----- Original Message -----

From: Bertram Rothschild

To: bertr2@comcast.net

Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 3:30 PM

Subject: for the blog

EMPATHY

7-30-12

When I was a lad, Marshall Dillon was one of my sort-of heroes. His show always had him, on the streets of Dodge outdrawing a bad guy, all very satisfactory. In the body of the story, he usually killed someone and in my younger years that always seemed right. Well, the show has returned on the western channel and while nicely written the killing continues. What is most noteworthy: the shot is fired, the man drops and the dialogue continues as nothing momentous has occurred. Cold? Brrrr!

In this morning's paper was an article about drone pilots, the pilots, all men (are there any women?) spoke their feelings about what they do. Some are former combat pilots, others trained specifically for the task of killing designated people, bad guys we hope. They often watch a specific area for days looking for a chance to do their mayhem and in that process become familiar with families living there. They get to see them in their daily, mundane activities, parents interacting with their children, husbands and wives dealing with this and that so there is a sort of intimacy that develops.

Lest they kill promisculously, they try to do the job when the target's family is away. But, alas, unintended targets are often killed. Many justify thjeir behavior by correctly identifying that they are just doing their job. Others have bad feelings, at least if the army's concern to beef up mental health capacity for their pilots is evidence.

Lest you think this is a Marshall Dillon syndrome, the battle of Cannae produced the slaughter of about 45K defeated Roman soldiers. Reasonably, there was no way for Hannibal take that many prisoners so it was kill 'em all; in the event, it took asbout 8 hours to complete the deed. No doubt, after the fact, the Carthegenian troops felt exhausted and there is no mention of emotional distress.

All this tells us there is a flaw in the human animal which is exemplified by Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” Our capacity for empathy is limited and fragile; it is so easy to toss aside that it must have become separated from its evolutionary purpose. In less populated times, proto-humans and what finally became us lived in small groups probably led by a male who had the capacity to forstall challenges to his authority. With rather few people in his band each one would be precious to their somewhat precarious economy. For the good of all, incapacitated members had to be cared for, the prompt being the vicarious experience of their misery. Clearly, if you idenrtify with another's humanity you are unlikely to harm her/him, instead, would want to do some sort of repair. In mental health, this is somewhat disparagingly called a rescue fantasy.

With the agricultural revolution, the human population increased significantly and the more people (remember we evolved in small groups), the more strain on on the empathic impulse. Instead of resolving differences, warfair was invented and to go to war to kill the enemy required that impulse be rejected. Early Judeans said, “Thou shalt not murder,” but through mistranslation it became not kill. And, that was a problem because Christians took the commandments seriously and refused to join the army, and hat produced a hardship because of the multitude of religious wars. Finally, Augustine I think, had to define “just war” in which it was copacetic for Christians to join the slaughter.

It is curious, in our society with all its high tech communication that we seem to be losing our capacity to communicate. Our working vocabularies have diminished from 6,500 words to about 3,000 perhaps ultimately to be replaced by a sophisticated form of grunting. Social networking produces a multitude a “friends” as if that word is appropriate to the long-distance truncated sorts of relationships that are as empty as a used candy wrapper.

The less empathy, the easier it is to slaughter. Do we follow Cain's defense: “Am I my brother's keeper?” or do we heed John Donne: “Send not seek for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

If you want to be a good soldier

Toward others you must become colder

Do not let yourself feel

What to them is quite real

And get on with your job, which is slaughter.