The Sympathy Deficit

The muse is silent.

What follows is an essay I wrote before the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings.

The Sympathy Deficit

Is there a correlation between reading and the capacity to sympathize? Perhaps, but only to certain degree. After all, if nothing else the Twentieth century has taught that the perpetrators of the worst genocides have been infinitely well read. But knowledge can never pass for wisdom. We may describe a killer as knowledgeable but never wise. Given this distinction, and recognizing that kindness does not require literacy, I submit that the value of the written tradition has to do with its capacity to represent and disseminate literary forms that require sympathetic imagination. The fact that our children read less may be related to their moral inability to recognize the dignity of Self and Other.

Consider the latest domestic atrocity: 3/25/98 New York Times "5 Are Killed at School; Boys, 11 and 13, are Held." The grim text beneath the ubiquitous images of body bags and chalk outlines reads: "Snipers Ambush Pupils at Arkansas School--10 Wounded." The shocking and horrifying nature of this event defies description. Yet discuss it we must. And so the media provides a horrifying litany of recent events that suggested a causal link: the West Paducah, Kentucky 14 year old who opened fire on a prayer group; The 16 year old Satanist from Pearl, Mississippi who stabbed his mother and girlfriend to death; the 14 year old sniper, Joseph Todd, from Stamps, Arkansas who sighted his victims from trees; and on and on.

Are these events symptomatic of a sympathy deficit? Perhaps there is a problem when the only available source moral consciousness can appeal to for counsel is the nascent electronic tradition of endless soundbyte. Tragically, the moral beliefs of many teenagers are solely influenced by the plotless violence of "action" movies and media docudrama of everyday atrocity--this is a volatile mix. When these factors, in concert with chronic emotional neglect, circumscribe a child's domestic background it is not surprising that we see what Dr. Sabine Hack describes as a copycat phenomenon: "More than adults, adolescents may be prone to copy publicized violent acts by their peers." Might this not result in what some mental health professionals have described as a "trickling down to younger ages of the sex patterns that lead many men to stalk and kill their ex-wives or girlfriends?"(NYT3/12/98)

Shortly after the Arkansas shootings, Walter Goodman, reporter for the New York Times, provided an accurate if disturbing description of how television numbs our affective responses: “Yet one stays tuned in, out of sympathy perhaps or out of curiosity or out of a need to participate. So although there is little to report after the first bulletins...television keeps at it, filling hours and hours of talk dished out from the prepared-food counter, on the menu under "Tragedy".

This is a diet we can't seem to shake. The fear that life might imitate art is perhaps less sinister than the idea of having no art to contemplate. To the mind of today’s man-child, how can a movie like The Treasure of Sierra Madre(1948) compete with continuous live coverage of the latest atrocity, let alone packaged reenactments of violent crimes? When it comes to youth, violence and tragedy we do well to heed Romeo and Juliet’s cautionary advice. The friar's wisdom that "They stumble that run fast" applies to today’ parents as much as teenagers. Technological instant gratification coupled with sensory overload have compelled us to expect speed in every process. But should this apply to growing up? Is it not easy to ignore the ineffective distinction between PG, PG-13, and R in wanting to blur the line between parenting and friendship? If there is truth to the notion that we baby boomers are comfortable with the illusion of eternal adolescence then we are also plagued by it; we role model a "gimme it all now" philosophy and wonder why our children have no respect for others.

Is it surprising that the celebration of self has produced a generation that invariably assumes the experience of others mirrors their own? In an age obsessed with recovery, self help and therapeutic experience, is it not ironic that--if we accept what we see around us--we are losing the ability to imagine what it means to respect that discrete entity we call Self? When the wisdom of reading is replaced by the folly of self absorption, force trumps negotiation as a means of conflict resolution.