Is Empathy Like Mud

There’s a scene in the dystopian television series, The Fallout, which demonstrates how some people misunderstand the word “empathy.” In season 2, episode 2, two of the main characters are walking toward Las Vegas. Lucy MacLean is a kind and somewhat naïve young woman who recently climbed to a desolate surface in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. Her companion, the Ghoul, has only two ambitions: to survive and to find out what happened to his family.

They’re passing by an abandoned building when they hear the voice of a woman inside crying out for help. Lucie urges that they respond, but the Ghoul says “Empathy is like mud. You lose your boots in that stuff,” and continues to walk past the building.

Image © Amazon Studios / Fallout

To me, the ghoul is suggesting that being empathetic is dangerous because we end up wallowing in it. That demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of the meaning of the word.

Far from being dangerous, empathy is a cornerstone of conscious communication. We use it to try to hear what the other person feels and needs without judging. It means asking them questions so that they and we can understand what is alive in them at the present moment. It builds a connection that allows the other person to feel truly understood.

With empathy, we connect to the need, not the story. Let's say your friend Lorraine is telling you about how her boss’s rejection of an idea that she had been working so hard on devastated her because her self-esteem took a hit. Rather than getting lost in the story, you can connect to her need for self-esteem while not taking on her baggage. However, we do not take on their feelings as our own.

In the scene from Fallout, it is virtually impossible for Lucy to have empathy with someone she can’t talk to and has never met.

Sympathy 

I think that the screenwriters have confused empathy with sympathy. Sympathy is a feeling of concern for someone who is undergoing a difficult experience. We take on the other person’s feelings or respond from our reaction to their situation.

Sympathy can be helpful in conscious communication. The person might be touched by the care from a simple statement like, “That sounds like it was awful”.

It’s when we wallow in sympathy that we can lose our boots in it. Sometimes we wind up getting so involved in their stories that we get sucked into them and make them our own. We always try to rescue: “Let me handle this”; console: “How awful! Something similar happened to me!”; or solve: “I suggest that you do this and that. Let me know how it goes.” Sympathy, not empathy, aligns far more with what the Ghoul was saying.

To summarize, empathy helps you to connect with the other person. Since you don’t take on their baggage, you can’t get lost in it. So don’t listen to the Ghoul.