This essay was first published on the original Empathy Symbol website many years ago. It still applies. Remember the old song, “What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love?” Remember John Lennon’s song calling us to “Give Peace a Chance?” They were right: the world needs love and the world needs peace. But we […]
I have been thinking lately about how empathy goes hand-in-hand with respect. You can’t really say you have empathy for someone, or for a group of someones, if you don’t give them the respect of taking what they say about themselves and their experiences and their preferences as true, because it is their truth. People […]
Has the pandemic increased or decreased empathy in our lives and our world? As usual, the answer seems to be, both. At the local level, within our own neighborhoods and communities, we are seeing outpourings of compassion for those we know and live with. Empathy is strengthened by connections, so when we see on our […]
I recently saw the movie, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Also, I have been living through the last weeks of life for my 92-year-old father, who has terminal cancer. These things turn out to be connected. It hit me that I have grown up with Mr. Rogers, essentially. My dad is strikingly similar to […]
The empathy symbol stands for people reaching out to each other and opening up to feel what the other is feeling, and to understand the experiences of the other. But the “other” can be either of two things–part of a group, or an individual. So we talk about people of different races, or different religions, […]
We hear a lot these days about how tribalism is increasing–us vs them, reds vs blues, etc. Along with this, we hear calls from governmental leaders, including the president of the United States, to embrace nationalism. In fact, President Trump takes a general attitude that it’s the U.S. vs the rest of the world, and […]
A friend shared on Facebook a beautiful story of empathy from one oppressed people for another. The BBC told about how Choctaw people in the southern U.S., in 1847, heard about the Irish people starving in the potato famine. They sent them $170, which would be worth tens of thousands today. As the story related, […]
A recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune tells about a brilliant idea that promotes understanding between cultures. And not only that, it’s easy and cheap. Rather than sending teenagers abroad to live with a host family and learn about that culture, it sends them across town for a week. The program is called City Stay. […]
It is very heartening to see the outpouring of support for immigrants, after Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from several Muslim countries. We have also seen, recently, people from other cultures and countries being denigrated, such as Mexicans, Indians, and Jews. The Southern Poverty Law Center indicates that there has been a huge growth in hate […]
I was an empathetic child. I believe almost all children are inherently empathetic, because human beings are tribal, social animals who need to be able to relate to the other members of their group. Some people may have a condition that precludes empathy (apparently, autism may make empathy difficult, for example.) Some people have empathy […]