Building Empathy

 

To this day, I remember the chill that swept over me years back, realizing that my at-risk high school kids seemed unconnected to any sense of empathy toward others.  As swiftly as the shock hit me, so did the awareness that empathy can't flourish where basic emotional needs go unmet.  

Talking the other day to friends who are light years from those students, young adults from financially prosperous homes & emotionally intact families, a similar chilll ran through me - they seemed clueless what I meant by empathy.  They could not understand why I cared about the welfare of others, genuinely baffled about how I get pleasure doing things for relative strangers.  

A little research uncovered a disturbing trend - our country's empathy level has taken a hit over the past thirty years. with the most precipitous dip since 9/11.  Would have expected the opposite! Instead of pulling together, we're drifting apart. 
 
Over the past thirty years, we've changed in ways that promote isolation - more likely to live apart from family & a longtime network of friends, less likely to join groups & organizations.  Unlike our parents & grandparents, we are more likely to be politically partisan - more & more people prefer living in neighborhoods with others holding similar leanings.  It's true that some studies indicate that empathy is hardwired into humans, with babies demonstrating empathy and toddlers helping others & sharing.  But alas, cultural norms can corrode even the best wiring.  

Polarization - the opposite of empathy - is on the rise.  The Internet makes it easy for people to avoid different points of view.  Research engines are designed to connect you to the points of view most like yours.  People connect more with information, while forgetting what human connection looks & feels like.  

As our world view shrivels, so has our ability to relate to others.  Folks have immediate access to the World Wide Web, yet seem strangers to their own workings, let alone the inner life of friends & acquaintances.  The more integrated circuitry we access, the less socially integrated we tend to be, the more isolated we tend to feel.  Yikes!

Another shock was discovering that fewer & fewer people read literature for the sheer pleasure of it.  That does not bode well for the future, especially for empathy. 

 

Whether young or old, folks who enjoy good literature benefit from more than a well-told story ~ a well-crafted description, metaphor or exchange between characters stimulates parts of our brains, beyond those that interpret written words.  Well-written literature touches the brain so deeply, it can experience great fiction the same as real life.  I suspect that more minds flipped from mediocre to exceptional through reading The Great Books than any 4-year college program.  How many young people even know about The Great Books, let alone are striking out to see how many they can read in their lifetime? 

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to coming from a once relatively isolated small town currently making incredible strides in promoting  far-reaching empathy.  Our small but mighty local college encourages all students to get involved in service projects & organizations.  Where folks were once centered around home, church & school, now their view goes wider, broader, deeper to people in need within us & the communities beyond ours.  

I look around at our local senior residence & wonder how we can do even more to develop a sense of empathy between younger & older communities.  I look around at a grannie client's senior community & wonder how the friends who live there can do more for each other, for the communities right outside their property.  I look at youngers & wonder how to help them develop a deeper sense of empathy for oldsters & the elderly.

Be the change.  Talk to younger folks.  Make yourself a bridge.  Do what asks to be done.  From tiny acorns, mighty oak trees grow!