Compassion

It was in his 1871 book, 'The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex' that Darwin takes a moment to analyse the origins of what he calls sympathy. In the fourth chapter of the document, he describes the way in which humans and nonhuman species come to the aid of one another in situations of distress. As the work was concerned with the continuity of species, it is no surprise that he identifies this characteristic in multiple species, not only humans, and relate it to natural selection.

Darwin states on page 72 of the book: 'In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.' He also postulated that a ‘maternal instinct’ would explain why a mother will be willing to put her own life at risk to protect her infant from danger. However, Darwin’s analysis identifies some individuals as being willing to help total strangers in distress, not only those with which they have a personal connection. So what is the instinct that allows us to disregard self-preservation to assist others in pain?

This question was triggered last week while visiting the 'Soul of a Nation: Art in the age of black power' exhibition at the Tate Modern. The show starts with the events of 1963, a year identified as the height of the Civil Rights movement. At this point, the actions calling for African American pride, autonomy and solidarity, were at their peak and the work of artists all over the country and the world took inspiration from those struggles. However artistic responses also came in the form of provoking pieces, confrontational messages, and revolutionary ideas. All those symbols of a struggling nation are on display in such a manner that they made me question the connection between the artist, viewer and the victims. In an environment which mainly connects the audience to the person in distress, what risks does the artist take in producing the work which allows us, the viewers, to empathise with the events which took place?

An article I read after this experience led me down the path of interrogating the role compassion has in triggering responses which completely disregard our self-preservation instincts. In a piece for The New Yorker from early August 2017 entitled 'How We Should Respond to Photographs of Suffering', Sentille looks at the work of Ariella Azoulay and her book ‘The Civil Contract of Photography.' In the book, Azoulay interrogates the way in which images of suffering people give birth to feeling and how those feeling need to be transformed into action. One element captured my attention in particular and that was the connection between the subject, photographer, and the viewer. What she describes as a 'civil contract' between the viewer and the viewed is supported by the artist. This concept leads me to consider the role or responsibility of an artist to capture the events, people, or places in such a light as to deliver a feeling which pushes the viewer towards more than empathy, to a selfless action. But what are the risks taken to do so and more important to me, why do it at all?

Until recently the word empathy and compassion have been used synonymously. However, the differentiation between the two is important for understanding resilience in the face of suffering or danger. Recent research reveals that empathy and compassion have not only different ways of manifesting quantitatively but also physiologically through facial expressions, behaviour and cerebral activity. Empathy is defined as the mirroring of another’s feeling. By doing so, we are capable of understanding someone else’s experience directly. ‘Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ perfectly illustrates the multifaceted construct of empathy which includes emotional recognition, vicarious feeling, and perspective taking. However, compassion has been conceptualised both as a motivation and as well as a state. It differentiates from empathy in the way that emotions, such as fear, guilt, sadness, are not necessarily mirrored. Goetz, Keltner, and Simon-Thomas define it as ‘the feeling that arises in witnessing another’s suffering, and that motivates a subsequent desire to help’. Their research shows that in a state of compassion, subjects respond through outward focused behaviour (oblique eyebrows, eye gaze, forward leans, and touch) as opposed to empathy defined by a more inward looking response.

For example, if one of my friends is angry and I empathise, I am angry as well. If I see through the anger into the hurt and feel motivated to react to relieve that feeling, I experience compassion. In many cases, the two reactions come together. From empathy, we progress to compassion with the result of a selfless action determined not by a self-interested motivation but compassionately in the interest of others.

In the book Divergent by Veronica Roth, Tobias explains to Tris that ‘selflessness and bravery aren’t all that different’. Tris’s Abnegation upbringing would trigger particular responses such as the refusal or denial of oneself and a non-manipulative attitude. However, they are not her only instincts. Her courage and willingness to put herself in harm’s way, to protect those she cares about go beyond her upbringing. Arguably sometimes we put ourselves in harm's way not due to our selfless nature, but due to our selfish one. Still, such acts are made easier by selflessness in that we abandon, at least partially or temporarily, the natural instinct of preserving one’s self for the good of others. This response can, in turn, be triggered when witnessing someone in harm’s way and our instinct, as supported by Darwin, is to relieve the resulting distress regardless of one’s self-safety.

