Empathy’s a Phoenix in Disguise

There is today an overabundance of greed, a glut of selfishness, a terror of connection. Other people must be dangerous, you see it on the news every day. Kidnappings, murder, rape, muggings, bombings, faceless crimes with faceless causes. Best to glare at everyone you meet, snap at the faceless girl at the cash register, speed past the faceless hitchhiker on the highway. Other people are dangerous. Don't get involved, just keep to yourself, and it'll all go away.

In Science Magazine, on July 7, 2011, an article was published. It showed that, given the choice between freeing a cage-mate and eating a piece of chocolate, the rats would choose to free their friend. The scientists commented that the experiment "provid[ed] strong evidence for biological roots of empathically motivated helping behavior," or support of the theory that humanity was not created irredeemable. That perhaps our default, instead of being selfish, is one of selflessness. That kindness is carved into our bones, and cruelty is the aberration.

There is nothing so dangerous as a human being. We are the only species capable of killing thousands, even millions of our own kind. We are destroying not only our own habitat but the biosphere of the entire world. Every day we turn aside from one atrocity or another, too tired, too numb, too far away to care. Expose after expose on horror after horror, until the never-ending parade bores us and we go looking for something even more shocking, more terrible. And, individually, our lack of power astounds us every day. We give up before we've started, because on our own there is little to nothing we can do to change the awful place our world is becoming.

But... the rat helps his friend out of the cage. They share a piece of chocolate. They have changed their world. Not every day can be earth-shattering. You help the person in front of you pay for groceries. You 'pay it forward' at pizza shops, at coffee drive-throughs. You anonymously reward a neighbor for helping that lady carry her things, even though you didn't need to. Even though other people are dangerous.

Kindness provokes kindness, just as violence provokes violence. Perhaps we cannot bring clean water to China by donating some spare filters to the soup kitchen. Perhaps we will not clean up the Pacific Garbage Patch by picking up that empty chip bag on the side of the road. But collectively, those things DO make a difference. They make a difference to that street, and that soup kitchen. They make a difference to the person in line for coffee behind you, and they make a difference to the person behind them.

Humanity has not survived plagues, hurricanes, typhoons and earthquakes, and the most deadly creature on the planet - ourselves - by being afraid. We survive by being kind. Empathy, not cruelty, is what drives our instincts, what allows us to thrive. Sometimes this compassion comes in spite of our surroundings, not because of them, and it is all the braver for that. Even in the most horrendous, despicable places we have created, there is a phoenix burning. And her name is empathy.