Can all people be empathic?

Doing some more research on the topic of empathy, I was wonder if all persons can actually be empathic. The following anecdote might not be wholly related to the topic, but let me start this post with it.

Have you ever heard about tea ceremony in Japan? Tea ceremony is a very solemn act between a host and her/his guests when serving tea, and it is been part of the Japanese culture (an other Asian cultures) for centuries [link]. Well, I have couple of friends who have been practicing tea ceremony for quite a long time. From their comments and my own experience, I think tea ceremony is a whole art which can be very difficult to master ... you might be thinking, what can be so difficult of serving a tea, well believe me, it is hard! The practice of serving tea needs a lot of concentration, and (through my own lenses) a lot of inner piece, anyhow, I was told that there are some professional hosts who receive the same guests often, these hosts choose their kimono and theme of the tea room according to the season and the weather. After a while the host and guest get to know each other more and establish a very close relationship, which I would define as empathic. Then, it is when the guest can easily guess the chosen theme by his host on an specific day without previous notice, so that the guest can also choose his vestments according to his guessing.

It is written that:

"The pleasure of tea relies on the charm of a host conveying his or her deepest feeling to the guests" [ref] , amazing isn't t?

While conversing with some friends, one of them said ..."come one! that is impossible I cannot do it! " ... I myself think I am incapable of such learning, so my question is:

Can we truly get to know, to feel other person's feelings and convey ours? Can all we learn to be more empathic persons?

Well guess what, doing some research I found a nice video of the book of Jeremy Rifkin called "empathic civilization" [video].

According to Rifkin, scientist have discovered that we humans are soft-wired with something called Mirror Neurons. They say that when a person "A" is observing another person "B" (his/her anger, joy, frustration), it happens that the same neurons lighting on person "B" will light on "A". Thus, person "A" actually will be able to feel exactly what person "B" is feeling.



Moreover, Rifkin tells us that we are soft wired for sociability, attachment, affection, compassion, belonging and not for violence, self interest, etc., (which reminds me Maslow's theory that all human beings are decent underneath). And therefore there is a way for the World to build an empathic civilization, because we, humans, are built to be empathic. He tells us:

"Empathy is the ability of human being to show solidarity not only with each other but with other living creatures in the planet"


Picture from blog.telegraph.co.uk

After I spend some time thinking about, it crossed my mind that an empathic civilization is almost impossible to build, a dream-like World. Rifkin said thinking of and empathic civilization is not utopia, is the opposite of utopia. This is because when one feels other person's struggle, it is then when we show solidarity with our compassion. Moreover, there is no empathy in utopia because there is no suffering. Therefore, an empathic civilization is not utopia.

"It is possible to extend our empathy to the entire human race and to our fellow creatures and to the biosphere" Jeremy Rifkin.

"To empathize is to civilize, to civilize is to empathize" Jeremy Rifkin.

Connecting some dots [1]

So ... I think now I can have an answer for the question I left open in a previous post :

How can we reach communion, if every individual is different?

And all this because each of us look the World through different lenses, and all of us are exposed to appear to be something other than good or in simple words to do evil.

Maslow's theory tells us that:

- People are all decent underneath and that they appear to be something other than good or decent because they react to stress, pain or deprivation of basic human needs.

On the Other hand, Dr. Zimbardo tells us that:

- A person's behavior can be more influenced by his/her environment rather than his/her own human nature.

- We human being are born neither good nor evil, all people are capable of do both.


I still do not know whether we all were born good or neither good nor evil. But, I agree with the part of both theories that tells us that we all are capable to do both.

Let me go back to Maslow's theory. He indicates that a person whose basic deficiency needs are all stably satisfied will see the world more clearly, there after we can be more "accepting", more "capable" of love and appreciation, and over all, just more plain more "enjoyable". This is the center-most part of what Maslow described as "self-actualization".

Most people are familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid. People who reach the top of the pyramid is considered self-actualizing (zero evil and pure elation - most of the time -). In that very top "spontaneity" is situated, according to Maslow, pure spontaneity consists of free uninhibited, uncontrolled, trusting, unpremeditated expression of the self. Then, I thought there is flaw in this theory, since we most of the time cannot be entirely spontaneous simply because we do not want to hurt others or we do not want to appear rude or irrespective.

Going further in my readings, I found that Maslow in [here] wrote that since we live in a world which runs by its own non-physical laws, pure spontaneity is not longer possible ... aha! Therefore, he said, education must be directed then both towards cultivation of "controls" and cultivation of "spontaneity".

Self-actualizing people are so much more astute in their perception of people in their "penetrating to the core or essence of another person", the more we understand others, the more we can "tolerate" or simultaneous existence.

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Time to connect some dots:

So, if we all want to live happy everyday, since we live not with ourselves but with others that are seeing things different to us and furthermore living things different to everyone, we should learn to commune, to live "in concert" with each other trough "tolerance", and how can we be tolerant? Through developing "empathy" and cultivating "controls".

Empathy is (from my point of view) what Maslow calls: "penetrating to the core or essence of another person" .

Others definitions:

Audrey Hepburn in the film "funny face" [video] said that empathy is to project your imagination so you actually feel what the other person is feeling, put yourself in the others person space.

Daniel Goleman [ bio] in his interview titled "Social Intelligence and Leadership" by Harvard University [video] tells us that empathy is recognizing other people’s emotions, how they "see" things and how they are feeling (in other words, try to see the world through the other person's lenses).

Daniel Goleman situates empathy as a key ability to be an "emotional intelligent" person after recognizing our own feelings, the passions the things that turns on/off and the manner how we handle our emotions -> how we "control" our emotions. Social Intelligence and Self-actualization ... those are major practices which I'd better discuss in a later post.