Business of LifeBringing you new ideas and new advances in caring for our health and wealth are part of what the Business of Life™ blog is all about. We don't often get to announce the discovery of a new emotion and when we hear about one, we race to tell you as we did about elevation and how other people's good deeds can make you a better person.
So imagine our surprise when we learned that the term "empathy" was first used only a century ago. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines empathy as "The ability to imagine oneself in another's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfühlung and modelled on "sympathy."
The feeling of empathy is not new, so what did they call it before? "Pity" implies sorrow that inclines one to help according to dictionary.com. while "compassion" denotes a deep awareness of the suffering and a wish to relieve it and "sympathy" denotes the capacity for sharing in the sorrows or troubles of another.
I think the term empathy came into being after Sigmund Freud developed his theory of the human mind with his conception of the unconscious. He was really the first to focus on how we think, what we feel and what we repress. Attention shifted from the external world to the internal one, from actions to thoughts and feelings.
Empathy was a necessary coinage to describe thoughts and feelings that may never be expressed in the external world but which exist solely in the mind.
Before that there was only the Golden Rule about which Harry Gensler , a Jesuit, writes a short essay with links
The golden rule is endorsed by all the great world religions; Jesus, Hillel, and Confucius used it to summarize their ethical teachings. And for many centuries the idea has been influential among people of very diverse cultures. These facts suggest that the golden rule may be an important moral truth.
The Golden Rule incorporates the imagination and understanding necessary for empathy but goes beyond it to include action. You never hear people talk or write about the Golden Rule anymore. Maybe it sounds too treacly or old-fashioned. Instead, everyone talks about "empathy", even when what they describe is empathy and action which is the Golden Rule.
Five Lessons in Empathy: The from Brian Alger at the Experience Designer Network who writes about the way we treat people.
1. Cleaning Lady
2. Pickup in the Rain
3. Always Remember Those Who Serve
4. The Obstacle in Our Path
5. Giving When It Counts
Here's Pickup in the Rain:One night, at 11.30 p.m., an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab.
She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console colour TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached.. It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others."
Sincerely,
Mrs. Nat King Cole