“Opinion is the lowest from of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The Highest form of knowledge … is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self-kind of understanding.” Bill Bullard
To regular visitors to this blog, my focus on social sustainability is obvious. Some first come to my site expecting to hear more about the technological advances and then the myriad environmental problems with high tech answers. I spent many years teaching and lecturing about Environmental and Sustainable Science, but realized that while technology will resolve many of our environmental problems and will give us sustainable technology, it will NOT resolve the deepest long-time problems of humanity that are derived from Fear, Anxiety, Distrust, Hatred, especially of others and curiously that of our own deepest selves. Until we heal ourselves, how can we expect to help and heal others. We are our own worst enemies created from the bedlam that is the conditioning we gain from how we are brought up in our various cultures. We are more likely to forgive others before we forgive ourselves.
When we start thinking about a system of cultures in a sustainable world, we will find that tolerance and understanding are crucial. This modern push to homogenization in a corporate consumer-controlled system is not who we are – what globalization seems to be forcing. There exists this strange idea that there is one ‘right’ culture that stems from centuries of dominant technological colonialization. Of course, the dominant economic systems seem to be the ones driving this in our modern world. When I look at the vast amounts of strife in our world, I usually find that some form of oppression is present and it has its roots of one group trying to force one view or way of doing on another group, usually related in fear of some kind based on cultural conditioning. A way of thinking about this is a story I have of when I was on a camping trip with a large summer student group program I was running. We were having corn-on-the-cob with dinner. As everyone was eating their corn, one of my instructors watched in horror as all the kids ate corn in very varied ways. She simply said, “everyone is eating their corn wrong” and she was serious about this. She had been conditioned to believe that corn on the cob was eaten in a specific pattern and to do otherwise was ‘wrong.’ This idea can be applied to whole groups and even countries. And people get so upset over these different ways of doing thing they can actually go to war. Absolute insanity. It’s like people telling me that there is only one way to live sustainably. There are as many ways to live sustainably as there are to eat corn. The basic principles are the same but techniques used will vary.
You could think about cultural sensitivity as a form of acceptance of people as they are. I often will advise people to use unconditional Love as a way to live. Unconditional Love, however, does not mean unconditional acceptance of bad behavior. I do not want to get into a long philosophical discussion about right versus wrong, since those terms are subjective in themselves. I’ll keep it simple, use the Golden and Platinum Rules – The Golden Rule is “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” However, the way one group wants to be treated isn’t necessarily the same as the way the other group wants to be treated. More useful is the Platinum Rule: “Treat others the way they would like to be treated.” It can be summed up with empathy with conscious mindfulness. Just being empathic in itself doesn’t guarantee ‘good behavior.’ There are five types of empathy; cognitive, emotional, compassionate, somatic and spiritual empathy. Cognitive empathy is being able to put yourself into someone else’s place, and see their perspective – a rational situation. Emotional empathy is when you literally feel the other person’s emotions as if you had ‘caught’ the emotions. Since emotions are involves it requires disciplined mindfulness to avoid being overwhelmed. Compassionate empathy is what we usually understand as empathy in that it requires feeling someone’s pain, and taking action to help. Somatic empathy is defined as feeling someone else’s pain physically. Spiritual empathy is defined as a direct connection with a ‘higher being’ or consciousness. That is why I add mindfulness as a guide to understand the broader picture of being a caring human being. As a final note here, sympathy is often used interchangeably with empathy, but they are different. While empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another person it is an emotional connection. Sympathy is more related to the cognitive aspect of empathy.
I think the modern world is run by Sociopathic people (e.g. heads of corporations) driven by a singular goal of money, who are in turn influenced by Psychopathic people driven by the need for control and domination. Neither show any empathy, expect for how they can utilize fake empathy to control and manipulate the rest of us. (what I often refer to as the uber-elites and the Cabal). I do believe that most people are empathic and caring and if they could break through their conditioned reactionary behavior would readily choose a just and sustainable world. Let me dispel this notion of sustainability as some glamorized Pollyanna utopia. There are some strange notions that we must have a perfect world. What we need is a caring and mindful world where people can be their authentic selves and where we talk and truly listen to each other. Collaboration and cooperation are where people retain their individuality yet find common ground in which to live harmoniously. In my earlier posts Manifesting a New Global Society while keeping our diverse global cultures 1-5, I talk about equity as a primary goal (note: it is different than equality. See earlier post Adapting to Transformational changes 3 – Creating dialogue for ‘JUST’ Sustainability for Transformational changes).
One thing we do need to stop doing is using something called ‘Dismissive Positivity’ or ‘Toxic Positivity’ as a solution to ignoring all the crapola in the world and our lives. Being alive is being open to experiences and learning from them to live a better life. Emotional pain is a reality and needs to be confronted for healing to occur. Simple happy face platitudes that all will work out do not help people in the middle of what seem like personal crises. Positivity is not about happy face platitudes but about validation of the experience and then encouragement and hope of something better. Whitney Hawkins Goodman, talks about supporting people with hope and validation and not simplified ‘Toxic Positivity’ that is in much social media. She explains the difference as “This is hard… I believe in you,” versus “Just be happy!”
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