Today was a very windy day in northeastern states. As I drove past the Monongahela River, I saw a river boat diagonal to the flow, its lead coal barge rammed against the riverbank. Wind has that kind of power, as we all know. It caught the empty coal barges on their way for filling, and regardless of the power of the riverboat’s engines, the strong wind overcame the pilot’s ability to steer in the center of the river. Instead of being blown into a nearby bridge, the pilot wisely chose to ram the barges into the bank, keeping them in place by a constant drive of his propellers. When the winds die down, he’ll be able to back off the bank and resume his journey.
It wasn’t the power of the wind, the hazard of giant barges being rammed into a bridge, or the pilot’s clever resolution of his problem that struck me, however. It was that I briefly saw what was happening on the river, but continued on with my day. Driving by, I made a mental note that I would mention the strength of the wind, the river tug and the barges, and the solution of the pilot in my next conversation. I did not attempt to rescue the riverboat people and their barges. Not that I had the ability to do so. No, doing something about the situation was, in reality, beyond my ability.
But as I drove off, I thought of ants. Yes, ants. I thought of how we step on ants either purposely or accidentally and go on with our day. I also thought of the other ants that missed being squashed by a human shoe. They, like me, go on with their daily lives regardless of the events around them. “Hey, where’s Charlie?” isn’t something an ant will say to bewildered other ants that question the absence of their comrade. They have an anthill to tend.
So, we have empathy. But in a world of seven billion humans, we seem to have a limit on empathizing. We hear about an earthquake and the suffering it causes, and we, like ants make only a brief pause in our lives. Sure, we are empathetic, but what can we do? There are seven billion of us. Can we empathize with all other humans, millions of who suffer tragedies daily? We would never do anything else. Empathizing would consume us.
There is an empathy limit. We already know that we can become desensitized to the plight of others by various means, including, unfortunately, being exposed to virtual tragedies in film, in books, and in video games. Too much exposure deadens us. Too many tragic incidents wear us down. We all seem to have some kind of empathy limit; otherwise, we would succumb to the sorrows of the world both near and far. A distant earthquake will register briefly on our brains’ right supramarginal gyrus and then something draws away our attention.
I’m not looking to change the way we are. We’ve evolved to this level of empathy over 200 to 300 millennia. I’m just making an observation about my own response to seeing a river tug boat in the midst of a problem and on my reading about or seeing from a distance the numerous “incidents” that plague our species daily. We aren’t insensitive if we do not respond sympathetically to every disaster or problem. With the number of problems humans face, empathizing with everyone would mean we could do nothing else.
Now here’s the test for your Empathy Limit. Mark (this is a self-test) when your right supramarginal gyrus goes numb.
Do I continue? Had enough? Reached your empathy limit? You realize, of course, that I could make a seemingly endless list like this.
Think of yourself as one walking by a squashed ant? Think of yourself as another ant that escaped squishing, some lucky ant that continues its business for the hill?
How empathetic are you? I know, I didn’t provide a quantitative system for judging, so, no number is necessary. But in reading day after day of tragedy after tragedy, everyone becomes a bit numb to it all, saving empathy for loved ones and acquaintances, showing it in visits to the funeral home to express condolences, and, on occasion, expressing empathy for strangers caught by happenstance in some life-ending moment. You could apply the Hogan Empathy Scale or the Empathy Quotient scale developed at the University of Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre, but that’s unnecessary here. You have a sense of how empathetic you are. If you’re honest, you’ll recognize your own Empathy Limit. Strange, isn’t it? We can cry over some fictional tragedy in a movie but might not cry for those six children who died in that earthquake on Mt. Kinabalu.
It wasn’t the power of the wind, the hazard of giant barges being rammed into a bridge, or the pilot’s clever resolution of his problem that struck me, however. It was that I briefly saw what was happening on the river, but continued on with my day. Driving by, I made a mental note that I would mention the strength of the wind, the river tug and the barges, and the solution of the pilot in my next conversation. I did not attempt to rescue the riverboat people and their barges. Not that I had the ability to do so. No, doing something about the situation was, in reality, beyond my ability.
But as I drove off, I thought of ants. Yes, ants. I thought of how we step on ants either purposely or accidentally and go on with our day. I also thought of the other ants that missed being squashed by a human shoe. They, like me, go on with their daily lives regardless of the events around them. “Hey, where’s Charlie?” isn’t something an ant will say to bewildered other ants that question the absence of their comrade. They have an anthill to tend.
So, we have empathy. But in a world of seven billion humans, we seem to have a limit on empathizing. We hear about an earthquake and the suffering it causes, and we, like ants make only a brief pause in our lives. Sure, we are empathetic, but what can we do? There are seven billion of us. Can we empathize with all other humans, millions of who suffer tragedies daily? We would never do anything else. Empathizing would consume us.
There is an empathy limit. We already know that we can become desensitized to the plight of others by various means, including, unfortunately, being exposed to virtual tragedies in film, in books, and in video games. Too much exposure deadens us. Too many tragic incidents wear us down. We all seem to have some kind of empathy limit; otherwise, we would succumb to the sorrows of the world both near and far. A distant earthquake will register briefly on our brains’ right supramarginal gyrus and then something draws away our attention.
I’m not looking to change the way we are. We’ve evolved to this level of empathy over 200 to 300 millennia. I’m just making an observation about my own response to seeing a river tug boat in the midst of a problem and on my reading about or seeing from a distance the numerous “incidents” that plague our species daily. We aren’t insensitive if we do not respond sympathetically to every disaster or problem. With the number of problems humans face, empathizing with everyone would mean we could do nothing else.
Now here’s the test for your Empathy Limit. Mark (this is a self-test) when your right supramarginal gyrus goes numb.
- June, 2015: Six children and their teacher and guide were among the dead when an earthquake shook Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia. The kids were on a field trip.
- December, 2018: At least 429 people died and another 1,459 were injured when Anak Krakatau erupted, causing a landslide that, in turn, caused a tsunami. In September another earthquake near Sulawesi killed more than 2,100.
- May, 2017. Eight people died and another 200 were injured when a speeding Amtrak train derailed. In January, 2019, six people died in a train accident on the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark.
- February 14, 2019. A car bomb killed at least 33 Indian soldiers in Kashmir. A month earlier at least 20 people died when a car bomb exploded in Bogata.
- January, 2019. The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported that 410 people died from the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- June, 2018: Three siblings were killed when an out-of-control car hit a family as they walked on a sidewalk in Southern California.
Do I continue? Had enough? Reached your empathy limit? You realize, of course, that I could make a seemingly endless list like this.
Think of yourself as one walking by a squashed ant? Think of yourself as another ant that escaped squishing, some lucky ant that continues its business for the hill?
How empathetic are you? I know, I didn’t provide a quantitative system for judging, so, no number is necessary. But in reading day after day of tragedy after tragedy, everyone becomes a bit numb to it all, saving empathy for loved ones and acquaintances, showing it in visits to the funeral home to express condolences, and, on occasion, expressing empathy for strangers caught by happenstance in some life-ending moment. You could apply the Hogan Empathy Scale or the Empathy Quotient scale developed at the University of Cambridge’s Autism Research Centre, but that’s unnecessary here. You have a sense of how empathetic you are. If you’re honest, you’ll recognize your own Empathy Limit. Strange, isn’t it? We can cry over some fictional tragedy in a movie but might not cry for those six children who died in that earthquake on Mt. Kinabalu.
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