Empathy is perhaps the one thing of value in this world that is not subject to limitations of scarcity.
Despite the supposed low degree of effort needed to empathize with others, humans do not find empathy as naturally as they arguably should.
Normally we are perfectly able to do the obvious in order to ensure everyone’s wellbeing. For example, being sensitive to each other’s identities, not voting incompetent people into power, or not paying to watch the Star Wars sequel trilogy, or…you know what never mind.
Regardless of whether or not we make the effort to carry out our societal duties, empathy at the very least should be doable.
It does not cost anything to show some compassion. The two things in question, people experiencing hard times and others showing compassion toward them, are not isolated. The latter has a direct effect on resolving or exacerbating the former.
The question then becomes, where are we, the university-goers, left? As individuals who are effectively training for their future roles in society, what should our responsibility be toward those in need? To extrapolate this further, what is our responsibility with regards to major global events happening around us?
As Putin attempts to wreak havoc in Ukraine, it’s more relevant than ever to ask ourselves this question. Which is exactly what we did.
The Survey
Participants were presented with a simple, four-question survey. The number of questions was kept low to account for the inevitability of people not caring if it were higher. We asked the following:
- Do you care about world events?
- How do you feel about Ukraine?
- What have you done about it?
- Do you think your answer to 3) is enough?
What is the stance of our student body toward everything happening in the world right now?
For 4.2 % of the participants, the answer was a flat no when asked if they cared about world events. The other 96.8 % however, were willing to spare a thought.
The next question helped shed a bit more light on the initial premise for this survey. When asked how they felt about Ukraine, 33.3% answered upset, while 22.9% said they were angry. This was considerably higher than “I don’t know enough” (2.1%), “unsure” (14.6%) and “helpless” (16.7%).
It would not be farfetched to argue that anger and sadness are closer to empathy than confusion, helplessness and lack of concern. Though no such objective scale to measure this actually exists.
The responses to the third question were slightly contradictory to the rest. Here, over 52% said they felt world events were beyond their control and hence they chose to do nothing.
Over 12%, using the “other” option, stated a variety of reasons which prevented them from doing anything. These ranged from fears of repercussions at work to a lack of knowledge of the whole situation.
While the responses to question 2 suggested most experienced strong emotions toward world events, this one showcases an unwillingness to act on them. We can see, not because of a lack of desire, but because of personal concerns and a lack of idea on how to. It is worth noting that the option with the second-highest number of selections was sharing information on social media. This indicates that if given the option and guarantee of safety, most are still willing to try and play an active role in tackling the situation.
Finally, we asked people if they felt what they were doing was enough. It came as no surprise that not a single individual said yes. 61.4% said no, while 31.4% believed it was the most they could do. A small minority answered “it’s all I want to do”, seemingly implying a limit to the extent of their empathy showing through real-world actions.
So what is the ultimate meaning behind it all? The very least we can establish from this is that people do care, they feel for others going through some terrible injustice like the Ukrainians are right now.
However, in a world dominated by bureaucracy and material needs, the average young person, simply may not have the means or freedom to engage in many meaningful acts.
When we break this question down to its fundamental components, empathy isn’t that simple of a concept.
A more accurate description of empathy would be that it’s a process, with multiple components starting from emotional recognition of a problem, to taking part in physical acts to help resolve it. As such, an individual will differ in their ability and capacity to exercise each individual component.
Most people are able to accept when something is immoral, though doing something about it requires resources, a guarantee of safety, and of course, willingness to face the consequences should they choose to act.