VIII. At Our Best… ↑
61. We cultivate empathy for one another.
The New Oxford American Dictionary provides the following definition.
empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
We can think of empathy as the ability to see things from another’s perspective, to put ourselves in another’s shoes, and to feel a bit of how things seem from a point of view that is different from our own.
Because empathy describes an internal state, without prescribing any associated behaviours, it can seem a bit frivolous or ethereal (this is probably why, for example, the Humanist Manifesto III makes no use of the term).
But any serious understanding of human nature must accept that empathy leads to many constructive social behaviors and that, without empathy, it is hard to form and sustain any sort of social structure, at any scale.
Words from Others on this Topic
Swing — the dance and the music — bespeaks the flexible nature of American life. In jazz, the bass walks a note on every beat. The drummer rides the cymbal or plays brushes on every beat. And everybody else invents melodies and sounds that sway with, against, and upside every beat. Every beat requires musicians to reassess their relationships to one another. This is what makes swinging so challenging. You are forced to be constantly aware of other people’s feelings.
Wynton Marsalis, 2008, from the book Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life
Relevant Reference Models
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- An element of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- An element of The Trust Triangle
Next: 62. We feel a sense of shared humanity