Commentary Series
7:55 a.m. and 5:55 p.m. Weekdays on VPR
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Sunday April 15, 2007, 6:18 PM
Empathy
Human beings are funny: we're complicated and contradictory, noble in wisdom, infinite in faculties, and yet foolish and fickle, obtuse and self-deluding. That fascinatingly paradoxical nature and our blessed capacity to learn empathy is what we have in common.
Empathy is feeling with someone else and not merely feeling for someone else; that is: sharing another's feelings.
Empathy is hard not only because it draws us away from our precious selves, but also because, in fact, we don't all think and feel alike. We value different things- wealth, power, freedom, order, God, self.
Emotional, sometimes irrational, we don't even always act in our own best interest, even when we know what it is! And so it's hard to walk in another person's shoes.
Mere knowledge of our shared humanity - that if you prick us, we all bleed
- takes us only so far. But empathy, even if it's partial or imperfect, is
common ground that has the power to turn knowledge into understanding. Indeed
the
process of striving to empathize can itself be redemptive for both self and
others.
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