Vanishing Empathy

Ashok Sharma
Empathy is the ability to step into another’s shoes, to feel another’s feelings and to help the poor, the powerless, the needy and those in pain and trouble.But people these days have become so narcissistic and self centered that they have developed the feeling ‘I have got mine, who cares about you’ and become more apathetic than empathetic. Modern man has become so much self centered and materialistic that he has lost all sympathy, compassion and pity for his fellow beings.The rape incident that happened in New Delhi last year and evoked widespread condemnation from across the nation and abroad bears testimony to the fact as to how brutal and cold modern man is .The hapless victim , thrown to the road,was allowed to writhe there in pain for a long time with nobody coming to her help before she could be rushed to hospital.Had she got timely cure, she could possibly have survived.Similarly, it is not uncommon to see elderly and ailing people standing uncomfortably in the minibuses with few young healthy people offering them seats out of pity and sympathy. Not only this, many accident victims and the pedestrians who become victims of hit and run cases remain unattended at the site of accident for hours without the passers by coming to their help and rush them to hospital.Many of them breathe their last at the site or on way to hospital.
The point is that have we become so thickskinned ,discourteous, inhumane and callous that we have jettisoned off all our moral scruples and lost the basic tenet of humanity preached by prophets and saints of every religion, that is, to help those in distress and need.Gone are the days when people would consider it as their supreme duty to take care of people who would remain confined to bed throughout their life because of some terrible ailment or a severe accident.But with the changing and fast times things are happening so fast that man has no time to experience emotions about other people’s psychological and emotional states. Modern man is so much guided by materialism and selfishness that he has lost all human qualities such as compassion, pity, generosity, sacrifice, feeling for others etc.which distinguish human beings from other animals. In fact,, he has become more brutal and savage than other animals The animals rear their young ones with love and care and struggle hard to procure food for them and defend them from predators with all their might.He no longer deserves to be called a social animal.He may rather be called the most brutal animal as while other animals come to the rescue of their species when attacked by a predator, this brute and savage animal called man rapes his fellow beings, throws acids on them, murders those who gave him birth and provided him care and love,takes sadonistic pleasure in seeing them in trouble and pain.The irony is that he calls himself the most civilized and humane being on the earth.Should we not put ourselves in others shoes to experience their pains and troubles and imagine how we would feel if we were to pass through their troubles.Only then we can experience the problems and plight of those who are ailing, who are hungry, who are in trouble and who need our kind words, moral and physical support and financial help.It is our conduct at this crucial time which determines whether we are brute or civilized.
The government, society, intellectuals, thinkers,teachers and parents should realise the impact of vanishing empathy on the present and the coming generations and evolve ways to foster empathy in children in order to make them more sensitive, compassionate, respectful and helpful to their fellow beings and even animalsFor this purpose, moral education needs to be given an important place in the curriculum, especially at school level when the mind of the students is most impressionable.Parents, on their part should tell children the stories related to helping those in distress. They should be provided opportunities to give their opinion as to what different characters think, believe, want or feel.Children should also be advised to treat their elders with respect and reverance.Parents themselves should set the example before their children by respecting their own elders and performing small acts of kindness such as giving alms to beggers, offering seats to the old amd infirm or helping elderly people cross the road etc.Parennts suould also seize everyday opportunities to induce sympathetic feelings in children.
For example, if they see anybody being victimized on TV or in a film, they need to talk to their child as how that person must have felt.Children should also be taken to oldage homes and encouraged to interact with the old and abandoned people.They should also be actively involved in collecting donations for victims of natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamies, typhoons as also of communal riots and militancy.They should also be taken to animal shelters and encouraged to take care of old , hungry and sick animals which can help a lot in developing emphatic skills in them.Parents should spend more time with their children and should avoid sending them to day care centres.They should also shower their love and affection on the children to instill a sense of insecurity in the children as unless a child himself does not feel secure, he cannot develop empathy for others. Kids will internalize moral principles when their parents talk to them how wrong doing affects other people. Children have empathy inherent in them. What is needed is to create conditions for this noble virtue to develop and bloom in them.
(The writer is serving as Lecturer in English, Govt. Hr. Sec. School, Barolla ( Udhampur )

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