Empathy

I have been trying to elicit a response from my students for the last few days: What is empathy? It's a concept the younger generation can't articulate beyond saying "empathy happens when you feel for another person."

In a thoughtful article ("Generation Me on Trial"), written in the wake of the suicide of Rutgers Freshman Tyler Clementi and the subsequent trial of Dharun Ravi, psychologist Jean Twenge sees empathy as an ability to put oneself in another's shoes.

Such self-transcendence, argues Twenge, is an impossible task for the current generation to achieve. "Generation Me" suffers from a severe "empathy deficit" primarily because it knows no culture outside that of consumerism, individualism, Facebook and Reality TV. 

I myself struggle to define empathy, though I believe I have experienced it now and then. Its premise is not fountains of innate kindness, but a kind of daily action based on an investment in a particular kind of equality. 

I found an example of empathic action in a recent tribute paid to Goonj, a not-for-profit organization based in India. Goonj donates clothes to the poor and the afflicted.

Empathic action is embedded in the structures and organizational principles of Goonj:

With its empathic approach to alleviation of poverty, Goonj’s stands out work in an age when business-friendly poverty approaches are attracting the lion’s share of attention. 

In being empathic, Goonj is by default nonmarket and nonmonetary in its attitude toward those who benefit from its sartorial donations.

To be conducting actions of kindness outside the perimeter of money and market creates an entrepreneurial culture where 

Those who give and those who receive are equal. From the people who give the clothes, to those who sort and pack them, to the people who receive them, the whole chain is full of respectful links. 

I understand empathy to be assistance that is given in a way that doesn't degrade the receiver of assistance.

Empathy is thus grounded on a consummate respect for the other.

It's in this context of giving and doing that I visualize the notion of empathy most vividly: You give not what you have and can spare, but what the receiver needs. Goonj often finds itself burdened with clothes donated by city dwellers that don't fit into the sartorial needs of the villager where a bulk of the receiving community is located. So, it repurposes or transforms such clothing to make them suitable for use.

It's easy to understand why my students can't talk beyond a meagre stuttering of cliched words like "feeling" and "kindness" when asked to discuss empathy.

It's no wonder...