Making the Shift From Empathy to Action

“The capacity to understand, be aware of, be sensitive to, and vicariously experience the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”

That’s Merriam-Webster on empathy. Society revolves around interactions that have the potential to build and bolster this notion, and to nourish our ability to identify with and understand other people’s experiences. But of late, with increasing political polarization and various forms of extremism, we seem to be running on an empathy deficit.

Why do people appear to be tapping out when it comes to the emotional lift of others? Three reasons come to mind.

First, the number of efforts, campaigns, and causes has become overwhelming. The feeling game has reached a saturation point of petitions—to save the bears, to save the whales, to save the trees, to save the kids not getting a good education, to save the kids not getting enough to eat—and it’s all become too much, at least for some. (Or think of it as akin to a bunch of flyers on the dashboard of your car.)

Second, personal identity-related stressors seem to have eaten away people’s mental and emotional capacity to engage in the struggles of others. If, for instance, you’re part of the LGBTQ community and struggling to secure even the most fundamental rights, your plate may be full. Or if it’s difficult to get your mother back to the United States because of the travel ban (which de facto targets people from Muslim-majority countries), that itself may be an all-consuming mission.

And third, in this particular moment, the intensity of both headlines and the political climate has moved the figurative emotional dial to traumatic. In fact, the rate of those seeking therapy for this reason has risen in the last few years. As such, empathy itself is a form of bravery. Not to endeavor to tune every last bit of it out is indeed a worthy step.

Recognizing that giving a damn can be hard, New America CA strives to take action. For the last year—and going forward—that’s entailed a bias toward action and solutions. You’ll read about some of these solutions in this special issue of stories featuring our fellows’ work. Our team thinks deeply about how we show up, and we ask others to consider what will be different because of their involvement with a particular issue. New knowledge and connections ought to fuel our work and impact, so in turn we ask what participants at our various gatherings will do differently afterward, both as part of their organizations and within their communities. In that same vein, if social change isn’t your day job, here are five reasons to shift from empathy to action.

Standing up for others is standing up for yourself. Empathy should drive us to act compassionately toward others because it’s an honorable and humane way to coexist. It’s advantageous in a karmic kind of way. When your time of vulnerability or danger comes, you’ll want someone not just to hear you, but also to stand with you. As Martin Niemöller put it in his famous poem, if trouble comes, you’ll want to live in a community with people who believe in the importance of acting on your behalf.

This is your therapy. Action can serve as an outlet in a way that merely emoting might not. You can place intense and visceral concerns aside for a period when you know that there are other times when you do act. And when not advocating, marching, voting, confronting, or organizing, there exists a freedom, an emotional break from the weight of ongoing concern.

These issues aren’t purely theoretical. I’ve never been a fan of discussions that seem to be just for discussion’s sake—intellectual catnip. I find that I hunger for the so what, the plan for what will be different—what will be done individually and collectively to influence the real-life issues at stake. Life isn’t a graduate school class, so delve into the action.

Take small bites. Homelessness. Some might think, Where do I even start? In California especially, it’s a complex and at times overwhelming issue, and these sorts of social-justice issues can lead many to something akin to paralysis. But we should resist inaction. It’s crucial to wrestle with these issues in small, manageable bites. Maybe your particular lens is the juncture of climate change and homelessness. While seemingly small, this task is important, and it is part of a broader effort to rein in a particular issue.

Grow your heart. I’m inspired by a Jewish idea that notes action as paramount. Similarly, if you do the right thing repeatedly, even if your heart isn’t initially in it, you’ll eventually practice yourself into empathy—into an understanding of your service’s significance for humanity. There’s also something to be said for building the muscle of both action and empathy. Put another way, it’s key to grow both your heart for the plight of others and your practice of standing up for them.

Our New America CA fellows mirror this action orientation. Read on for great examples of how they’re making it happen—lifting voices and changing both policy and lives.

But as you read, don’t stop at merely finding their innovation interesting or moving. Move beyond, and consider where you, too, might fit into that work.