There seems to have been a big increase lately in the number of people using the word empathy. For decades, I only really heard about sympathy in conversation. Even The Rolling Stones had “Sympathy for the Devil.”
We’re now being told that we should have empathy instead, and there seem to be numerous training courses cropping up, especially in companies, teaching people how to achieve that. However, I strongly believe that you can’t learn to have empathy. You can’t teach children in schools or employees in companies how to empathise with somebody, and I’d like to explain why.
Having empathy with somebody means being able to understand what they’re feeling because you’ve personally experienced what they’re feeling yourself. You can’t just look at somebody, imagine what they must be going through, and then claim that you’re empathetic to their situation. You can have sympathy for them, you can imagine that what they’re going through must be bad, but, unless you’ve been in that exact same situation yourself, you can’t have empathy.
Think of it like this:
If a woman sees a man get hit in the testicles, the most she can do is have sympathy for him, as she has no way of knowing what that actually feels like.
If a man sees another man get hit in the testicles, there are two possibilities: If the man observing has never been hit in the testicles before then, like the woman, the most he can do is have sympathy for the hurt man. However, if the man observing has also been hit in the testicles at some point in his life, he can empathise with the hurt man, because he knows from experience how bad that pain can be.
That’s why empathy can’t be taught. You can teach children in school to be sympathetic to the situation of others. You can teach them to try to imagine what that person must be feeling, and teach them to show compassion and understanding, but you can’t teach them to be empathetic if they’ve never been in that situation themselves.
You can’t empathise with people living in a warzone unless you’ve gone to bed every night with the fear of bombs dropping on you in your sleep.
You can’t empathise with somebody suffering racial discrimination at work unless you yourself have suffered racial discrimination at work.
You can have sympathy for the people in those situations. You can try your best to think about what it must be like for them, but you can never truly understand what it feels like for them.
Even if you do share experience of that particular situation with them, you still can’t necessarily understand how they actually feel about it inside.
Imagine if I fell off a boat into the sea and was bobbing about in the middle of nowhere for an hour before finally being rescued. Somebody might say to me, “I empathise with you Jason, because I also once fell off a boat into the sea and bobbed around in the middle of nowhere for an hour before being rescued.”
Would they truly be able to empathise with my situation though? Would they truly know what it felt like for me personally to be in that situation?
Well, perhaps they know how to swim, whereas, believe it or not, I don’t know how to swim. The fact that I don’t know how to swim causes great panic for me if I can’t touch the bottom of the sea or a swimming pool. That panic gets worse if my head suddenly becomes submerged, even momentarily, and I end up with water in my eyes, nose, ears, or, horror of horrors, mouth. So, unless that person shares all those attributes with me, they can never truly empathise with my situation.
Does a person living in a warzone feel fear, or do they feel anger? Perhaps they feel a mixture of both. How can you empathise with them if you don’t know what they’re feeling? You’re doing them a disservice if you try to project your own feelings upon them. You’re taking away their individuality and their personality by making assumptions about them.
There’s nothing wrong with having sympathy for somebody. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I can’t possibly imagine what you’re through, but I imagine it can’t be nice for you.”
To say that you empathise with somebody when you’ve never been in their situation is basically diminishing their feelings. You’re taking what is likely a traumatic event for them and treating it like some everyday occurrence that everybody goes through:
“I empathise with somebody suffering racial abuse at work, because my boss once shouted at me, and it wasn’t nice.”
What you’ve done there is shifted the focus away from them as a victim of a traumatic event, and shifted it to yourself as the victim of a seemingly similar traumatic event. At least if you have sympathy for them instead, you’re keeping the focus on them and their situation, rather than trying to shift some of the focus on yourself.
I’m not saying that empathising with somebody is a bad thing, but you shouldn’t try to downgrade somebody else’s trauma, just so that you can empathise with them:
“That person’s been shot. That must hurt. I was once stung by a bee. That hurt too, so I empathise with them about being shot.”
No, you don’t!
Even if the physical pain was on the same level, the mental anguish is nowhere near the same.
Unless you have an allergy, the chances of dying from a bee sting are practically zero. However, if this is your first time being shot, you might very well be terrified of dying. Therefore, you can never empathise with somebody who’s been shot unless you’ve personally experienced that exact same physical pain and mental anxiety. You can have sympathy for them, but you can’t empathise with them, no matter how hard you try. You just don’t have the personal points of reference in your life experience.
If somebody tells me that they missed out on playing in an important championship football match because they broke their ankle a week before, there’s no way that I can empathise with them. Firstly, I’ve never broken a bone, so I can’t relate to the physical trauma. Secondly, I’m not excited by playing sports, so I can’t relate to the emotional trauma of missing a big game.
I can, by all means, have sympathy for them, as I appreciate that it must be a painful situation for them, but I can’t possibly empathise with them, no matter how many training courses I attend that try to “teach” me to be more empathetic.
Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with empathy?
So, why do so many people seem to talk about having empathy nowadays, rather than having sympathy?
Well, firstly, I think that many people don’t understand the difference. They’ve heard empathy used so much now that they just think it means feeling sorry for somebody and trying to understand what they’re going through. It doesn’t. What I’ve just described there is sympathy.
Secondly, there are those that use the word empathy, perhaps unconsciously, in an arrogant way. They’re trying to show that they care more about people than you do. They don’t just look in from the outside and feel sorry for somebody, they truly get inside their soul and feel what they’re feeling.
If somebody is living in a warzone, they know exactly how they feel.
If somebody is being racially abused, they know exactly how they feel.
If somebody suffered any traumatic life event, they know exactly how they feel.
They’ve never experienced any of those things themself, but they’re such a great human being that they know exactly how they feel.
Again, however hard they try, if they’ve never experienced those events themselves, all they can have is sympathy, not empathy. However, empathy is a more powerful buzzword to throw around when you’re trying to show what a great person you are.
People don’t like saying that they have sympathy for somebody anymore, because sympathy indicates detachment from that person’s plight. You’re on the outside looking in at them. Well, in many situations, that’s the truth. We often are outsiders looking in at somebody else’s plight. Therefore, we shouldn’t use the word empathy to try to shift the spotlight to ourselves as some sort of victim too. It’s disrespectful to the person who’s actually suffering.
The Rolling Stones could have sympathy for The Devil, but they couldn’t empathise with The Devil, because they’ve never been devils themselves, despite what some parents in the 1960s may have thought about them.
So, don’t feel bad about only being able to have sympathy for somebody. Consider yourself lucky that you’ve never had to go through what they’re going through, and put the focus on their plight rather than putting the focus on how much you care.
