More thoughts on empathy

Is it reasonable to empathize for every ailment in the world? To attempt to put yourself in the position of every suffering, psychologically, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, socially, etc.? I came to this question when pondering upon what perfection would require. For surely a person who knows very little about cooking will find it very difficult to prepare an elegant banquet. Likewise will a person unfamiliar with the pressures and norms of a culture be likely frustrated in providing adequate government. As it goes in today's world, there is an immensely great variety of cultures and subcultures scattered throughout every nation. Is it possible or reasonable to attempt to empathize with all of them?

Psychologists might suggest limiting one's exposure to such an extensive array of suffering, reasoning that such imagery or cognitive input has a sort of "flashbulb" effect on an individual, where powerful negative sensations are encoded deeply into memory and may sporadically and irresistibly resurface into conscious thought, resulting in a range of undesirable psychological effects. Yet anthropologists might argue that encoding such imagery or input is precisely what makes the phenomenon of empathy possible. But to what degree is it effective to try to empathize with one other person, let alone multiple people? Consider to what degree it would be possible for another person - take your pick - to know exactly what you're thinking and why. Think about how effective it may be to explain all of your thoughts, conscious and unconscious, to another person so that they would be able to completely understand every mental process that occurs in your mind. Much of our mental activity happens unawares anyway, making this a near impossible task. Our cognitive experience includes the agglomeration of information received during our entire lifetime, a thing which simply cannot be verbally transposed. So empathy can only reach a certain degree. But as we expand the scope to include groups of individuals, there appear commonalities in forms of suffering, meaning that certain types of suffering are felt on more public levels, making it easier to extract and isolate the causal issue and thus facilitate the process of empathy. But even among these types of suffering, some are still deeply rooted within the individual psyche that is simply caused by a widely-shared causal issue or set thereof. For example, most of us can understand why color-segregated facilities are highly discriminating and somewhat dehumanizing, or why unemployment is a lamentable detriment in society, but it can be very difficult to trace the actual roots of gang violence or the enmity exhibited by differing political parties.

When I was in California serving as a missionary, I encountered many people, on the streets, in homes, and some just over the telephone, who would explain to us some of their major problems. Some of the problems were similar, unemployment and education (or regretted lack thereof) being among the most common. But many others were highly personal and uncommon. Several people I met were homeless, or illegal immigrants, but each of them explained complex personal ills, and would usually ask us missionaries to help them. Many would ask us for money. How many of them were lying? I have no idea, since money can be spent to help relieve a number of life's issues. I don't doubt that, lying or not, these people that I met may have had personal concerns that were causing their life to be less than what they were hoping it might otherwise be.

Here I restate my question: Is it reasonable to empathize for every ailment in the world? I was presented with several different undesirable life situations, and with each one I did my best to put myself in the position described by the person and give what help I could. However, when we were no longer in active contact with the person, I usually let the thoughts fade into the back of my mind. When recalled, I would think about the person and their situation, but not reproduce the same level of empathy as much as the actual encounters. The reason is because I had already done so, and there was nothing more to be achieved. I could not help them any more. However I have not forgotten many of the situations presented.

I never saw a gunfight, or anyone get murdered. I did not see someone dying in the streets. The scope of what I experienced was not great compared to a world-wide range. Mostly it was tragic family situations, unfortunate illnesses, unfair treatment, psychological ills, relationship troubles, and other personal issues, which persist in innumerable forms throughout the world - things that involved a deeper understanding of the life of the individual describing his or her issues. How terrible would it be to have nothing to do but wander around, having little education, having no home or money but what you might get from a few hours of labor if it's a luckier day, having no way to get back to your parents or wife and children in Mexico because your plans of coming here for a job have failed, and you have nothing now, except your one pair of clothes. Can I think about that heavily, along with every other case that I've become familiar with, and be able to move forward with my life, to study and think clearly about school, to socialize, to write music, to sleep well, to think about other topics that deserve attention; and above all, to be psychologically stable? Is it just or right that I should put off empathizing with those people to forward my own, relatively extremely fortunate circumstances? Do I have an obligation to empathize as strongly as possible with those people, and by association, everyone else? Must I be acquainted with every problem known to humanity?

