Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Empathy in Human Nature
One thing that sets makes humans unique compared to all other creatures is empathy. Empathy is the ability to sympathize with someone, or feel their pain. John Lehrer explores this fascinating emotion and what humans do with it. However, he first explores a human without any empathy with infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was convicted of 33 murders of teenage boys. When Gacy was analyzed by a psychologist it was discovered that he had no empathy and things that would normally cause emotional distress in one person had little to no effect on him. Thus bringing in the question of if he knew the difference between right, and wrong. Whenever Gacy committed murder he felt no remorse, unlike a normal person who would feel a lot of remorse. These types of psychopathic tendacies connect to the nature of morality which is sometimes hard to define within your own moral code, but simply it is a crucial set of decesion making. The importance of morality is taking other people into account, and how your decesions will affect them, "selfishness needs to be balanced by some selflessness."(Lehrer 175). This is where empathy, and morality both come into play to make good decesions that will affect other people you must have empathy to understand their posistion, and to make the best decesion. This concept relates to my service learning a lot because to truly make a difference with these students you must be empathetic and understanding as to not judge them to quickly. Instead of seeing these students as behaviorally challenged teens it is important to see where there coming from, as to understand the personal battles that they go through everyday.
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ReplyDeleteIn reading "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer, I was overly drawn to his writing about John Wayne Gacy. I thought long and hard about this man's action and his none remorseful emotions toward killing these young boys. This malicious act had to warrant more than just a superficial sexual desire, but elude a deeper issue one of which might prove that he himself had been hurt in one way or another or possibly by someone else. It has been said time and time again that "hurt people, hurt other people". Gratification of hurtful acts or intentions towards another person is strange and usual behavior, and there is a thin line between sane and insane, but where do we draw the logic in this? John Lehrer put things into great perspective when he said, “Hurting someone else is just another way of getting what he wants, a perfectly reasonable way to satisfy desires. The absence of emotion makes the most basic moral concepts incomprehensible."(172) As we walk along the street, people on our jobs, our neighbors, the postman, family, our co-workers, who are they? There are many people that we entertain but really don't know. We all have desires, but how far will we go to scratch an itch? The act to commit murder is one of the highest ranked no, no's, and why, because once that person is gone you can never bring them back. People that feel no emotions and is not easily moved by another person pain or suffering has to be emotional suppressed and/or a strong candidate for psychoanalysis. Everything goes back to having morals and values about you; I think that this can be particular situation can be seen in my service learning. We have to have emotion towards assisting others that are suffering, not only physically, but are emotionally distraught. To not be emotionally attached to anything is very dangerous and it allows my mind to wonder, how can I help people that are in need of shelter and food, if I don’t feel any remorse for their situation?
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