In the past few days since President Obama stated that he would use “empathy” as one criterion for selecting a candidate for the U. S. Supreme Court, negative responses have flooded the media.

            President Obama talking in press conference about selecting a Supreme Court Justice gave his criteria as: sharp and independent mind; honors the constitution; respects the judicial process; and holds the judicial values upon which the country was founded. Then he mentioned an additional consideration: empathy.

            Almost immediately political pundits on television screamed: “empathy is a codeword for social engineering.” Senator Orin Hatch said empathy is a codeword for “activist judge.” And Fox’s Laura Ingraham  even said “Empathy is a loopy qualification for a Supreme Court judge.”

            Comedians Colbert and Stewart gave the most penetrating perspective about the controversy on all of television this past week.      Stephen Colbert deduced from all the television verbiage that empathy must be code for “drug-addled evolutionist with swine flu.” And Jon Stewart on the Daily Show in essence concluded that loopy, conservative pundits wore hearing aids that only said “abortion, abortion, abortion” whenever Obama spoke about judicial appointments.

            Blogs and newspaper opinion pieces, at the rate of about 10 to 1, have dumped on empathy as an acceptable characteristic for a Supreme Court judge. Just like television, conservative politicians ridiculed the President in writing, claiming that empathy is a mere codeword for pro-choice and anti-guns. Writer after writer parroted the claim that empathy is the polar opposite of fairness and the rule of law.

            Nothing could be further from the truth.

            Look up empathy in the dictionary and you will find it defined as simply the awareness of the feeling and situation of others. In essence, it is “putting yourself in another’s shoes.”

 

 

Isn’t it reasonable to expect anyone making decisions that affect other people to use empathy as well as reason and law in their decision-making? Of course, it is what makes us human. Making friends and building community are not possible without empathy.

            If people don’t use empathy in their dealings with other people, we call them psychopathic, severely retarded, autistic, or in some other way impaired. Are those the kind of people the nation wants on the highest judicial bench in the land?

             Some opponents of empathy in the Court fear that fairness would be sacrificed because special interests (for example, the poor and oppressed) would be served. But empathy is like freedom, a fundamental value in its own right. Both freedom and empathy can be applied in the extreme. Valuing freedom to an excess might lead a judge to free all prisoners. By the same (politically conservative) logic, we should then not appoint a judge who believes in freedom.

            From our judges, no matter how high or lowly their position, we should expect not only great skill in interpreting constitutional law, but deep caring about both sides in a trial. We should expect not just deep respect for the original intentions of the law, but a thorough understanding of contemporary society.

            Every great spiritual leader has promoted empathy and compassion. Jesus Christ devoted his entire life to promoting his philosophy that conforming to the letter of the law was not nearly as important as “loving your neighbor as yourself,” “loving your enemies,” and “if anyone forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles.” The essence of the foundation of Christianity is empathy, compassion, and altruism. Without the reformation of empathy started by Jesus Christ, our judges might today still sentence an unfaithful wife to death by stoning.
            The rhetoric of those with antipathy toward empathy, when analyzed carefully, reveals a false dichotomy over the ideal of impartiality and the ideal of empathy for the disadvantaged. Empathy antagonists admit that pure impartiality is not attainable but striving for it is the ultimate attribute.

            This blind justice argument reveals “black and white” thinking. One flaw in their presumption is that there is always one right answer. The second flaw is that by blind folding our judges, we keep them from observing reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

            If our chief justices are blindfolded, how can they see things like the fourth branch of government, the lobbying sector? This fourth branch, with budgets in the billions of dollars, writes legislation, shapes public opinion, and pressures every other branch of government. Read John Gresham’s The Appeal for a glimpse of how money and power buys not only influence but also actual judges. Yes, it is fiction but based upon actual situations. The authors of the constitution never envisioned this fourth branch. Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post in his 2009 book, So Damn Much Money, calls it the “The Scandal of our Time.” Shouldn’t our courts keep this extremely powerful force from undermining equal justice for all?

            The sad consequence of bashing empathy is that American children will learn that empathy is bad. They already learn to minimize empathy by competing in sports and electronic war games. If they also hear from America’s leaders and pulpits that empathy should be shunned, the fabric of American society will fray, perhaps irreparably.

            From the very beginning, this nation depended upon empathy and community as neighbors chipped in to build a newcomer’s house.  Without empathy, the American character erodes to self-centered insensitivity to others and their plight.

            People should debate Obama’s choices to the Supreme Court, but they should not blindfold themselves to the harm they create by debunking empathy.

