Empathy by Ryan S.

Empathy is a strange thing, because of how it comes out. If your kid gets cut, you try to sooth him and help him, because you know what it's like, but if you are a soldier, and you shoot an enemy soldier, you might not feel empathy for him. Why is it that shooting hundreds of people from another country because your government wants oil, or money, or even something as broad and ridiculous as world power, why is that perfectly fine, but something as simple as taking a loaf of bread because your family is starving, is considered a sin that has to punished. I find it horrifying that people are forced to go to war, and kill human beings, and people just sit back and pretend as if it's a game, like Risk, and they're just sending their pieces from the U.S. to somewhere like Iraq. It's so horrible that people don't consider the civilians that will die if they do these things. The fact that this happens every day is sad, because people in the midst of it, that are civilians, and have nothing to do with the wars besides the fact that it happens to be in their country, those people can't do anything about it.

 ~ Ryan age 13 ~ July 20, 2010

Postscript:  My youngest son, Ryan, wrote this and allowed me to use it in my honors thesis later that year. He has allowed me to use it again now for this blog.  He's decided to add on some of his current thoughts:

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In looking back at what I wrote that I felt that I should expand on it seeing as it is short and not as inclusive as a piece about something like empathy should be. I left out a very important subject, one which goes on at a smaller scale, and in the very places we live. Something a person can maybe relate to more if they aren't in a war-ridden country such as Afghanistan or Iraq. The issue of poverty.

Some years back my brother, my mom and I read a book called The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy. In this book Lisa Dodson talks about single mothers in lower-class conditions trying to raise their children in the best ways possible. She talks about how this often means having to work multiple jobs and not being able to spend much time with their children; at the same time their own conditions of health are deteriorating because of simple problems like sleep-deprivation. I read this book and really empathize with these people. And not a simple 'wow that's terrible' empathizing. I really feel like I want to do my fullest to help these people and I feel (tho I have been raised in somewhat better conditions) that I can relate to certain elements of this. I hear these people's personal stories and I know how they feel about their conditions, and I hear about how they are forced into situations in which they hardly are able to spend time with even their own children; I hear these stories on a personal level, and I really feel like these people are expressing their feeling to me. That is when I empathize with these people most.

In her book, Lisa Dodson tells about a mother who has two children, neither of which are even teenagers at the time, and how the mother has been forced into an economic situation where she close to never sees her kids. She leaves them at various friends' and relatives' houses during the majority of the week. But then there are a few days a month in which she has nowhere for them to go, and so they have to stall and find reasons to stay at their school for an extended amount of time until she can pick them up. This amounts to around 2 hours where they have to sit by themselves outside of their school and wait for her. I don't just feel sorry for her and her children, I imagine what that must be like, I get a very vivid picture of the experience because this person's story is told so personally, and the emotion is somewhat captured in her story, and then I empathize on a deep, intellectual, and emotional level with these people. And I wish because of this empathy that I can do the absolute most in my power to help these people. Sadly, in my current situation and age, I can do very close to nothing to help people in these situations.

In another part of the book, she talks about a restaurant manager who, seemingly, deeply empathizes with several single moms working under her employment; and to help she takes the risk of losing her job by letting these mothers bring their kids into work so they can sit and study or read and have somewhere to be while their parents are working. Why is it though, that such a simple (and in a way noble) act is even considered risky? Why is a good action like this something she can be punished for? Why does our system almost seem to want these poor, single mothers and their children to stay in such horrible conditions?

Why are the ones chosen for the position of being able to stop such injustices people who don't seem to empathize as deeply with these families? I do not think that at heart these are all bad people, but that they have been conditioned by a capitalist system, one that idolizes the ownership of something as meaningless as paper money, or even virtual money - not even a real object, but an abstract concept - it is because of this system and because the position they are put in gives them more of this "abstract concept," that they do not empathize. They choose to block off those thoughts, because they like what they have. And even if they feel a bit guilty, they still own these things, and like them; so they numb their own senses to these feelings of empathy so they can keep these objects. Nonetheless, just because I understand their motives - and I suppose in a way I empathize with them - that does not mean that they're morally correct motives.

Veering a bit away from Lisa Dodson's book: I recently started reading the semi-biography, Jay-Z Decoded. Now, if somebody were to just hear the name, (and of course if they know who Jay-Z is - which I have faith a large number of people reading this do - ) they might think that this book wouldn't have much value on this subject. The very fact that it is about a currently rich and famous rapper may encourage somebody who is somewhat unknowing on the subject to think that it wouldn't be intellectually important. But in the beginning of this book he talks about his upbringing in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn. He talks about how a large number of people in his neighborhood turned to drug dealing. But not for the money, not at first. The original reason for it is to help support their families.

I empathize with him and people he knew on this subject, because although once again I have been brought up in somewhat better conditions, I know the feeling of watching my family struggle with economic problems. I myself am trying to decide whether to try for getting PSEO at a community college this year or applying for a job to both help myself start what I hope to be a successful career in music, and to try to help pay for basic requirements of living so my family can keep our house and live a little easier.