Sympathy vs. Empathy

Sympathy and empathy are often thought to be the same emotion but they are incredibly different. Sympathy is feeling for someone else's loss whereas empathy is the ability to understand and share someone else's emotions. Empathy helps us connect to people where sympathy cannot. In Zizek's lecture, he talks about the idea of donating to less fortunate or buying something that is advertised to help someone. "You don't just buy a coffee in the consumer act. You buy your redemption from only being a consumer... you fulfill a series of ethical duties" (Zizek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce) . This charity isn't a bad thing but it make people think they did their part and they are done. It's putting a bandage over a bullet wound. It is out of sight and you did something but the problem is still there. Charity comes out of sympathy instead of empathy. If people helped out of empathy they would have to experience what these other people are going through. They would have to go grow coffee beans grown under awful conditions. After they understand what these people go through they can help fix it. Krznaric's lecture on The Power of Outrospection explains how he believes this idea would help us connect with out fellow humans. "We need, for example, empathy museums. A place which is not about dusty exhibits... but an experiential and conversational public space. Where you walk in and in the first room there is a human library where you can borrow people for conversation" (Krznaric, The Power of Outrospection). These empathy museums would allow us to understand each other and connect on a different level. Someone who sees the world one way might hear a story from someone they have nothing in common with and it changes their whole perspective.

Everyone is able to experience empathy at some level. Rifkin studied babies and came up with the conclusion that we all have to experience empathy. "We are actually soft wired to actually experience an other's plights as if we are experiencing it ourselves" (Rifkin, The Empathic Civilzation). People are programed from birth to feel empathy. It is how people communicate before developing a common language. Non-verbal cues and facial expressions can carry whole conversations and convey complex emotions. Others are able to understand this through empathy. They are able to perceive the emotion, understand, and even feel it through empathy. This connects everyone even when people are constantly being separated into different categories. "We still educate children by batches; we put them through the system by age group... Why is there this assumption that the most important thing kids have in common is how old they are" (Robinson,Changing Education Paradigms). Age is not the only thing these kids have in common. The opposite could be true as well. Maybe age is the only thing these kids have in common. The point is that it doesn't matter how people are grouped. Everyone can share connections.