           

Moments ago President Obama announced several new rules for executive compensation for any corporations receiving “exceptional” amounts of public funds. One rule is that executive pay is capped at $500,000 and their stock options cannot be cashed in until every penny of public money has been repaid. Third, he said executive pay and perks would be public

            While the President did not describe the current executive culture as greedy, he did call it shameful in no uncertain terms. He also used the words “culture of narrow self-interest.” Is it not greed when executives pay themselves many millions and even billions while simultaneously their corporations implode financially and thousands of lower level employees are fired?

            The dictionaries generally agree: greed is an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves.  Last year’s book Richistan, which I reviewed in a earlier post, describes a greed-driven social class of the newly, ultra-rich. An estimated 10 million Americans belong to this social class, some of whom like Madoff ran billion dollar fraudulent schemes, unable to control addiction to money and ultra rich lifestyles.

            The lucky rich, as I dubbed them, are not the only greed-driven Americans. Greed appears to have clouded the judgment of millions of Americans who signed for mortgages they could not afford or put tens thousands of dollars on their credit cards.

            So, greed may be the most succinct lens to view the current financial crisis. Not only does it help to explain why it happened, but it suggests a way to get out of it. Continued acquisition of material goods and services that are not essential would stabilize the economy. It would not return us to the previous growth in GDP, but it would be the foundation for a culture and an economic foundation that emphasizes productivity and social well-being. It would be a society oriented toward the future not immediate gratification.

            This model of society is highly compatible with President Obama’s goals for our country. In his Chicago acceptance speech he advocated a society where we “look out for others as well as ourselves.” Now, that is a recipe to avoid falling into the pernicious pit of greed. And it applies equally to bailed out corporate executives as well as the rest of us.  

During the past year 1.9 million Americans lost their jobs, with almost a third of those losing them last month. When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released these numbers this week, one of the Bureau’s commissioners said the report was probably the most negative report in BLS’s 124 year history.  

          Meanwhile this year over 2 million houses went into foreclosure. Many of those losing their homes did not lose their jobs; they were at least somewhat fortunate. But the firings and foreclosure together affected over 3 million workers.

          In the past year while the stock markets fell by nearly 50%, my retirement savings dropped 25%. I would imagine that most sociologists felt equivalent personal financial losses this year. Even those putting their savings in “fixed income” retirement funds have lost money because of the collapse of the bond markets.

          Despite the huge magnitude of this economic trauma, sociologists appear to be silent about the financial crisis. The American Sociological Association’s newsletter, Footnotes, has not mentioned the crisis nor is it a special topic of the forthcoming annual convention. It is even scarcely mentioned in Contexts magazine’s blogs. Isn’t there a big enough hurt yet to talk about?

          This month, after economists have begun comparing our current financial crisis to the great depression, the government finally admitted that the United States economy was in a recession. Ironically, they also added that we had been in a state of economic recession for 12 months.

          Sociologists, like the American government, have not told the public anything about the financial crisis. Wait, isn’t that criticism a bit unfair? After all, it takes at least a year or two, if not three, to conduct a thorough study. But have we not learned what social effects resulted from previous economic recessions and depressions? Maybe. It is difficult to find discussions in the sociological literature on this topic.

          About the only one discussing the sociological effects of the current recession is David Brooks, a journalist who writes Op-Ed Columns for the New York Times. Last month in “The Formerly Middle Class”, he wrote that those on the low rungs of the middle class are those for whom the recession is the most catastrophic. “Recessions breed pessimism,” he wrote, and he claimed that millions of Americans, to say nothing of the billions in the developing world, are “facing the psychological and social pressures of downward mobility.”

          Career reversals and job loss yields serious self-doubt, he argued. For the formerly middle-class, housing reversals mean returning from suburban dream homes to run-down apartments, to paraphrase David Brooks’ message.

          Brooks’ most interesting theories have to do with social capital and social identity. Quoting Robert Putnam, he argues that economic depression yields social isolation because people have to stay home more and their community bonds break up. In fact, the history of our great depression shows that suicide rates and divorce rates went up while birth rates went down.

          These predictable trends yield alienation and social protest, and therefore Brooks predicts that the next big social movements will start from the formerly middle class.

          Much of this analysis is conjecture, but isn’t it more relevant than any other sociological topic these days? Economic forecasters share the hunch that the economy will continue to worsen for at least a year. It is very likely that most of us in the middle class will have lost half of the value of our assets before the recession is over. Few will not face sacrifices, struggles and maybe even suffering during the years ahead. What can sociology say now, not next year, to help us understand better what is happening so that we can get through this with greater understanding, and compassion for ourselves as well as for others?