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The Call for a Reign of Terror

Pity, Sympathy, Compassion & Empathy | Empathic Perspectives

I hear a consistent demand for empathy and caring. 

"Whatever men expect they soon come to think they have a right to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on our part, be turned into a sense of injury." - C.S. Lewis

My Drill Sergeant was screaming in my ear, "When I say get down, you get down! You don't pass go! You do not collect $200! You grab your ass and you get down and stay down until I call all clear! Nod that giant cranium of yours so that I am sure you hear me!"

Nodding as I stood there, his breath hot in my ear, round brown tapping my temples and my heart pounding, I had a deep sense of regret and responsibility wash over me. 

That particular day, hot and humid like all the others, soldiers were receiving training on the hand grenade range. The safety briefing was understandably intense, instructions concise, clear. My instructors rapid fired scenarios at us to test our reaction times.

They left out empathy. No sympathy. Nothing but raw and intense concern for the safety of everyone involved.

I can think of a few situations since then where empathy is of no concern to me;

  1. My child runs into the street - there isn't time to calmly explain the dangers of oncoming traffic.
  2. A friend is swinging a flaming marshmallow around the campfire - yelling ensues. 
  3. People are burning and looting our American cities - nightly.
After the yelling, I may take pity on my child or my friend. 

However...

"Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice, leads through anger to cruelty. Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy's atrocities; and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror." - C.S. Lewis

My Drill Sergeants absent pity, loved us, themselves, and their responsibilities.  Enough to correct us on the spot, absence all semblance of empathy. They did not care how I felt. They cared that I lived. They were willing to sacrifice empathy on the altar of correction for the sake of keeping me safe.

My life is replete with examples of me facing, suffering, accepting and rejecting the consequences of my decisions. Sometimes I received empathy. Other times, I faced these things alone and empathy came a lot later.

Imagine a world where Drill put his arm around me and gently whispered to me how he was concerned with how I felt, told me he understood my fears, and asked for permission to speak to me about safety. Maybe he had a list of my triggers. Maybe he called my Mom first. Perhaps he attended sensitivity training and confessed his sins of being a Drill Sergeant. Perhaps he took pity on me, and lovingly scolded me for slowly exiting the hand grenade bay, endangering my entire platoon.

Insane and foolish.

Do we love one another enough to know when to show empathy? I wonder.

Onward!

Dr. J

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