I JUST learned from a recent study that there´s something like a drop of 40% in empathy among American college students in the past 30 years, with the sharpest plunge observed since year 2000 when the Internet came to dominate people´s lives.
That´s, of course, a cause for grave concern. Empathy glues us together as a people, enabling us to enter into one another´s lives as we are supposed to do, edifying our sense of unity and solidarity despite the variety of our conditions and situations. And so anything that undermines it undermines us as a people, as a society, as a family.
Lack of it leads to conflicts and acrimony, poisoning and weakening our social fabric. We need to be more aware of building up this important aspect of our lives, knowing its true nature and character, its authentic source of energy and its real goal. At this time, we cannot afford to be naïve about our need for empathy, properly understood.
Our initial problem is that many of us understand empathy more as an instinctive and emotional reaction, and nothing much else. When you see someone stumble and in pain, you immediately mirror his condition by vicariously feeling the fellow´s predicament yourself.
When you see a beggar in tattered clothes or an abandoned child, or when you read in the papers about the earthquake victims of Haiti, you automatically feel something like empathy or sympathy, depending on whether you felt with them or for them.
We are in need of mirroring one another´s conditions, since this is how we learn, grow and develop. Thus, the importance of physical, face-to-face encounters, and of being wary of our tendency to just keep to ourselves, limiting our relations with others in the level of intentions.
Of course, we should be careful to avoid extremes—empathy either as only a physical and emotional thing or only as an intentional and disembodied affair.
Empathy is certainly part of our nature that indicates that not only are we individual persons, we are also social beings; not only are we spiritual and intellectual persons, we are also beings of flesh with feelings and emotions.
We need to respect, uphold and defend the requirements of each element that constitutes our being or nature. We have to understand that empathy has to draw its consistency from these constitutive elements properly ordered and pursued.
In other words, empathy should not just be an instinctive and automatic reaction; it has to be a deliberately cultivated trait. It should not just remain in the emotional level; it also has to be properly directed and driven by our conscious reason, then by our faith and charity.
It´s this wholistic grasp of empathy that would truly help us build the society that we deserve as persons and as children of God. We need to do everything to attain that understanding and the skill to live it.
Thus, we have to study it not only in the physical, biological and social sciences. It has to be studied also under the light of our faith and religion. Actually, the latter source of knowledge gives empathy its deepest moorings. It defines empathy´s ultimate dimensions. The natural sciences only give us the tools and techniques to develop empathy.
The Christian faith, for example, links empathy to the whole range of Christian charity that includes not only loving those who love but also those who don´t. It´s this faith where empathy breaks free from its usual confinement in the emotion level to enter into the world of the supernatural to which we are called due to our spiritual nature also.
As to the practical implications of this concern about empathy-building, I can mention a few ideas—to be thoroughly familiar with our Christian faith, to be vitally identified with Christ by always praying and developing the virtues.
We need to cultivate the desire to flood our surroundings with an atmosphere of goodness, kindness, understanding and compassion, complete with smiles, gestures of courtesy and gratitude.
We have to be judicious in our use of the Internet and other modern technologies such that they don´t take us away from direct contact with others, basic in developing empathy. Family and other social get-togethers should be fostered and made an integral part of our daily activities.
Every little act of reaching out to the others, even if only internally, will go a long way in building up empathy. We need to reverse the current disturbing trend where we seem to alienate one another.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Gospel should cruise social media
“WOE to me if I do not preach the Gospel.” (1 Cor 9,16) This was the cry of St. Paul conveying his burning desire to transmit the Good News to the early Christians.
It’s a cry that also has to spring in each one of us, Christian believers, who now participate in the abiding function of preaching and teaching the word of God according to our personal circumstances.
God’s word, let’s remind ourselves, is the original and ultimate word that should inspire every word we use in our communications. It’s what gives our word its soul, enabling it to acquire its supernatural quality, regardless of whether it is literary, technical, legalistic, conversational, etc. in its human usage.
God’s word is a way to connect us and everything that we think, say and do to God. It’s always relevant. In fact, it is indispensable, otherwise our life will stray from its proper path.
It should always be in our mind and heart, acting as a kind of leaven to our word so that our word’s practical human use can acquire a certain spiritual and supernatural value, enlightening and redemptive in character.