Christianity teaches that Someone has already done that. Or rather I should say, ancient semitic texts from two separate continents talk about a Someone who did that. That is perhaps one of the things that is hardest for us to grasp - this ability to have understood everything that everyone has ever gone through or will go through. Critics may say it is just a pleasing thought that draws people to the idea, but it isn't the thought that I go for, it's the evidence. Well, I should say, the thought is a very nice benefit of believing the evidence.

But anyway, I don't have a definitive answer for the questions. I don't think it's possible or reasonable to impress our beings with every sadness or mal occurrence currently felt, but I don't think one should go ignorant about every controversy. I think there is a degree to which it is reasonable and important to empathize with worldly ills, and that our cause should be an honest and productive hope towards solving such issues in what ways we can, including educating those who may have a wrong, hurtful opinion of certain cultures or subcultures.

And now I must study Spanish.

Another string of thought

Attending a session of general conference at the conference center I noticed people around the building, non-patrons holding signs and/or yodeling rants. Because I have the unfortunate tendency to be extremely critical of people who I consider of little intelligence, I have been pondering the extend of the blatant hypocrisy and confusion that is exhibited in these "protesters". To clarify, by "intelligence" I mean use of knowledge, or supposed knowledge. Now of course this is an unfortunate tendency that I do this because in itself it is a form of hypocrisy, in that firstly I myself am obviously not perfect and have faults of intelligence, second I am assuming things that I do not know (since I am not the people who i criticize) and third I am making judgments on those assumptions, which is something I am in no place to do. There is, however, nothing wrong in holding opinions, so long as they are open to consideration of every aspect available and do not become a permanent receptacle of hatred. Anyway I shall continue.

My first exposure to these picketers were the pickets - people silently holding signs. Every one of these people that I saw were of a different Christian religion, or, I should say more accurately, outwardly professed so. These signs had slightly differing messages: scriptures about Christ being the Savior, others about false teachers, ignorant followers... Their intended audience was most likely people going into the conference center. Do they have trouble reading the lettering on the building? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So we're on the same page with Christ being the Savior. False teachers? Considering our teachers get their teachings come from the scriptures, this accusation labels the Bible as false. Ignorant followers? Everyone is different. Some members may have a simple testimony or may still be learning about the church. However, I personally know many very learned, talented, and thoughtful (may I add "intelligent") members of the church, scholarly in thought and with a realistic and thorough testimony of the living Christ. Overgeneralizing picket signs? Oui.

Moving closer to the part of the building where our entrance was, I overheard some people (talking about overgeneralizing, every single person I saw in the objecting party was a man who was either old or old and fat. coincidence? probably) on a megaphone gritando rants, of which I caught "you reject the Bible, you reject the God of the Bible, and in the end God will reject you". These people would do well to study the religious group they're being payed to protest against. The defining clause: We believe the Bible to be the word of God. There aren't too many jumps of logic to be made between that and the fact that we believe in the "God of the Bible", namely, Jesus Christ. It's also in the name of the Church, but as that seems to escape the logic of these people, we'll make do with an equally obvious clue: our basic beliefs, stated in the Articles of Faith.

After the session I came outside and experienced a most alarming dialogue. While passing one of the larger activists holding down a chair, someone passed and said "we love you" in the midst of whatever he was saying. This poor man replied "no you don't, you don't even love yourself." How sad this man does not read and/or understand much of the Bible. 1 John chapter 4 may do this fellow some good, and remind him of the hypocrisy of spewing hateful judgments against people he doesn't know.

"And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."

 Now of course we all make mistakes, and where we try to follow the commandments we slip. This man, however, seemed to have acquired this adamant attitude towards the church previously, and I would venture that dislodging this attitude would be something of a miracle. NOT to say impossible, for miracles do happen, and it's just my opinion anyway.

Here ends my string of thought.

