Empathy has been a big word in the past few years, and there’s something about its usage that troubles me a little. What is empathy exactly? What can it accomplish? Why does it seem – to me – to be called upon as a cure-all. Of late, I’ve heard (or read): So-and-so has no empathy for other people’s problems. Or: We can fight inequality with empathy. Or: Empathy is important in leadership. Or: Policing should be about empathy. Even: In customer service, we should consider choosing empathy over politeness in dealing with customers.
Hmmm…
My thoughts on this may verge on the pedantic (as do I…). But here they are, for all it’s worth. (For all they’re worth.)
I remember learning at school (decades of moons ago) that empathy is distinct from sympathy in that we don’t identify on an emotional level with the object of our empathy. When we sympathize, we feel and perhaps even suffer with another person in their difficult situation, whereas when we empathize, we understand the situation while nevertheless maintaining a healthy emotional distance. I’m not certain this is a general truth – it’s my personal understanding. (As an aside, “pity” is perhaps when we have either sympathy or empathy – or both – but when we also judge or feel superior to the object of our attention.)
Still, it’s hard for me to grasp why empathy – the word, not the thing – has become all-pervasive, the go-to answer to problems of leadership, social inequality, personal relationships, abuse of power, and…customer service. Because what does it mean to police with empathy? Shouldn’t the police treat people with respect when (correctly) enforcing the law? And what does it mean to approach customers with empathy rather than dealing with them politely?
In German, the word has also become prevalent, and politicians, the media, and individuals alike love discussing Empathie and pointing at certain people’s lack thereof. This is rather ironic, as the English word (made up of a Greek compound word that may or may not have been used by the Greeks – I’m neither a Classicist nor an etymologist) is an early 20th century translation of the German Einfühlung, literally: “feeling in.” It means the ability to imagine on an emotional level what someone else’s life is like. So German-speakers have translated a loan word from English that is a Greek-English translation of a German word. (Language is indeed a virus.)
Setting aside the irony of the loan-word situation, the original German word seems to suggest that we develop our imaginations – my favorite storybook heroine, Anne of Green Gables, would most certainly approve. Try to picture what someone else’s life is like. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes, if only for a brief moment. Although it isn’t immediately clear to me how having an imagination would help combat or prevent abuse of power, and although I’d prefer a polite, respectful, and effective response over imaginative help when I have a customer complaint, it does seem that there is a lack of creative thinking in how problems are approached. Perhaps it has to do with our technology-based lifestyle? Algorithms are fascinating, but they are (at least currently, at least I think) iterative, not creative. And our leaders, our police, our customer service providers can’t simply plug a new word into their existing systems and hope that a better (more profitable?) procedure will emerge.
To move forward, maybe the human heart and the human capacity to imagine are what is needed. Cultivating the imagination may sound like a luxury – or it may sound trivial, like something from a storybook for girls (hah!) – but perhaps it should be regarded as a necessity. Maybe we should approach problems of all kinds by imagining what things would like like from a different vantage point. How else can we understand a situation other than right-wrong/good-bad? What would my life be like if I were in the other person’s shoes?
If that’s what empathy is, perhaps it truly can solve most problems.
