?
Religious communities need to be more explicit in speaking about it as a
religious value. Instead of spending so much time speaking about personal
salvation or imposing what I see as restrictive religious rules (e.g., birth
control, homosexuality as sins). This language demeans others and promotes
self-righteousness rather than empathy.
What would a culture of empathy look like?
A culture of empathy would be more compassionate. Social programs would be
better funded and schools would be more equal in the opportunities presented
to children.
How are you defining empathy?
I am defining empathy as the capacity to more fully feel and comprehend
another person’s experience of life.
Describe your personal felt experience in your body of empathy?
It is more positive and affirming. There is a feeling of comfort in knowing
that “we are all in this together,” which is my one-line definition of my
personal theology. Everything else is commentary and living.
What is your metaphor of what empathy is like? Explain?
- My metaphor for empathy is “engagement” or “connection.”
By this, I think of sitting across from another person and feeling connected
as we speak or listen to one another. When you empathize with another person,
before you speak or do something, you have an idea of how he or she will be
affected. You know what the impact will be…at least, to the extent that you
are able to empathize with her or him.
- empathy is like the needle of a record player that follows the groves of the
record.
What are the obstacles to deepening empathy?
The biggest obstacle is ego. We are so self-centered and fixated upon our own
interests that we consciously need to try to transcend this stance and be
empathic.
Another obstacle is fear. We are afraid of losing something. Look at Syria.
Bashar Assad is terrified of losing power, so he cannot empathize with the
Syrian people. So, out of fear, he dehumanizes and orders his soldiers to kill
and terrify people into submission.
Article by Stanley Sears
One of the fluffy popular songs from my teen years was the lilting “What
the world needs now is love, sweet love.” Not to denigrate love, but I
think that what the world needs right now is a lot more empathy. Empathy
seems to be one thing that “there’s just too little of.”
Empathy is often defined as the ability to feel or share something of
another person’s experience. An empathic response is one that lets
another person know that you are tracking their feelings accurately, and
that you really get what they are saying. With all his failings,
President Bill Clinton exemplified empathy when he would say “I feel
your pain.”
The operative word here is “feel,” and it does not have
to be expressed with words. As clergy, sometimes the most empathic
response we can make when we visit a family following a death or other
tragedy is to sit with the person or persons in silence, and look into
their eyes. The poet, William Blake, captures the feeling of empathy in
his Songs of Innocence and Experience when he writes:
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
Empathy came to mind over the past few weeks as I watched the genocide
being carried out in Syria. Who cannot feel shock and revulsion at the
sight of hospitals being deliberately attacked, and innocent
neighborhoods under siege from Syrian artillery as Assad’s forces have
gone door to door, murdering noncombatants?
Empathy is not something that one political party or religious group
owns. It is a human response to the sufferings of another person.
Obviously, empathy makes its way into political or religious discussions
when we fail to take into account another person’s experiences or
sensitivities. The sad reality is that few laws are written with the
people whose lives will be most affected sitting in the room. The recent
Congressional circus on contraception, in which all of the people
invited to testify were men, was but one example. Couldn’t our
Congressmen find a qualified woman to speak on an issue so germane to
women’s health?
Gun control is another. Within the past few weeks, the Virginia
Legislature decided to overturn a bill limiting people to one handgun
purchase per month. In a state that witnessed the worst shooting rampage
in recent American history, when Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people before
turning a gun on himself, families of
the victims turned out and raised their voices to protest what they saw
as an insult to their children’s lives. Unfortunately, the National
Rifle Association (which has somehow spent a lot more time defending
handguns, armor piercing bullets, and assault rifles than shooting
sports—unless you consider shooting people “sport”) demanded removal of
the limit. Rather than having the NRA’s check writers in the room,
perhaps the Virginia legislators should have had the families of the
victims in their assembly, and then looked into their eyes as they cast
their ballots. Ironically, they cast their ballots on the day that a
third high school student died from gunshot wounds outside Cleveland,
Ohio.
On one level, empathy flies in the face of our “winner take all” or “I
Me Mine” culture. Too often, the message that seems to dominate our
society resembles the bumper sticker with the message “Whoever dies with
the most toys wins the game.” We hear similar messages from Super PAC
donors who freely speak of spending in the tens of millions of dollars
to get their candidates elected. What does it say about our society that
such blowhards believe that this is even an option? What does it say
about politicians who will do whatever “tricks” such braggarts demand
for that money?
I believe that most of us are better than that. The nearly universal
expressions of revulsion and disgust at what is happening in Syria are
but one sign of hope. They are a sign of hope that underneath all of our
political differences, there is a layer of compassion, and the ability
to “feel another’s woe.” It is that same nascent empathy that it took
Comedy Central to reach, when it made each of us ask what it would be
like for some inept and unempathic legislator to have a probe stuck into
our bodies.
As Unitarian Universalists, empathy has been at the core of our faith.
One might call it our version of “applied theology.” Our services are
held at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. All are welcome
What the world needs now is empathy, sweet empathy
