Last week I was reading an article from www.fermiproject.com written by Shane Hipps and it helped give me a better understanding of the age we live in and a condition called “empathy at a distance.” In it Shane says,
the electronic age is marked by empathy at a distance. This is a condition that emerges when our TVs and computer screens flood our living rooms with images of planetary suffering: from September 11 to the Tsunami to Darfur to all the other ongoing famine, genocide, wars, and starvation in the world. While this allows us the opportunity to extend compassion to these far-off places, it actually has the opposite affect. There is an immediate outpouring of support followed by a detached, clinical numbness. The end result is apathy and inaction. This is not our fault; it’s not because we are bad people. The human psyche isn’t designed to withstand all the weight and trauma of global suffering without shutting down.
Numbness and exhaustion are natural reactions. This experience of horror and empathy, followed by shutting down and feelings of helplessness, is the condition of empathy at a distance. And it didn’t exist prior to the electronic age. The reason this matters is that the spiritual habit of empathy at a distance also finds its way into our local communities. It becomes increasingly difficult to muster local activism and genuine concern for others when global suffering has already cauterized the nerves of compassion.
Without being physically present in these places we can so easily lack true empathy for the injustices that are happening halfway around the world. Even still, we are often left numb to the very real needs of people much closer–people in our very city or on our street. The reality is that it isn’t until we walk “across the tracks” or spend time with someone who is homeless or someone who is being oppressed in a way that we will never fully understand, do our hearts regain a spirit of true empathy. This is why we do what we do at GC.
May we, today, take a step toward empathy. May our hearts feel the warmth and suffer the pain of feeling someone else’s hurt as it breaks free from a feeling of helplessness caused by empathy at a distance.
