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Empathy and compassion: Difference between revisions
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{{a|mgmt|{{image|khaleesi|jpg|}} }}To paraphrase Rasmus Hougaard,<ref>''[https://www.forbes.com/sites/rasmushougaard/2020/07/08/four-reasons-why-compassion-is-better-for-humanity-than-empathy/?sh=51543a0bd6f9 Four Reasons Why Compassion Is Better For Humanity Than Empathy]'', Forbes, </ref> to [[empathy|empathise]] is to ''join in'' with someone else’s suffering without necessarily doing anything to ''help''. To be [[compassion]]ate is to ''recognise'' suffering, but step back from it and ask “how can I help?” | {{a|mgmt|{{image|khaleesi|jpg|The irony is lost on people we fear.}}{{image|heroes|jpeg|For the slow on the uptake.}} }}{{c|newsletter draft}}To paraphrase Rasmus Hougaard,<ref>''[https://www.forbes.com/sites/rasmushougaard/2020/07/08/four-reasons-why-compassion-is-better-for-humanity-than-empathy/?sh=51543a0bd6f9 Four Reasons Why Compassion Is Better For Humanity Than Empathy]'', Forbes, </ref> to [[empathy|empathise]] is to ''join in'' with someone else’s suffering without necessarily doing anything to ''help''. To be [[compassion]]ate is to ''recognise'' suffering, but step back from it and ask “how can I help?” | ||
We are not sure that “compassion” is quite as good an organising principle for leadership as “''dis''passion” but, as Hougaard frames it, it certainly works better than “empathy”. | We are not sure that “compassion” is quite as good an organising principle for leadership as “''dis''passion” but, as Hougaard frames it, it certainly works better than “empathy”. | ||
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at least give it a go — and generally be slow, rather than fast to react, considerate of all positions and constituencies rather than impulsive. Unless there is a fight breaking out, best not to act on blind instinct. | at least give it a go — and generally be slow, rather than fast to react, considerate of all positions and constituencies rather than impulsive. Unless there is a fight breaking out, best not to act on blind instinct. | ||
Being ''instinctively'' empathetic is not necessarily “kind”, nor fair, equitable or just. Empathy comes from the monkey brain. It doesn’t take time to | Being ''instinctively'' empathetic is not necessarily “kind”, nor fair, equitable or just. Empathy comes from the monkey brain. It doesn’t take time to consider with ''whom'' one should empathise: it just does it, favouring kin, familiarity, tribe and self-identity. Those people you most instinctively identify with. | ||
Empathetic responses reinforce our own values and existing worldview. | Empathetic responses reinforce our own values and existing worldview. Empathy shoots without asking questions. | ||
===Empathy is divisive. Compassion is unifying.=== | ===Empathy is divisive. Compassion is unifying.=== | ||
To be empathetic is to walk a mile in someone else’s moccasins; to live her [[lived experience]]; to see the world from her [[standpoint]]. It seeks no emotional distance: It ''takes sides''. This is something to value in your own mum | To be empathetic is to walk a mile in someone else’s moccasins; to live her [[lived experience]]; to see the world from her [[standpoint]]. It seeks no emotional distance: It ''takes sides''. This is something to value in your own mum, and the family dog — not in a community leader. | ||
Leaders must be independent, strive to avoid having personal interests influencing their decisions, and should recuse themselves when they do. | Leaders must be independent, strive to avoid having personal interests influencing their decisions, and should recuse themselves when they do. | ||
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They must sometimes to make decisions their subordinates might not like. They must arbitrate, decide and settle disputes between subordinates that at least one of them definitely will not like. They can’t always be “kind”. | They must sometimes to make decisions their subordinates might not like. They must arbitrate, decide and settle disputes between subordinates that at least one of them definitely will not like. They can’t always be “kind”. | ||
In our postmodern, morally relativistic times, the opportunities for leaders to take sides and get away with it — where there is a consensus good guy against an old-school Bond villain — are rare indeed. Jacinda Arden, who branded herself an empathetic leader, had a couple of rare opportunities: it is safe to side against white | In our postmodern, morally relativistic times, the opportunities for leaders to take sides and get away with it — where there is a consensus good guy against an old-school Bond villain — are rare indeed. Jacinda Arden, who branded herself an empathetic leader, had a couple of rare opportunities: it is safe to side against white supremacist terrorist killers and volcanoes. But these are outliers. Most governance decisions are harder than that. The COVID experience taught that: An apparently brilliant solution (and classically empathetic: shut the borders and keep outsiders out) became less brilliant as the pandemic developed. When the situation called for reassessment — for iteration on earlier hasty decisions — Ardern was slow to do this. | ||
===Empathy is inert. Compassion is active.=== | ===Empathy is inert. Compassion is active.=== | ||
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{{Sa}} | {{Sa}} | ||
*{{Br|Against Empathy}}, Paul Bloom, 2016 | |||
* [[Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about]] | * [[Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about]] | ||
{{Ref}} | {{Ref}} | ||