Through courage, we become capable of selfless acts which set aside self-preservation or self-promotion allowing us to turn towards danger rather than away from it. It is for this reason that compassion has been conceptualised as motivation rather than simply a feeling. Continuing on the Divergent analogy, this is where the Dauntless Manifesto of 'small acts of courage' which determine's one to stand up to another comes to its own. However, it is not the bravery that drives us to respond in situations of danger. Its role is only to allows us to do so if a compassionate effect is triggered through ‘ordinary acts’.

In his work 'The Book Thief', Markus Zusak highlight those actions through Liesel and her foster family. There, the Hubermann family shelters for two years a Jewish man, Max, which was on the run from the Gestapo in Nazi lead Germany. Their pure, selfless, actions are provoked by their compassionate response to the man’s situation. Through this small intervention, their life has taken a dramatic turn for the worst, living in fear and always questioning their decision. Therefore, their actions are not driven by a selfish desire or pursuit of benefits. Through their behaviour, they display, in my opinion, a criticism of the current state of affairs in the country and although acting only as middle-men in the larger ‘battle’ which is taking place, their selfless actions and disregard for self-preservation identify them as key players. They are the figures which carry the legacy of good will amongst people, and their actions become symbols of empathy which lead to a compassionate response.

Recent studies have indicated that the cultivation and training of compassion can provide new coping mechanisms which support positive effects when faced with the distress of others. As Klimecki et all proves in a paper published in 2013, the capacity of compassion to provide positive responses in the more dire situations is remarkable as it is not through numbing or through the reduction of one’s emotions that this is achieved but by increasing responsiveness to suffering. Peters and Calvo conclude that in this manner compassion allows us to be highly susceptible to pain but respond with caring rather than despair. Therefore the effect is not of schadenfreude but rather affiliation by enabling us to get close to others and care for their suffering.

There are neuroscience studies which point towards compassion, not as a virtue that we either have or not but something trainable. Studies show that the part of the brain which is involved in positive emotions such as compassion is more ‘adaptable’, allowing change to happen through an external input. In children, the secure attachment to parents tends to trigger, later on in life, more sympathetic responses to their peers. Pearl and Samuel Oliner further state that children with compassionate parents tend to be more altruistic. Tania Singer also believes that training compassion is the way in which problems such as depression, burnout and narcissism can be solved. Her techniques of using the Buddhist notion of loving-kindness have managed to shift brain activity from areas associated with negative feelings to others which are closely related to compassion. She concluded: "People with a lot of empathy want to change that to compassion, so they don't get overwhelmed when confronted with suffering."

In her work, Azoulay repeatedly asks the reader to place themselves into the scene and see the power shift in action while identifying the outcome as one of many possible ones. With that mind-frame, we can look back at the show Soul of a Nation and define the artists as one which depicts an event, a person or group of individuals or emotion (even if abstracted), with the scope of commemorating or criticising. His role takes on an shaming power and, to some extent, can be seen as aiming to change the outcome of the past. By becoming a mediator between the 'viewed' and the viewer, he puts himself in harm’s way to deliver the message. He empathises with the events which took place but realises that his role is not to be a witness but to convey the message to other, in this way taking action to prevent further harm from happening.

Some theorists consider that showing images of humans suffering is pornographic, arguing that those have only the effect of cultivating our narcissistic desire as viewers, and in that manner, the suffering is perpetuated rather than combated as an emphatic response to those images. But I believe that the artist, once faced with those situations of injustice assumes a ‘civic obligation’ of making them visible and preventing, through their work, the atrocities of the past from happening again, at the expense of their safety.

The artist's compassion redefines the scenes he depicts. By placing part of himself in the artwork, the events he captures are a portrayal of his altruistic response when faced with dire situations. Through their sacrifice and disregard of self-preservation, those artists involved in conflicts continuously fight to alleviate the pain of others. Tobias utters after Tris’s death in Divergent ‘There are so many ways to be brave in this world’, and I think that being compassionate is one of them.

P.S. Hey everybody, thank you for reading! This has been one of the most interesting topics to research. Compassion is a big subject, and it felt overwhelming at times, but I am glad I took it on. I discussed the matter initially with one of my friends which I must thank for introducing me to it. It became a way of looking at things differently, and it helped me see the Soul of a Nation with new eyes.

Make sure that if you are in London, you drop by the Tate Modern for the show as it is a powerful one and covers a large body of work by artists from around the world.

I took a bit of a break since my last post; I got caught up in a design competition with a friend from back home. It was a good way of collaborating internationally, and I think we produced some great stuff. I will put together a post about the project once we know how we did. Until then, I will work on having a new post ready in two weeks time.