Thought String

I suppose I'll write this in english since I probably don't know the terminology in spanish to complete the thought. There was a recent dialog on facebook that occurred when I posted a link to a news story concerning the well-known conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. the story itself was not political in nature; I posted it because it was a somewhat comical story with some silly comments about bears:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100916/cm_yblog_upshot/rush-limbaugh-falls-for-wikipedia-hoax

After posting this link, there was a comment made:

"the judge's wife doesn't "think you should be able to broadcast something nationally if you can't verify it" so I guess she really had something to say about Dan Rather's 60 Minutes hoax - and that was far more significant than Limbaugh getting his factoids wrong about some judge in Florida"

This was posted by someone I know to be fairly adamantly conservative in political thought. One of the first questions that came to mind was, why did he post that? what was the underlying incentive to give this commentary? the comment is clearly defensive, which means this person was offended in reading the news story, or otherwise spurred to add a "wrong" to the other side of the the justice scale to create balance (or as suggested in the comment, make the injustice of the offending party "far more significant"). Yet there seems another part of the train of thought behind the post. Sure, if you're a fan of Rush's talk show, or a patron of his political ideas, the story might sting a sensitive neuron or two in the "Rush can't possibly be that incompetent" region of the frontal lobe. Placing aside the main reason for which I posted the story, being to share a mildly amusing story involving the idea of bears instilling the fear of God, the most I extracted from it was that the guy was too hasty and, probably fueled by the excitement at posting another hateful jab at the opposing party for his listeners to enjoy, jumped the gun without checking the facts. But of course no one's perfect.

But why would he make a public post diverting whatever perceived offence he gave to himself to a story of someone else in hopes of over-justifying his own unsettledness on the matter? What gain is accomplished? He may have a valid point about this Dan fellow's case, how both sides may not get it right all the time. Frankly I don't know the guy, thus holding him in no disposition. So perhaps I'm asking the wrong question. Let's look at his post from a bit further back. Let's propose a few things. 1. He probably thought I had posted that as a political argument 2. He responded with a similar political argument (a two-wrongs argument, which are unresolvable, inconclusive, and unproductive). It seems a part of human nature that people don't like to be told they're wrong or to acknowledge evil in people in whom they place high regards. Perhaps that's what this person took offence at in the first place. His response shows a gap of association - he responded with the exact same thing that he hated. If he responded negatively to the idea of putting someone down that he might have regards for,  why would he offer the same idea in his counter argument? Mostly people do this to "teach someone a lesson", either consciously or subconsciously: If I respond with an example of someone he probably holds in high regards, he'll know how I felt and then he'll think about that the next time he does that. To revert this thinking back upon one's own self is where the secret lies: Since I didn't like it when I read about a person I respect getting something wrong, maybe he won't like it either, and he might respond unfavorably as I did. A productive argument that is leading to a resolution with favorable dispositions on all sides involves many aspects associated with good teaching. The teacher must inspire the students to think about her teaching, and get them thinking of it on her level, regardless of whether they normally think on such level. Thus, though the parties may initially hold differing ideas, they will be able to clearly glimpse through the opposing eyes, and when all parties have done so with each-other, the resolution may be already running through the minds of everyone present, and the end is usually so much closer to view. Hence a productive argument must inspire a favorable disposition in the opposing parties. That's why blaming others is a frowned-upon policy - it tends to cause others to defend against the accusation and be offended at the accusing party. We can connect the following: offence leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate (being a very powerful emotion) tends to affect the reasoning and empathizing abilities (and also leads to suffering - thanks yoda), which destroys progress.

It would seem that this ability to introvert the reactionary "teach a lesson" mindset takes a certain characteristic, or set of them. I propose that a main factor is empathy. Empathy, part of the "what if I had to face the same problems" mindset, might inspire the "If someone did that bad thing to me, I wouldn't like it" type of thinking. It also allows one to identify certain things that are good and bad about one's behavior by examining different reactions and circumstances separately and asking why they did what they did.

Let me give an example. Why do people who hate communism hate communism? I imagine it's from all the evil that's resulted in corrupted leadership in previous attempts to run a communist state, like China. Why do people (besides corrupt leadership) who like communism like it? it has a very strong appeal - even out the classes. To the majority of people, especially in countries with a very large low-class or mid-low class, this is a very appealing idea because it most likely means (according to the ideology) that your quality of living will increase. Yet it seems that the very idea inspires hatred in many people, making an illusory correlation between the evils they've heard about or experienced and the ideology of having all things equal. There are good and bad things about most forms of government. Hatred inspired by this illusory correlation tends to separate entire political systems into a "good" and "bad" category, leaving some of the good aspects unacknowledged and the bad uncensored. Empathy may inspire one to consider the case of the lower classes and acknowledge their reasoning for preferring such a system of government over their current circumstances. It also encourages, by empathizing with the opposing side, one to consider how people might take advantage of the system. Thus, one may conclude that applying certain principles of an idea and doing away with others is a favorable resolution to a problem, with the intent for the greater good.

