Empathy
The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another. (Source.)
Compassion
Sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. (Source.)
One of my kids is spending tonight in the hospital. He broke his arm/elbow badly today and had surgery to install a couple pins to hold his bones in place. He can't swim for the next 6 weeks, or do anything very active. And this is one active 8-yr-old!
Just writing those thoughts out has me feeling again so many disconcerting and sad feelings. I'm feeling very sad for him, and I'm feeling nervous about his upcoming dealings with additional pain, discomfort, awkwardness, and fears. I'm feeling sad for my wife having to see her boy hurt so much. I'm feeling frustrated that I can't do more to help, and I'm feeling resolved to be a better dad.
After digesting it for a while and talking with a few people to get straight on my feelings and thoughts and fears, I'm also feeling grateful. It could always be worse. Thankfully it's only his arm. Thankfully he'll heal. Thankfully I've got a great wife who will drop everything to be with our boy. Thank goodness for health insurance. Thank goodness for Michael Bloomberg and the kick-butt facility at Hopkins. Thank goodness we live in the West, with the roads, water, facilities, technology, and institutional integrity that will continue to make his suffering minimal. Thank goodness it's an injury from having fun and not due to a chemical attack or shrapnel.
All of those feelings, so natural and instinctual. And the feelings were overwhelming at times today. Would I change that? No way. Looking back on it, I'm glad to feel so strongly for my son's well-being. It validates that I am a loving dad and that I do care deeply for my boys and their mom.
But are those feelings necessary, as a prerequisite, to caring? If I didn't feel that way, would I somehow be less capable of being there for my son?
Paul Bloom, Yale professor of psychology and cognitive science, argues that my positive impacts on others could be even further reaching by shifting gears from empathy:
...empathy is surprisingly bad at making us good. It's a spotlight focusing on certain people in the here and now. This makes us care more about them, but it leaves us insensitive to the long-term consequences of our acts and blind as well to the suffering of those we do not or cannot empathize with. Empathy is biased, pushing us in the direction of parochialism and racism. (Source.)
In a podcast interview here and in a short text interview here, Bloom summarizes this argument expounded upon in his latest book: Against Empathy, the Case for Rational Compassion.
If we rely on empathy to determine our moral actions, we are limited in the breadth of possible people we are capable of caring for. Empathy is inherently biased; it's a clearly beneficial, though limited, evolutionary response to those close to us hurting. It matters with the people close to us, but we can't rely on those feelings to push us to act for the well-being of those outside our close circles.
What if instead, or in addition, we allowed our moral compass to be moved by rational compassion? Rational compassion: compassion guided by reason and other cognitive skills.
I'm referring here to concern for others, wanting their pain to go away, wanting their lives to improve—but without the shared emotional experience that's so central to empathy... it turns out that compassion is superior in just about every way. It's less biased and innumerate, less upsetting and exhausting. (Source.)
Developing our experience of compassion cognitively, compassion could become an act of the will, a result of choice that we can point toward anyone, near or far.
How much bigger can we care? Empathy may say, as Bloom's research implies, 'not too far.' But rational compassion - if you can think about them, you can care for them and the improvement of their well-being.
As I was driving to the hospital tonight to drop off bear, blankie, and some warm clothes for my wife, I thought about empathy and rational compassion. I realized that I could let all those feelings I described above settle into the background for a while, and I could think about how I can best relieve my son's suffering. I thought about how I could best serve the needs of my family. I thought about who I could be for him and my wife to brighten their experience.
I'm so thankful for those feelings of empathy for my son, for the validation of my humanity, instincts, and love. And those feelings had me swirling in their depth and questions. When I put aside empathy and its attachment to feelings and instead turned on some rational compassion, I got to create new actions to make a difference.
And I'm committed that the actions of my life mitigate the suffering of kids all around the world, whether their suffering is from hunger, thirst, war, greed, pollution, religious dogma, political ideologies, or anything else. And I don't have to feel any particular way about any of it. Nor do you. We can all choose rational compassion and watch our circles of caring expand to make the world a better place not just for our families, our people, and our nation, but for all.
I'm thankful for the feeling, and I'm proud to not be hooked on it.
