If Empathy Can Be Taught, It Should Be

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.
~Hannah Arendt

Close your eyes.

I imagine myself saying those words to my college writing students. After giving them an assignment and reminding them of the importance of planning and pre-writing in the composition process, I envision myself inviting them to sit back, close their eyes, quiet their minds, and contemplate their readers.

One of the things I loved most about my twenty-five years as an English professor was that at the end of each semester, I could assess what elements of my teaching had worked well and what had not worked at all. I could then plan to repeat what had worked and try new methods in the upcoming semester. I don’t know if I achieved the “continuous improvement” that academic institutions strive for. But I tried.

Now, I am no longer teaching. But I carry with me memories of students piling into the classroom with their backpacks, cell phones, athletic jerseys, and dreams for their futures. Some appeared exhausted from trying to manage classes, team practices, jobs, and a social life. Some seemed bored by the thought of an English class, while others appeared energized and excited to be among their teammates and friends. I hold bittersweet memories of the texts we read, the concepts we studied, the tests and assignments I wrote, and the delight I felt at doing something I loved to do.

But now, when I look back on my career as an educator, I realize that I made a mistake in the way I led students to approach their writing.

‘Who is your audience?’

For years, I stood before college freshmen in writing courses and told them to consider their audience. For whom is your message appropriate? To whom are you writing? What do you want your audience to think, feel, or do after reading what you wrote?

Sometimes a precocious student blurted out the unmasked truth. “I’m writing for you, Professor. You’re the one giving me a grade.”

I laughed. “Not a bad strategy,” I told them. “That’s the reality.”

So then, I asked them to pretend. Pretend they wanted to write something that would matter beyond the classroom. That they wanted to reach people with a message they believed was important. People they didn’t know and might never meet, but that they hoped to reach with the pure, well-intentioned, laser-focused energy of their thoughts. Pretend they wanted to influence the world. That they wanted to change people’s minds about an important issue.

I told them all that. Because isn’t that every English professor’s dream? That her students will write beautifully-crafted messages that matter to people? I told them to consider their audience as they prepared to write.

But I realize now that I taught writing — argumentative writing in particular — as a kind of warfare. I told students to consider their audience, but my directive implied that their readers were foes to be conquered. Know who they are and what they’re thinking so that you can strafe them with facts and statistics, lull them into trusting you by giving a measure of ground to what they believe to be true, then, when they trust you, overwhelm and defeat them with your viewpoint.

I taught that writers should be wily in their approach to readers. Grab your readers’ attention with your first sentence. Insert memorable images or smart phrasing that will hook them so that they read on. See your readers as adversaries, and take them captive, my teaching implied.

I didn’t urge my students to imagine their readers as full-fledged human beings with needs, interests, and desires. I didn’t ask them to view their writing as a way to serve or benefit their readers, or as a way to build a relationship with them.

Simply put, I failed to encourage them to cultivate their empathy.

Reading fosters empathy, but what about writing?

The value of reading literature as a means of developing empathy has long been recognized. In their 2006 study, researchers Raymond Mar and Keith Oatley determined that “individuals who often read fiction appear to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them, and view the world from their perspective.”

Science writer Annie Murphy Paul warns, though, that not all reading develops empathy in readers. Superficial reading of social media and other online venues, the kind that requires decoding of words rather than close reading and analysis, does not facilitate the reader’s development of a deep understanding of and empathy for others. Paul writes,

The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy.

BBC correspondent Claudia Hammond concurs, noting that when we read fiction, “we imagine what it’s like to be [fictional characters] and compare their reactions to situations with how we responded in the past, or imagine we might in the future.” Doing so makes us more sensitive to the feelings and emotions of real people in our lives.

Reading makes us better human beings. We know that. But what about writing? Can we teach writing in a way that fosters empathy in writers?

And a broader question: can empathy be taught?

Research indicates that it can. While empathy may be an instinctive attribute at the core of what makes us human, we can be led to build upon our ability to understand and connect with the feelings of others. Psychologist F. Diane Barth suggests that we can increase our natural empathy through efforts to know and understand others. She writes,

True empathy involves using our feelings to understand the feelings of someone else. We might not know exactly how they feel, but we might use our feelings to help us know something of what they are feeling.

I believe that student writers in particular can anticipate and respond to the feelings of their readers. And they can do it by reaching into themselves, imagining the people to whom they are writing, and finding the human commonalities between themselves and their perceived audience.

What if, instead of asking my students to view their readers as opponents to be defeated using the tactics of classical argument, I had asked them to delve deeply into imagining what their readers might need from them as writers?

What if I had said, Close your eyes?

Close your eyes and look inward. Gaze deeply into yourself. There, inside yourself, you will find your readers. Instead of looking outward to see them there in their separate worlds, look inward. Move past the common ground you may hold with them, and find the deeper commonality. As you look inward, what about your readers is there, within you?

And what do your readers need from you? What can you share in your writing that will reach, touch, and benefit them?

What if I had suggested to students that a meditative turn inward would help them to discover, understand, and relate to their potential readers?

Is empathy a strength or a weakness?

Recently, the concept of empathy has come under fire. Some of the most powerful people in our world condemn it. Elon Musk has declared it “the weakness that threatens the stability of Western civilization.” In a surprisingly successful exercise in illogic, Donald Trump has convinced his conservative Christian followers that empathy undermines their values. American Christians should put themselves first, he tells them, and resist regarding the needs of non-Americans, near and far.

In his essay Trump, Musk, and the War on Empathy, theologian George Demacopoulos reminds us that empathy is one of the defining characteristics of Christianity, and that it led to the creation of the first hospitals, orphanages, and facilities for the elderly, and that it has inspired Christians to support the abolition of slavery, the defense of civil rights, and recognition of gender equality. “Rather than being a mark of weakness, Christians have understood empathy to be a sign of strength,” Demacopoulos maintains.

Twentieth-century philosopher Hannah Arendt warned that the decline of empathy leads to the collapse of culture. Twenty-first-century businessman Elon Musk declares that empathy threatens civilization. As we observe the current state of our world, we can judge for ourselves which of these thinkers is correct.

We should teach empathy.

The current war on empathy in the public arena has led me to think about my missed opportunities as a professor. If I were teaching today, I don’t think I’d teach argumentative writing at all. Isn’t there enough conflict and contention? Isn’t the world already weighed down by division?

I would still invite my students to consider their audience, but I wouldn’t prompt them to think of their readers as people with views that must be dismantled, as adversaries who must be argued into submission. I would instead encourage them to imagine their readers as human beings like them, people with interests and needs in common with them. I would ask them to find the merger between themselves and their readers by searching within themselves.

Then I would send my students out into the world . . . . I almost wrote “armed with empathy.” The concept of warfare is a metaphor so pervasive in our culture that it is difficult to avoid.

I would send my students out into the world, let me say, strengthened by empathy, to offer human connection as an alternative to the current tide of self-interest and isolation.

If we can nourish empathy through conscious effort, if we can cultivate it through practice, shouldn’t we?

If empathy can be taught, it should be. The survival of civilization may depend on it.

Cover Image: Ste Lorena on Unsplash

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