We need to be clear about the relationship between God’s word and our word, between God’s word and our life. Perhaps this is the crucial point we need to work on first, before we proceed with our communications.
With the advent of the computer and the whole range of digital and electronic technology, this cry of St. Paul, and hopefully ours too, finds a most auspicious vehicle to expand its reach and scope.
Besides, with the way these technologies are affecting people’s lives, it’s clear that an abiding and adequate evangelization in that field is an urgent must. Otherwise, they will just decline to all sorts of bad effects and influences.
It’s good that in this regard the American bishops are pioneering the way and are opening frontiers. Recently, they came out with a document on social media guidelines that for sure will be helpful to all Christian believers trying to get involved in the evangelization of this vast, exciting world of social media.
It bats for greater visibility of the gospel message in the social media, as well as favorable manners to build stronger sense of community among ourselves. It also recommends efforts at accountability, so our postings can really be responsible and therefore defensible.
The gospel has to be presented in such a way that it retains its original forcefulness and meaning while adapting to the evolving issues at hand. It should be in a language not only understandable but also attractive and engaging to the intended audience.
Highly interactive, the social media has to be handled with extreme prudence and powerful magnanimity and nobleness of heart. Otherwise, one can easily founder in its many delicate, tricky spots.
It’s important that one assumes a very positive outlook toward the social media, not easily bogged down by the many dangers it poses and the other negative traits it possesses.
He has to be very broad-minded, with a universal grasp of things, knowing how to stick to what is essential and how to deal with the merely incidental. In the social media, one is bound to see a spill of tactlessness, inanities, narcissism, etc. One simply has to be above this level, while respecting each one’s idiosyncracies.
He has to be sharply and quickly discerning in his judgments, knowing what to pick up and what to disregard with respect to the different views expressed. Thus, having clear criteria is required. He should be good in cruising the complicated field.
No doubt, a high level of spirituality is needed here, otherwise one ends up getting entangled in petty quarrels and animosities and other worse predicaments.
As St. Paul said, “The spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no man…” (1 Cor 2,15) These words may not sit well with those with no faith or with weak faith. But this is just how the cookie crumbles.
In terms of expression, one has to be both natural and supernatural, mastering the art of political correctness as well as that of holy shamelessness when it is precisely needed. He has to know how to enter into the mind and heart of the people.
That’s why, one really has to be properly formed before he enters into the social media and hope to contribute to the effort to evangelize it. The most effective evangelizer is one who manages to transmit the gospel message without being noticed.
It’s a cry that also has to spring in each one of us, Christian believers, who now participate in the abiding function of preaching and teaching the word of God according to our personal circumstances.
God’s word, let’s remind ourselves, is the original and ultimate word that should inspire every word we use in our communications. It’s what gives our word its soul, enabling it to acquire its supernatural quality, regardless of whether it is literary, technical, legalistic, conversational, etc. in its human usage.
God’s word is a way to connect us and everything that we think, say and do to God. It’s always relevant. In fact, it is indispensable, otherwise our life will stray from its proper path.
It should always be in our mind and heart, acting as a kind of leaven to our word so that our word’s practical human use can acquire a certain spiritual and supernatural value, enlightening and redemptive in character.
We need to be clear about the relationship between God’s word and our word, between God’s word and our life. Perhaps this is the crucial point we need to work on first, before we proceed with our communications.
With the advent of the computer and the whole range of digital and electronic technology, this cry of St. Paul, and hopefully ours too, finds a most auspicious vehicle to expand its reach and scope.
Besides, with the way these technologies are affecting people’s lives, it’s clear that an abiding and adequate evangelization in that field is an urgent must. Otherwise, they will just decline to all sorts of bad effects and influences.
It’s good that in this regard the American bishops are pioneering the way and are opening frontiers. Recently, they came out with a document on social media guidelines that for sure will be helpful to all Christian believers trying to get involved in the evangelization of this vast, exciting world of social media.
It bats for greater visibility of the gospel message in the social media, as well as favorable manners to build stronger sense of community among ourselves. It also recommends efforts at accountability, so our postings can really be responsible and therefore defensible.
