Have you ever stolen something from a friend, or a sibling? Maybe you meant to give it back and forgot – maybe you were trying to be funny – or maybe, you were angry, and wanted revenge. Now think about any time you’ve had something stolen from you, or had a friend lie about you. How did you feel? Did it make you feel angry-sad? Did you wonder why someone would act that way without considering your own feelings?
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Without empathy, we would steal from our friends and classmates without caring. Empathy is essential for our personal and collective happiness, however, it is often missing in our social and personal interactions. A lack of empathy may even be encouraged in fields such as business, politics, schools, and sports. Disregarding the feelings of others makes it easier to ignore and defeat them. When we disregard the feelings of others, we risk supporting a society in which people bully their classmates, attack the members of opposing teams, cheat clients out of money, and engage in corrupt, despotic politics. The solution to this dilemma? I believe that empathy should be taught and valued as a skill like any other.
Teaching empathy gives us the ability to imagine someone else’s feelings. When we don’t teach empathy, we areinadvertently learning that someone else’s feelings do not matter as much as our own. Many may argue that empathy is an awareness that develops over time and does not need to be taught. I disagree. We teach other kinds of social interactions: how to hold a conversation, how to listen, how to express anger constructively. We may teach people how to seemempathetic to others, but we rarely teach people how to use active empathy to help others. For example, if you can put yourself into the position of someone who is coming from a different country and is still learning your native language, you will refrain from teasing them and might even reach out to help them adjust.
Adults often end conflicts by telling kids to give each other hugs and apologize. Although this may seem to end a conflict, it does not get to the root of the problem: helping those involved understand why their behavior is wrong. It only teaches people that what they did is bad if they get caught. Rather than apologizing, it would be useful for people in a fight too have to verbalize what they think the other person is feeling and actively listen to the other person. This model can lead to less bullying and intolerance and can benefit those who have a hard time understanding social interactions, because it does not put them on the spot or make them feel like they are “bad.” Instead, it shows everyone why what they are doing is harmful.
Empathy is about our community; about our social interactions, and how we handle them. If you only teach the rules of society, people see them as arbitrary, something you don’t want to get caught breaking. People violate the rules because they don’t have a good enough reason for “why not?” Empathy supplies that reason. By teaching empathy, we can demonstrate that certain interactions with people are wrong because in their positions we would suffer. By caring about others’ joy and suffering, we make them a part of our community.
Today, a lack of empathy is one of the top three leading causes or facilitators of rape. When an individual is able to disassociate from another person it allows for that person to be seen as nothing more than an object, devoid of emotion and feeling. When an individual is unable to empathize with others they become dangerous to the rest of society. Without the ability to recognize the potentiality of being able to cause harm, a person can become violent without recognizing the damage that they cause.
The issue of sexual violence is a pervasive problem today and such crimes are often enabled by a person's inability to empathize with others. If you feel strongly about this issue and feel compelled to contribute to this cause, I encourage you to donate from money and/or share my fundraiser with friends and family to support RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)—the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. Click on the link below to donate to this cause and join the fight: Donate Today to Support Anti-Sexual Violence