Here’s a slightly faulty parallelism: most disasters are either personal or meaningless. The point is made by W. H. Auden in “Musée des Beaux Arts,” a poem with its second stanza focused on Pieter Brueghel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, in which Auden says of the moment of Icarus’ plunge to his death, “how everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster….” For a nearby ploughman in the painting who might have heard the cry of a falling Icarus, the event was “not an important failure….”*
The implication, of course, is that what isn’t personal lacks meaning, and it is also a suggestion that our subjective sense overrides our objective assessment by affecting our attitude about our world, ourselves, and others. So many Icaruses fall that it’s difficult for any of us to maintain an empathetic attitude. We can be worn out by tragedies large and small that we know occur daily. And with regard to Icarus, well, didn’t he disobey his father and ignore commonsense in flying too near the sun? With all the innocents that suffer through no fault of their own and that seem to deserve our empathy, why should we be concerned about a foolish kid who took an unnecessary risk? He chose to fly high, and, as we all know, what goes up…. But the gravity of our own circumstances weighs us down, so how can we spend our emotions on the personal tragedies of many others, especially on the foolish and brash who cause their own falls?
Should we be concerned, for example, about people who suffer from the flu? Or people with mumps? You know, everyone is supposed to be vaccinated. According to the CDC, 6,584 mostly college-age Americans had the mumps in 2006, the highest number of infections in about two decades. Bet they all felt “up” right before they felt “down.” But they didn’t cause their illness. Seems that if it’s not one thing, then it’s the need to improve the MMR vaccine (mumps, measles, rubella) before an outbreak occurs similar to that of 2006, that of Austria also in 2006, that of Britain in 2004, and also that of Canada in 2008. Is the disease a small inconvenience that many people have experienced? Pretty much, unless you consider those who suffered the associated brain inflammation, swelling of the pancreas, deafness, and occasional male sterility mumps can initiate. Who among us was aware of the 2006 outbreak? Personal or meaningless? And a recent story makes the point.
Are you aware of the March 7, 2018, story about thousands of cheerleaders being exposed to mumps at the National Cheerleaders’ Association All-Star Championship in Dallas?* Not concerned? Aren’t most of us most of the time like the ploughman in Brueghel’s painting, largely unaware of the fall of Icarus, going about our daily business? But these high-flying girls did nothing brash, nothing foolish. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as all those victims of car bombs, suicide bombs, and stray bullets have also been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Regardless of our level of empathy, we can’t take on the world’s tragedies personally. We might acknowledge that they occur, but we don’t entangle ourselves emotionally in the never-ending problems of our contemporaries. And if we throw all the past tragedies into the mix, we recognize how necessary personal experience is to engendering empathy.
As you listen to, see, or read news stories about the plight of others, do a little emotion check. Are you like Brueghel’s ploughman? If you answer affirmatively, you are not necessarily a self-centered character. You can increase your empathy by personalizing the fall of another, giving their suffering, however large or small, meaning.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus
**http://www.foxnews.com/health/2018/03/07/thousands-cheerleaders-possibly-exposed-to-mumps-after-texas-competition-health-officials-say.amp.html
The implication, of course, is that what isn’t personal lacks meaning, and it is also a suggestion that our subjective sense overrides our objective assessment by affecting our attitude about our world, ourselves, and others. So many Icaruses fall that it’s difficult for any of us to maintain an empathetic attitude. We can be worn out by tragedies large and small that we know occur daily. And with regard to Icarus, well, didn’t he disobey his father and ignore commonsense in flying too near the sun? With all the innocents that suffer through no fault of their own and that seem to deserve our empathy, why should we be concerned about a foolish kid who took an unnecessary risk? He chose to fly high, and, as we all know, what goes up…. But the gravity of our own circumstances weighs us down, so how can we spend our emotions on the personal tragedies of many others, especially on the foolish and brash who cause their own falls?
Should we be concerned, for example, about people who suffer from the flu? Or people with mumps? You know, everyone is supposed to be vaccinated. According to the CDC, 6,584 mostly college-age Americans had the mumps in 2006, the highest number of infections in about two decades. Bet they all felt “up” right before they felt “down.” But they didn’t cause their illness. Seems that if it’s not one thing, then it’s the need to improve the MMR vaccine (mumps, measles, rubella) before an outbreak occurs similar to that of 2006, that of Austria also in 2006, that of Britain in 2004, and also that of Canada in 2008. Is the disease a small inconvenience that many people have experienced? Pretty much, unless you consider those who suffered the associated brain inflammation, swelling of the pancreas, deafness, and occasional male sterility mumps can initiate. Who among us was aware of the 2006 outbreak? Personal or meaningless? And a recent story makes the point.
Are you aware of the March 7, 2018, story about thousands of cheerleaders being exposed to mumps at the National Cheerleaders’ Association All-Star Championship in Dallas?* Not concerned? Aren’t most of us most of the time like the ploughman in Brueghel’s painting, largely unaware of the fall of Icarus, going about our daily business? But these high-flying girls did nothing brash, nothing foolish. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as all those victims of car bombs, suicide bombs, and stray bullets have also been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Regardless of our level of empathy, we can’t take on the world’s tragedies personally. We might acknowledge that they occur, but we don’t entangle ourselves emotionally in the never-ending problems of our contemporaries. And if we throw all the past tragedies into the mix, we recognize how necessary personal experience is to engendering empathy.
As you listen to, see, or read news stories about the plight of others, do a little emotion check. Are you like Brueghel’s ploughman? If you answer affirmatively, you are not necessarily a self-centered character. You can increase your empathy by personalizing the fall of another, giving their suffering, however large or small, meaning.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus
**http://www.foxnews.com/health/2018/03/07/thousands-cheerleaders-possibly-exposed-to-mumps-after-texas-competition-health-officials-say.amp.html
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