Where is your empathy?

A bunch of people at my former workplace were let go. One teacher with 14 years teaching at the same school survived the cuts. Another with 12 years experience was let go. The one who kept her job said she was wracked with "survivor guilt".

After wildfires destroyed much of Slave Lake ten years ago, a friend who had lost her home was visiting her sister who had not. As my friend walked up to the house, her sister leaped up from her gardening and dropped her trowel behind her. "What are you doing?" my friend asked. 

"Nothing," said the sister. 

"You are gardening," the friend said. "Why are you trying to pretend you are not?"

"I am just so guilty that I still have a garden and you don't. I don't want to rub it in. I don't want you to feel bad."

Survivor guilt is the term we use when we survive a tragedy and others don't. You lived but others died. You weren't hurt but others were. Your house didn't burn down, but others did. You kept your job and others lost theirs. It can be almost overwhelming. You want to be happy for yourself but at the same time you feel sad for others. But is guilt really the right word?  Don't you feel guilt when you do something wrong- when you are responsible for the bad thing that happened to someone else? Maybe, but it's not guilt when it's not your fault. My colleague was not responsible for her friend losing her job. The gardening woman was not to blame for her sister's loss.  But 'survivors' feel terrible for those who aren't as lucky as they are. They know it could just as easily have been them. In their minds, they have already experienced the loss of job, income, health, possessions, home or whatever, if only in their imagination.  Because they have been so close to the loss themselves, they know the feelings others are experiencing. Their elation at surviving the tragedy while others suffer feels like guilt.

But it's not really guilt they are feeling. They are feeling empathy. Empathy doesn't mean feeling sad for others. That is sympathy. Empathy is something else. Empathy is the ability to understand - to really know- people's feelings even if you are not experiencing them yourself.  Empathy requires compassion and imagination. And in our culture, empathy is often thought of as weakness. Guilt however, is not.

Years ago, I took a bible study course with some ladies from church on spiritual gifts such as faith, prophecy, teaching, healing and so on. My friend Susan and I were both said to have the gift of empathy. "Great," said Susan in her classically cryptic fashion. "Why do I always get the crappy ones?"

Why is empathy considered a "crappy" gift?  Critics of empathy see it as weakness. They believe empathetic people "won't make the hard choices". Empathetic people are "easily taken advantage of". However, that is often patently false. Empathetic people may understand the impact of their decision but that doesn't mean they don't know it has to be made. 

And empathy is hard to monetize. You can't sell empathy. You can't get rich by empathizing with others. Nursing, Child care, teaching and social work -often considered "woman's work" -require empathy to do well. Perhaps empathy is considered a feminine quality and thus has been traditionally undervalued.  

But where would we be without empathy? Our world would be a hard place indeed without people or governments that are able to put themselves in someone else's shoes and by so doing, go on to demonstrate compassion. Because empathy isn't just a feeling. It's also action driven by those emotions. Action that can include short term help for the suffering but also a more far reaching quest for justice. Not only in times of tragedy but also when things are going well. Rather than being a weakness, isn't empathy is a strength?  You have to be strong to repeatedly endure powerful emotions and come up with ways to help.

Empathy keeps you awake at night. Empathy hurts. It hurts to feel other people's' pain. It hurts not to be able to take it away. As one friend said, it can also be paralyzing. Sometimes it feels like more of a curse than a blessing.

So when I hear these "tough guys" refusing to wear masks or stay home or take simple measures to protect others during the pandemic, I don't see strength. I see people who refuse to draw upon their own life experiences to remind them of what suffering is. I see people too cowardly to try to think about what it is like to watch a loved one suffer.  I see people too afraid to admit to the reality of a disease that could easily strike them down. And instead of facing their fears, they deny deny deny, pretending "covid isn't real" or "the economy takes precedence over public health" or "you can't take away my rights..." That's not strength. That's selfishness. That's weakness.

Lack of empathy is confusing. I don't know how it is that some people don't have empathy. Was it how they were raised? Weren't they taught to try to understand what it would be like to be someone else? How is it possible not to care about other people? 

Whatever the reason, I'm sick of it. I've had enough of the covid deniers and anti-maskers.  I don't understand where they are coming from, as much as I try. I have no experience to draw upon to help me empathize with their lack of compassion. 

Image from @BLCKSMTHdesign on Twitter