Winners, Losers and Sphere of Empathy...

Sometimes it is the most obvious of things that escape being set into words.  But, sometimes even the most painfully obvious of things will trip, miss a turn, and you'll actually see what you've been looking at for literally years.  One of the things I've been overlooking tripped this weekend, I got a good look at it.  It's part of the human condition at such a low level, such a foundation factor in so many things I'll share it here, perhaps it will help someone else open an understanding of something they're looking at but having trouble seeing.

The title of this post is really kind of backwards, because the last term in the title needs a definition before this thought will make much sense, and that's the idea of the sphere of empathy.  The sphere of empathy, as I've come to call it, is a conceptual measurement from the realms of geometry applied to the emotional, a way to visualize and to a degree quantify and plot the emotional interactions between the various peoples of earth which might be summarized as "humanitarian."

Let me begin by asserting to you that "Humanitarian" is not really a mode of thought, not thought as a fully rational function, but is in point of fact a word describing an individual's spectrum of emotional response to the observed state of life of those who live within that individual's sphere of empathy.  Considered in this manner everyone is a humanitarian, everyone, where they differ is in the scope, the range within which they apply that word.  The most barbarian of them all, the most greedy, self serving, vile and vicious individual on the planet is still a humanitarian, and his definition of humanity, his sphere of empathy, consists of one individual… himself.  The rest of the world is outside his sphere of empathy.

Ok, bottom line then is sphere of empathy is just a bucket phrase for something everyone sees all the time, everyday, any direction you care to look.  It is just a convenient label for the line that separates those who genuinely do care and the others who genuinely don't give a damn as applies to any two individuals in any given situation.  They are within your sphere of empathy, or they aren't. 

That's the symbol I've been using, but not what I (finally) figured out.  As a philosopher it's my job to ask why things happen the way they do.  Why this?  Why that?  Why the third thing?  Why do some folks seem to have a huge sphere of empathy while others have almost none?  What's the real world bottom line driving cause reason for the differences seen?

I was in conversation, well, correspondence, on the subject of spheres of empathy with my online buddy Pip a couple of years ago when the first piece of this particular puzzle presented itself.  Why I didn't ask myself the logical follow up question then I don't know, not a clue why the rest of it took so long to pop up into sight.  Anyhow, that's water under the bridge now.  In that conversation I made the observation that empathy is not an easy thing to maintain, it isn't.  In point of fact empathy can, and usually does, generate a fair amount of discomfort (a discomfort akin to survivors guilt) if not full on pain and conflict within a life.  I mean seriously, if you have empathy with someone you have to deal with more than just your own share of hits and hard knocks, you have to deal with theirs as well proportionate to their emotional distance.  I noted then it seemed most folks already lived with as large a sphere of empathy as their emo-pain tolerance would allow.

The logical follow up question is of course what sets that limiting factor?  What is it divides those who are strong enough to tolerate a large sphere of empathy from those who really can't?  And that's the question that coming back off the far rail (think billiard bank shots) sparked the thought I should have seen way back when that I'm sharing now.

Winners, and losers.  Another major bucket phrase primal definition people put on each other, and themselves.  Those with confidence, and those without.  Those with a plan and the self discipline to execute that plan, and those drifting with no clue as to a destination.  The beautiful loser, and the ugly winner.  Please understand, I’m not talking social or financial position, I’m talking about the secret self of those who are satisfied with themselves and their life and those who are not.  I’m damn sure not promoting the obsolete, nay, obscene idea that wealth equates to happiness.

By the majority of the stereotypes concerning winners and losers you’d think the winners would be those more likely to be host and home to a large sphere of empathy, and yet observation tends to contradict that thought.  Why?  Why is it such a common thing to hear the winners being berated for being heartless, why is it so common to observe the losers demonstrating empathy based support for each other?  Looking strictly at the physical you’d think the winners (who generally do have surplus resources) would find empathy less of a burden.  You’d think the losers (who are so often scratching for simple survival) would shy away from empathy, they really have nothing to offer. But such is generally not the case.  I suspect most folks would charge this off to simple prudence, or simple greed, but I really don't find those tendencies an adequate explanation for what I’ve observed.  I’ve come to think the full explanation for any given individual’s sphere of empathy involves their tolerance for emotional discomfort, an evolved function within a life.

Let’s face it, losers are riddled with emotional discomfort. It really doesn’t matter if their discomforts are internal, the manifestation of whatever mental structure has them losers in the first place, or if their discomfort is from some external source or environment, losers survive a hostile emotional environment.  The basic nature of "loser" entails enough emotional discomfort that developing a set of tactics  (be they psychologically sound or quite counterproductive approaching insane) for dealing with such discomfort is a necessity of survival.  Winners on the other hand do not long endure emotional discomfort, it is integral to the definition to challenge and change whatever has become a discomfort in their lives.  They develop the resources to shape their environment,  they'll even at times reshape their self.  But for them any emotional endurance is set as part and portion of the proactive elements of change, it is not accounted as a separate thing within their life.  The winner will say  "Yea, this sucks, but it isn't going to suck for very much longer."  The loser will say "Yea, this sucks, but that's ok, I can handle it and so can you."

Look at the world around you.  Look at the people, the organizations.  Look at the attitudes they share (or inflict) one on the other.  Throw a thumb out against the horizon and estimate the size, the range, of the spheres of empathy working in your world.  I'm convinced you'll find the same correlation I have, that the smaller spheres of empathy belong to those most often accounted winners, and the larger tend to belong to those who are in fact losers regardless of their external position.  Not a one to one correlation, but pushing up against the eighty-twenty  mark. Folks, this is a real problem for several reasons.

Bottom line is that empathy, the ability to feel what others feel, is a major foundation element of civilization.  Empathy empowers understanding what motivates others, and that understanding is what enables a great many positive things ranging from justice to compassion.  Anything that can be done to enlarge the average sphere of empathy will be reflected in improvements across the full spectrum of the human condition, from talking the winners into understanding a bit more empathy, even at the price of accommodating a bit of standing endurance, will actually enhance their performance to convincing the losers that enthroning their endurance as their highest accomplishment is to equally enthrone the unhappiness that demanded it in the first place.   The problem presents itself from many, many angles… the solutions will need to come from all directions as well.