Sympathy in 2018


Sympathy in 2018



2018 is an opportune moment to scrutinize and readjust terms of engagement. Do not assume, on the basis of insufficient proof (either anecdotal or empirical) that sympathy is a given ,an innate property,  a psychobiological reflex possessed by all human beings. Think.

Sympathy or compassion is ambiguous. Some portion of it may be encoded in our DNA, and the remainder is probably  a result of how we are socially and culturally educated or conditioned. Centuries of narrative direct us to such a conclusion.  Those same narratives inform us that sympathy is not constant or fixed.  It is variable.  We have the option of not generating sympathy.  In the poetry of imagination, sympathy is most often triggered in times of extreme crisis, tragedy, or catastrophe. Shakespeare's  Portia lied beautifully in saying the quality of mercy is not strained.  In daily life as we know it, the quality is enormously strained.  One second after the reason for sympathy has abated, we retreat into a neutrality that is remote from sympathy.

As a writer, I am tempted to say sympathy is a decision made by a billion cells regarding how to effectively respond to another set of a billion cells.  Cells are clever.  They differentiate weakness from strength, prudence from fool heartiness.  They affirm a well-known Machiavellian hypothesis:  a person who tries to be good all the time amongst so many who are bad is bound to come to ruin.

I suggest that we attempt to answer a tough question.  If, out of Christian sympathy, one habitually pardons those who use power and the arrogance of privilege to torment and/or murder one's people, is one an idiot or a saint?  How we answer that question will tell us who we are in 2018.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            January 1, 2018

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