The Passion Diaries 

I am "devil's advocate" personified (a trait attributable, in large part, to my upbringing). I was always taught to put myself in others’ shoes. If empathy is a sense or capacity, mine was well nurtured and, while it is something that is now deeply engrained in my character, I take little credit for it. I believe every one of us is born with basic capacities for empathy and compassion, but they are nothing if not nurtured.

Nevertheless, I am befuddled by the ease and frequency with which people exploit one another for selfish gain. While history is accessible only through narrative accounts, the evidence is undeniable. As long as our species has walked this earth, it has been the modus operandi of the majority to perfect the art of treating others as means, and, counterintuitive as it may seem, “ethics” itself is a testament to the proposition. At the very least, I would like to believe that this behavior is rooted more in ignorance and aloofness than in heartless selfishness.

The term “objectification” is familiar. It appears most commonly in a feminist context—i.e. “the objectification of women.” What does it really mean? The “objectification of (x)” is the practice of using (or tendency to think of) X as an object. When we “use” people, we treat them as means to some desired end. In other words, we treat them as tools or objects. Regardless of circumstance—irrespective of any arguable ethical principle, personal value or slant—a person is not an object. Everyone “knows” this, but to know an empty, formal principle is not to know the genuine significance, without which one remains essentially ignorant.

Take, for instance, the following anecdote: A woman once came to my house on a Sunday, in the middle of a football game (a play-off game, no less) to conduct a census interview. When she knocked on the door, I was irritated and on the verge of voicing my circumstantial intolerance. However, when I opened the door, my attitude of intolerance promptly dissipated.

This sixty-something woman—wire-rimmed reading glasses hanging from her neck, resting on an earth-toned embroidered sweater, perched atop pleated khakis and brown loafers—is someone’s grandmother. This adult was once a child. She had a first home, a first school, and a first pet, perhaps a goldfish named Goldy…perhaps she cried the day she came home from school and found him floating upside down in a small glass bowl lined with rocks and plastic grass and a treasure chest that blows bubbles. Perhaps she made a macaroni necklace for her mom for Christmas when she was five; and, when she was eight, she broke a vase in the living room, blamed it on the cat and was grounded for lying.

Perhaps this woman married her high-school sweetheart and stayed home to raise their three children; and, after sending her children to college, money was tight, so she decided to get a part-time job for supplementary income. Pickin’s were slim as she had neither a college degree nor professional experience. She worked odd jobs here and there, as opportunity permitted. When she came to my house and knocked on my door, I was irritated, but when I opened the door I could not respond coldly or callously, because I did not see a census-bureau employee. I saw someone’s mother, wife, and grandmother—a woman, with a family, a life, a history and feelings.

I chose to give her the interview. Had I declined, that would have been okay too. The point is—when I speak, act and engage with others, I should always maintain the conscious awareness that the person with whom I interact is a real, whole, thinking, feeling individual. If I wouldn’t speak coldly and callously to my grandmother in the same situation, if it would pain me to think of someone else treating my grandmother that way, then why would I act that way towards someone else’s? I wouldn’t.

How do you feel when someone claims to be your friend but calls only when he needs a favor? How would you feel if you accepted a dinner invitation only to discover that your date is on the rebound and his intention is to parade you around like a trophy to spite his ex? How do you feel when someone takes the time to shovel the snow from around his car only to pile it behind yours? How do you feel when an angry stranger uses you as a surrogate for his antagonist, making you the target of misplaced aggression? How would you feel if someone did any of the above to someone you love?

I am befuddled, not so much by the propensity to treat others as objects, but for the ability to do so. I simply cannot compartmentalize to such a degree that I can extract from others their humanness and use them as pawns in my selfish endeavors. Genuine empathy is not optional; there is no “off-switch.” However, genuine empathy lies dormant until “switched-on,” and I believe that most of us have, at the very least, this dormant capacity.

It is never too late to begin nurturing latent capacities. We have to remind ourselves that people are not objects—that the individuals with whom we interact are not mere shells. Every one of us has an internal life, an external life, a history, and a story.

“Feelings dwell in man, but man dwells in his love…love does not cling to an I, as if the You were merely its ‘content’ or object; it is between I and You. Love is responsibility…in this consists what cannot consist in any feeling—[equality].” (Martin Buber)