Moral? This, in my opinion, is what we should seek for in political discussion. Hatred seems to be the antithesis and the anti-matter of progress towards resolution. The comment made on facebook probably wasn't hateful towards me, but involved a hateful accusation based on a preconceived notion that I was trying to offend him (or rather, the group of people to which he associates with), which preconception usually occurs when one assumes others to be of the same general mindset (in this case of posting such things hoping to offend someone or declare an idea absolute), which is not exactly an empathetic mode of thought.

And now I conclude my thought string.

New Computer

Hurray! I have a new computer and I’ve successfully linked it with my blog, so now I don’t necessarily have to log on to post. I think…

Pues esta semana paso muy rápido, o pareció así a mi. el lunes llegué yo a la casa de mi madre como a la una, fuimos a la tienda para comprar unas cosas, y miramos la película "Avatar" por Dvd, que estaba bien, mas o menos. Aquí no voy a criticarlo, porque no tengo bastante tiempo por ahora. También, el pomo por el baño quebrantó cuando traté a cerrarlo, y si no fuera por las tarjetas en mi cartera, hubiera estado un poco escrewido. El Martes fuimos a recoger una harpa de la maestra de mi madre para la semana. Por la noche tuvimos la cena con unos amigos homosexuales de mi madre. Uno de ellos puede tocar el piano y cantar muy bien, se llama Scott.  No voy a explicar su situación aquí, porque no debo chismear.  Buenas personas todas. Scott tiene un Steinway de 1908 que suena muy bien. El Miércoles fuimos a esta maestra de la harpa de mi madre, Shawna creo, y tocamos las harpas y tuvimos almuerzo. Su esposo edifica la harpa por su trabajo. Muy impresionante. Shawna nos dio un salterio, que me gusta mucho. Después de eso compramos dos películas, Food, Inc. y Blind Side. Miramos Food, Inc. en la noche.  El Jueves miramos Iron Man 2, hicimos mucho trabajo para la césped, y juguemos golf miniatura. El Viernes nos dimos una caminata por la mañana y recogimos unas moras, y después tocamos las harpas. Por la noche miramos Blind Side. El Sábado compramos unas cosas por la mañana, y en la noche fuimos a un café y miramos Shawna tocar y cantar en su ukelele. El Domingo fuimos a la iglesia en la mañana (por su puesto) y después había una fiesta a la casa en que yo conocí unas amigos de mi madre. Tocamos las harpas mas, y miramos una película en la noche, pero no estoy seguro exactamente el titulo de la película. También, hicimos una pizza con hongos, olivas, y chile verde (que no picó por nada) que estaba muy rico. También yo fijé la bicicleta de mi madre durante la semana. Fue una semana muy feliz!

pues, estoy escribiendo sin pensar sobre lo que voy a decir. no tengo idea lo que debo decir aqui.... pues hoy fuimos a un lugar donde venden comida alemania, y todo fue muy rico, menos que comi una cosa chocolate que probablamente tuvo mucha graza y sucre. no estoy seguro si "sucre" es espanol o franceis. arg, no me gusta como esta blog no tiene los cimbolos para escibir las palabras en espanol. despues fuimos a hacer unas cosas a la casa para limpiar y preparar para la manana, como poner tres air conditioners en los cuartos. a las 8 fuimos a un cafe para mirar la maestra de mi madre que ensena la harpa (el harpo? no se). ella toca la yukaleli tambien, y la toco con una persona que toca el bass. pues, esta es todo lo que tengo energia para decir ahora. hasta luego comadres. ay primo!

arg

arg... I am vastly too sleepy to attempt this... I suppose the purpose of this blog is some threefold: one, because I've never blogged before and I'm investigating the cultural phenomenon; two, because typing is easier than writing and perhaps I will be better at keeping a steady journal-esque type object that is blogging, or get closer to figuring out why I really don't like journal keeping and see if my theories are correct; and three, after some thought, to post the ideas that I feel I should write down so I don't forget them. so let's hope that cyber-space information remains accessible and lasts longer than ink and paper so this won't be a waste of effort.

my first blog ever!

well I'm about to go to bed. goodnight, blogland.