Choose your character: Sympathy & Empathy

I have been asked several times to define the difference of each and how perhaps empathy would be better suited for a people to move forward in social areas because it would make us kinder towards each other. I don’t know if that’s true but I have witnessed a lack of empathy for a long time. So it makes me think that if empathy is something that can be taught? Is it a skill you’re born with and some more than others? Is sympathy the first step before empathy? Are they symbiotic? I don’t plan to answer all these questions here but it did have me want to writes something about it. I won’t get in too deep with the science of either but there is evidence that as a human species we have brain neurons (mirror neurons) that when we physically see and/or hear, of an experience that is not our own; the brain lights up in specific areas that are dedicated to both sympathy and empathy. Which prove that it’s an inherited and evolved ability needed for survival of the species. I recall a study where babies will not cry unless the parent shows them they are in fact hurting via facial expressions.

I use to work at a place where I needed to teach this concept of ‘Sympathy & Emaphty’ and the majority of the responses that I would get when taking an initial inquiry about this were: “Sympathy is saying I feel sorry for you, and empathy is I feel with you” OR “Empathy is when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes.” The latter one was a metaphor and either of those are great to help with the concepts. Now that I think of it, metaphors could activate the same areas of the brain as we try to convey a feeling using our words or stories. The thing was; how do I teach that. So, if we have a good understanding of ‘sympathy & empathy,’ then why don’t people implore it often? Is it a question of whether it’s efficacious in our daily lives? So it has me critique our society in the US of A. 

If it has not been said before the society of the USA, are a very individualist people; perhaps all people are and this concept is only hyperbolized in literature and media of the USA. Which is technically a reflection of our society or a means to control us (that sociological question is for another time). However, in my field of work  its been validating of individualism (well for a majority of groups that I work with), ‘something doesn’t mean anything to you unless it happens to you first hand, or pretty close to you.’ 

I am typing this during the time of COVID so it seems there are many prime examples of people not taking empathy into consideration or demonstrating that there is a willful choice not to enact on empathy (because I know its there people!) I have to assume that there is a sense of sympathy we have as a people to what is happening with the pandemic, but it’s not enough to move people into action; so is empathy not reached? If that were the case it answers my question that empathy is the latter development of sympathy if and when its paid attention to and followed through. Furthermore, I am thinking (hoping actually) that if we all had an appropriate amount of empathy then we would be taking the pandemic seriously and to the severity that is required of us, and not wait till it happens to us personally or close to us, (that last part is already in question) 

In the spirit of thinking critically, I suppose that it is not a lack of sympathy per-se, but it is the autonomy of people to be able to choose how to use it. Some may choose to feel sympathy and act on it, and others only choose to act on things that align with their personal morals, values, thoughts, past and current experiences. 

There is a tinge of worry, I have within our society; that our alignment to individuality has answered another question of mine. Sympathy & empathy are human abilities, but the skill is the human’s will to wield it. So if we look at people that way, (not to say that I do, but just a perspective). Sympathy & Empathy are both things we are born with, to some degree, but we choose whether we want to use that ‘muscle’ or not, and that, is terrifying.