More than stepping into another’s shoes
Reimagining empathy
By Laura Cook, a Global People’s Fellow 2018 for the Global People’s Summit
Sympathy is a dangerous thing. Sympathy, rather than acknowledging our shared humanity, gives power to the gaps that exist between us. Sympathy places us on a pedestal and asks us to pity those who do not have our privilege. Sympathy does not ask us to question our privilege.
Sympathy is the infamous line in Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ that prompts us to, “Tonight thank God it’s them, instead of you [us].” Sympathy widens the gulf between us, it diminishes our shared responsibility to each other.
We don’t need sympathy — we need empathy
Many have argued the antidote to sympathy is its cousin empathy. They suggest that to make inroads into reducing poverty and tackling injustice.
Empathy can be seen as a catalyst for social change. In a speech given at Xavier University in New Orleans in 2006, before he became President of the United States, Barack Obama said, “When you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others… It becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.”
Obama was right.
Empathy asks us to ‘step into another’s shoes’ and to see the world through their eyes. When we empathize with others we are more likely to act.
In 2016, a photo of a small three-year-old boy named Aylan Kurdi lying face down on a beach in Turkey woke up the world to the Syrian refugee crisis. This image stirred such empathy that charity appeals for Syrian refugees that had previously lain dormant for months exploded.
People identified with the suffering and loss of Aylan’s parents. My own friends said, “I could imagine this as my child” and gave to NGO appeals.
Empathy itself is a precarious thing
Empathy is narrow — it provides a connection to particular individuals, but is insensitive to mass suffering. It is also subjective.
When asked why the reaction to the image of Aylan Kurdi was so strong one researcher, Paul Slovic, co-author of a study on empathic response, said, “We don’t quite see his face, you see the side of his face, so you can project onto him the face of someone you know.” He also acknowledged that the way Aylan was dressed might have also helped certain people identify, and therefore empathize, with his suffering.
Empathy can be insensitive to statistical data
One of the reasons professionals tell stories through the lives of particular individuals is that we know empathy is built with individual connection and identification, and not with large numbers. Yet, numbers matter too.
Numbers are especially important when we consider the scale of the challenges facing humanity and our planet. If we can only empathize with the individual we diminish the suffering of the many.
Pity can clearly be an unhelpful emotional response, it creates judgment and a ‘Saviour/Victim’ complex. Yet, empathy can also be problematic when we can only extend our concern to the one pair of shoes we are prepared to walk in.
We need to listen to each other
One of the biggest challenges facing us today as a world is our inability to listen to each other.
We often talk of ‘giving people a voice,’ but people already have voices. They don’t need a voice- they just need to be heard. They need to be listened to. Empathy is saying we are open to understanding each other and open to listening. To truly reimagine our world, maybe we need to reimagine empathy too.
Walking in another’s shoes can change your perspective on the world, but to be willing to acknowledge that alongside your footprints fall the feet of millions of others can change the world.
5 ways to start reimagining empathy
- Avoid pity
Avoid buying into clichés. After years of being bombarded with images of starving children and squalid slum conditions, it is no surprise that the whole continent of Africa has been stereotyped by some as a hopeless case.
We need to challenge the images we see and the stories we hear. Are these stories trying to elicit empathy or pity? Are we accepting the stories we are told as honest depictions of reality, or are we being sold the image of the ubiquitous ‘poor person’ to encourage us to act sympathetically and give money? Do we fail to see our shared humanity and shared responsibility for the global structures that keep people poor?
Radi-Aid is an annual campaign by the Norwegian Students & Academics’ International Assistance Fund designed to challenge perceptions around issues of poverty and development and to break down these kinds of dominating stereotypes.
Challenge yourself to ask questions about the media you consume.
2) Do not fail to see the big picture
We must be careful that in our effort to draw attention to unseen crises, and in our efforts to amplify unheard voices, that we do not at the same time undermine the legitimacy of suffering or the scale of challenges facing our world.
Individual stories help us connect to people and causes. But large data, grounded in good research rather than one-off examples, often provides us with the practical solutions we need to address problems.
We need to be wary of using one person’s personal story to summarise the experience of whole groups of people. There is not a ‘refugee story’. Every person who has been displaced has a different story to tell, a history of their own. When we start to use empathy to generalize, we run the risk of creating our own stereotypes.
3) Own your own story
Empathy is often first established when we can say, “me too.” One of the first steps to recognizing ourselves not only as local or national people but as global people is to own our own story and to take time to understand ourselves.
What are our prejudices? What helps us feel connected and a part of a community? What scares us about others? Empathy requires an openness to learn.
4) Be kind
Kindness is underrated.
Kindness is a practical expression of empathy. It can be a small act, such as opening a door for someone, but it can also encompass the large-scale acts of generosity that give hope in the world.
Kindness does not just happen though — it is a practice to adopt, it takes thought and conscious action. Empathy on its own is meaningless. Empathy with action attached is transformative.
5) Don’t just put on the stranger’s shoes, be willing to walk a mile in them
It is easy to slip empathy on and off like a pair of comfortable slippers. However, if we truly want to connect with the experience of other human beings, it will likely require a degree of sacrifice.
Sometimes when we give something up in order to learn from someone else, or to see from a new perspective, we gain much more than we lose.
On the 22 September the Global People’s Summit convenes and thousands from around the world will gather online to share, learn and listen. Thousands of individuals will be raising their hands and expressing their shared humanity by saying “me too.” Actor, Sterling K Brown said, “Empathy begins with understanding life from another person’s perspective.” This summit offers a unique way to connect and engage with the world, disrupt the status quo and build a better tomorrow through shared stories and a reimagined sense of what it means to be human. Join us.
