Importance of empathy

Photo credit: David Peat

One of the most important characteristics of a true gentleman is that he has empathy.

Empathy is described as the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing; in other words, having the capacity to place oneself in another's position. I truly believe the world would be a better place if each of us would try to understand and help others instead of judging them. As Alisa Post once said, ”Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”  And a gentleman, especially, should have a strong sense of manners that requires empathy. The sad thing is that, according to Rebecca Saxe (professor of cognitive neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT), studies of university students indicate that the empathy level of people has decreased by 30% over the past three decades.

What is empathy, really? Basically it is an awareness and understanding of others. This is what creates a good community. We are all aware that technology has not really brought society together (as technology companies would have us believe). Social media is able to make everybody connect with almost anybody, but this type of connection only broadens one’s number of contacts.

Deep connection between people does not often happen on a social media platform because it is not required; messages are usually brief and surface. So, actually, we are connected to a lot of people, but we don’t really know many. We only know what we see, which is a curated reality monitored by the posting person. We end up with a lot of meaningless connections, but not really many that are deep and true. It is hard work to make true friendships and family relationships. It takes courage and fortitude to invest time and emotional energy and personal honesty in a relationship. Today it is so easy to connect with many people on a surface level that we feel less need to invest in truly trying to understand each other. Relationships become superficial, and we choose quantity instead of quality. Being able to understand another enough to empathize with them is lost.

Interestingly enough, our own biology can give us an idea how important empathy is for each human being:

1. There is a special part of the brain, the Right Temporo-Parietal Junction (or RTPJ), that has only one purpose or function, which is to allow us to think about another’s feelings. The RTPJ is not used to solve or deal with any other logical problem.

2. There are special neurons in our brain (empathy neurons) that connect us to other people, allowing us to feel what others feel. And since these neurons respond to our imagination, we can experience emotional feedback from them as if it came from someone else. This system is what allows us to self-reflect. It is known in psychology that the most successful, well-rounded and well-formed personalities score well above average in being self-aware. They also score high in the category of empathy. Thus, those people who have the best personal traits are both “self” and “other" aware. They know themselves well, correctly judging their own strengths and weaknesses. And they can respond to other people with empathy. They can put themselves into another person’s place. 

The good news for all of us, according to Dr.Saxe, is that empathy can grow stronger in any person through practice, just like in any other endeavor. I believe a gentleman should consider that human skills such as empathy are as important as any other type of knowledge, and more so nowadays as the world starts to rely more and more on computers and machines. The key to successfully overcoming the impersonalization of a mechanized societyis to become more human — to connect with one another and to learn from each other. That will make the real difference for all of us and for our future generations. 

So let’s start with empathy.