The gospel has to be presented in such a way that it retains its original forcefulness and meaning while adapting to the evolving issues at hand. It should be in a language not only understandable but also attractive and engaging to the intended audience.
Highly interactive, the social media has to be handled with extreme prudence and powerful magnanimity and nobleness of heart. Otherwise, one can easily founder in its many delicate, tricky spots.
It’s important that one assumes a very positive outlook toward the social media, not easily bogged down by the many dangers it poses and the other negative traits it possesses.
He has to be very broad-minded, with a universal grasp of things, knowing how to stick to what is essential and how to deal with the merely incidental. In the social media, one is bound to see a spill of tactlessness, inanities, narcissism, etc. One simply has to be above this level, while respecting each one’s idiosyncracies.
He has to be sharply and quickly discerning in his judgments, knowing what to pick up and what to disregard with respect to the different views expressed. Thus, having clear criteria is required. He should be good in cruising the complicated field.
No doubt, a high level of spirituality is needed here, otherwise one ends up getting entangled in petty quarrels and animosities and other worse predicaments.
As St. Paul said, “The spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no man…” (1 Cor 2,15) These words may not sit well with those with no faith or with weak faith. But this is just how the cookie crumbles.
In terms of expression, one has to be both natural and supernatural, mastering the art of political correctness as well as that of holy shamelessness when it is precisely needed. He has to know how to enter into the mind and heart of the people.
That’s why, one really has to be properly formed before he enters into the social media and hope to contribute to the effort to evangelize it. The most effective evangelizer is one who manages to transmit the gospel message without being noticed.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Compromised public discourse?
PUBLIC discussion of issues and other topics of interest is a vital activity in any society. That’s how society becomes a living society, building up its unity and sense of purpose. That’s how society makes itself truly human, reflecting the character of the persons comprising it.
It’s in this ongoing public discourse that society gets to know itself better and sets its path of development.
Everything has to be done to make our public discourse vibrant, properly engaged and focused on real and not false or artificial issues. Everything has to be done to keep it going, constantly purifying it, ridding it of distorting elements.
But what do we have? A book recently reviewed by a friend claims that much of our public discourse in the world today is stripped-down, if not compromised and even trivialized. I could not agree more.
Just the other day, while stuck in traffic at a busy crossroad, a digital big screen at the corner flashed what were supposed to be breaking news. There were 4 or 5 items that were announced. I remembered or rather was stunned by 2.
One was on a certain Mother Lily keeping distance from the Kris-James marital trouble. The other was on a Kim denying she is dating with Enchong. I suppose there were people interested in those items but I asked myself whether they should really be beamed at all.
Those were pure gossips. We just had a long brown-out in the city then, and there was no explanation as to why it happened. And, of course, there were and continue to be endless screaming issues—our world economic crisis, our political stability, etc. And yet we prefer to talk about gossips!
There’s obviously a money angle to this phenomenon. Gossips hijack attention and sell like hotcakes. They can give diversion from our daily burdens. No wonder they are a regular fare even in mainstream media. But then again, should we just be riveted there?
Public debates over controversial issues are almost exclusively keyed on the practical aspects. Any reference to faith, religion and morality is taboo, considered to be not politically correct.
Worse, the discussion is reduced to clever sound bites. It’s de rigueur that they have to be entertaining to be followed and appreciated by the people. For sure, with such approach, a lot of valuable things get lost.
The process of dialogue and healthy exchanges of ideas and opinions gets truncated. Public opinion remains shallow and fails to capture the essential points needed for society to grow properly.
There’s a tendency to resort to sensationalism, to gimmicks like shock and awe, using sound and fury that signify nothing. There’s a lot of junk and bunk used in today’s journalism. Just look at the entertainment pages.
And even in the opinion pages, fallacies abound as logic seems to be abandoned in many instances of media discussions. Traditional values are left to decay as modern, sophisticated arguments are presented to replace core beliefs derived from faith. Reasonings swing from simplisms to sophistries.
Big-time media outfits can launch into massive research and reporting, but precisely because of a fundamental anomaly in their approach, they end up creating myths, fish stories and cock-and-bull tales, oozing with malice and ideological biases.
