From a flower-filled cottage, some thoughts on empathy

 

Sophie's white rose from our longtime vet

My cottage is in bloom! An Easter Lily, a small bouquet of roses tucked into an Easter bunny vase, a white rose in a bed of baby’s breath, a plant new to me called Orange Star, with stalks of just-about-to-open orange buds. This is just part of the outpouring of support I’ve gotten since I first posted about Sophie’s battle with diabetes—a short two weeks ago, though it seems an eternity. The internet has been full of supportive messages, a couple of friends have stopped by for hugs, others have called. And so many have said to me that they too had to make that hard decision about beloved family pets, and they understand what we have been going through. For me, empathy has been the key word of the week.

My computer defines empathy as the capacity to feel or understand what another person is experiencing. In other words, I feel what you feel. And in this case, my many friends feel and share my grief and sense of loss. Even before we saw that we were going to lose Sophie, I’d been thinking about empathy, because I read a blog on that subject.

The U. S. Army psychologist assigned to watch and study the defendants at the Nuremburg Trials wrote that he became very interested in the nature of evil, and after the trials he believed that the one thing that bound those heartless criminals together was a lack of empathy. They were unable to feel the experiences of their fellow men. He concluded that the lack of empathy defines evil in a person. The blog continued with two quotes from Reddit. One claimed that conservatives invent new derogatory words for empathy about ever fifteen years: “politically correct,” “bleeding heart,” and, the most recent, “woke.” The absence of empathy, the writer claimed, is a prerequisite for conservative ideology.

The second quote points out that the conservative point of view starts a lack of empathy, a viewpoint that is formed in one’s earliest years and is almost impossible to change in later years. “Many conservatives are beyond redemption.”

Now that our country is so horribly split, I think the lack of empathy in many conservative positions is clear. We know, from generally accepted accounts of trump’s childhood and the writings of his niece, Mary Trump, that the ex-president was raised in what might best be called unhealthy situations. He was taught to disregard others early on, repeating the family pattern of corruption set by his grandfather and father. They lived by takin advantage of others. There is no hope of changing him at this late stage of life. So he sets a horrible example, and he made it publicly all right in his administration to lack empathy. Joe Biden, a man who stoops to help a stuttering child or give a few dollars to a homeless man, a man who loves animals, is a man of empathy.

But it’s not just trump. We see that lack of empathy l around us—in the disregard for the lives of women with life-threatening pregnancies, the callous attitude toward immigrants at our southern border, even the willingness to stop free school lunch programs. It is an “every man for himself” attitude that boggles my mind. I don’t think we can dismiss it as politics. It is a moral issue, not political. For me, as a faithful Christian (not of the nationalism type(, it is a religious issue. If I follow in the steps of Jesus, I must recognize that his greatest command was to love each other. But that morality is not limited to Christianity—the care for others is found in all the world’s major religions, and—with a nod to critics of religion—I must say I find the world better for that teaching.

Sometimes empathy is hard. It makes you draw a moral line. I saw a news clip of the perpetrators of the Moscow mass killing bring brought into court. They had obviously been beaten so badly they could not walk upright and were dragged, and no matter how heinous their crime, I felt for their agony at that moment. No, I didn’t want to rescue them, and I knew I was powerless, but at that moment I felt their experience. To me, that is empathy.

I cling to the Pollyanna-like belief that most of the world is empathetic—there are good people out there who don’t want to let children go hungry, or immigrants drown in a river full of barbed wire. I believe, to alter Faulkner’s words a bit, that the good people will prevail. And this week, I’ve had a clear demonstration of that love. It has bolstered me, and as I keep saying, I’m grateful. And I’m okay. You know the thing that bothers me most? Looking at the empty spot where her crate was, where she loved to lie in her safe space.

Sweet dreams, everyone.