They never know how to inject the indispensable inputs of faith and religion without sounding religious or superstitious. They feel they need to avoid these sources of inspiration and even of data. They still have this aspect of their work and of the lives of those involved pretty much unresolved.
In fact, in one of the expressions of this mentality articulated by the American John Rawls in his book, A Theory of Justice, it was argued that “public reason requires citizens to refrain from invoking or acting on their deepest convictions about what is really true.
“They have to consent to work only with a scaled-down set of beliefs or methods that claim the support of an ostensible ‘overlapping consensus.’”
This is the predicament we have in our hands insofar as public discussion of issues is concerned. Talking from convictions is considered incompatible with social peace and harmony. They say it discourages conversation.
And so, there’s a drift toward relativism, as no absolute values are upheld. Or better said, what is relative is made absolute. Human consensus is the ultimate arbiter of what is good and evil, what is right and wrong. Pope Benedict calls this the “tyranny of relativism.”
We need to properly react and resolve this problem.
It’s in this ongoing public discourse that society gets to know itself better and sets its path of development.
Everything has to be done to make our public discourse vibrant, properly engaged and focused on real and not false or artificial issues. Everything has to be done to keep it going, constantly purifying it, ridding it of distorting elements.
But what do we have? A book recently reviewed by a friend claims that much of our public discourse in the world today is stripped-down, if not compromised and even trivialized. I could not agree more.
Just the other day, while stuck in traffic at a busy crossroad, a digital big screen at the corner flashed what were supposed to be breaking news. There were 4 or 5 items that were announced. I remembered or rather was stunned by 2.
One was on a certain Mother Lily keeping distance from the Kris-James marital trouble. The other was on a Kim denying she is dating with Enchong. I suppose there were people interested in those items but I asked myself whether they should really be beamed at all.
Those were pure gossips. We just had a long brown-out in the city then, and there was no explanation as to why it happened. And, of course, there were and continue to be endless screaming issues—our world economic crisis, our political stability, etc. And yet we prefer to talk about gossips!
There’s obviously a money angle to this phenomenon. Gossips hijack attention and sell like hotcakes. They can give diversion from our daily burdens. No wonder they are a regular fare even in mainstream media. But then again, should we just be riveted there?
Public debates over controversial issues are almost exclusively keyed on the practical aspects. Any reference to faith, religion and morality is taboo, considered to be not politically correct.
Worse, the discussion is reduced to clever sound bites. It’s de rigueur that they have to be entertaining to be followed and appreciated by the people. For sure, with such approach, a lot of valuable things get lost.
The process of dialogue and healthy exchanges of ideas and opinions gets truncated. Public opinion remains shallow and fails to capture the essential points needed for society to grow properly.
There’s a tendency to resort to sensationalism, to gimmicks like shock and awe, using sound and fury that signify nothing. There’s a lot of junk and bunk used in today’s journalism. Just look at the entertainment pages.
And even in the opinion pages, fallacies abound as logic seems to be abandoned in many instances of media discussions. Traditional values are left to decay as modern, sophisticated arguments are presented to replace core beliefs derived from faith. Reasonings swing from simplisms to sophistries.
Big-time media outfits can launch into massive research and reporting, but precisely because of a fundamental anomaly in their approach, they end up creating myths, fish stories and cock-and-bull tales, oozing with malice and ideological biases.
They never know how to inject the indispensable inputs of faith and religion without sounding religious or superstitious. They feel they need to avoid these sources of inspiration and even of data. They still have this aspect of their work and of the lives of those involved pretty much unresolved.
In fact, in one of the expressions of this mentality articulated by the American John Rawls in his book, A Theory of Justice, it was argued that “public reason requires citizens to refrain from invoking or acting on their deepest convictions about what is really true.
“They have to consent to work only with a scaled-down set of beliefs or methods that claim the support of an ostensible ‘overlapping consensus.’”
This is the predicament we have in our hands insofar as public discussion of issues is concerned. Talking from convictions is considered incompatible with social peace and harmony. They say it discourages conversation.
And so, there’s a drift toward relativism, as no absolute values are upheld. Or better said, what is relative is made absolute. Human consensus is the ultimate arbiter of what is good and evil, what is right and wrong. Pope Benedict calls this the “tyranny of relativism.”
We need to properly react and resolve this problem.
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