Ghandi and MLK DB

The fine line between sympathy and compassion blurs when people use the terms interchangeably. Both are emotions of concern and caring, but the respective subtle connotations create slightly different meanings. To me, sympathy implies a certain amount of pity. When someone is sympathetic, he or she unconsciously puts up a shield from the emotions of others and secretly is grateful that the problem is not his or hers. In life and in movies one may hear an angry outburst of people saying, “I don’t want your sympathy!” Perhaps sympathy is not always the most desirable healing or comforting state of emotion. It may lack a certain solidarity created through understanding emotions. Regardless of such implications, “sympathy” is defined as an “agreement in qualities [and] conformity of feeling” (Sympathy 128).

I had difficulty distinguishing the difference between sympathy and compassion, and the definitions in the course anthology seemed almost transposable. Yet I believe the major difference is the degree of unity implied in each term. Compassion, more so than sympathy, means “suffering together with another”(Compassion 126). It involves a greater emotional connection between individuals in that it bridges the gap between universal experience and personal experience. Physical action is not necessary for compassion, and silence is recognized as a way to communicate. Furthermore, I think that compassion does not support the same barrier that sympathy raises because it means that people actually experience, rather than simply agree with, an emotion. I am not saying that sympathy is not a necessary response; I just mean that compassion has a more involved undertone since compassionate people want to help others in their suffering rather than distance themselves from it.

((This movie poster visually illustrates the idea of seeing through others eyes, http://thecia.com.au/reviews/v/images/vantage-point-poster-0.jpg))
Nevertheless, if you add imagination to sympathy, you get a sentiment and a way of thinking that goes beyond both sympathy and compassion. As Walter Bate points out, “imagination projects us into [others’] vantage points” (Bate 130) and thus removes the separation I explained in my first definition of sympathy. With a sympathetic imagination, we can temporarily come into complete unity and identification with an object.

((An example of a literal bank that King refers to metaphorically, http://www.illinoishistory.gov/hs/images/guide/shawneetown_bank_02.jpg))
Upon finding such communion, I think violence and limited justice become senseless. In Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech, King extends this need for ahimsa and equal justice to the entire United States when he states that “we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt” (King 121). Using the metaphor of a bank, King implies that justice is as imperative as money. It creates harmony between the backbone of America (money) and the universal ideas of equality and non-violence.

The religious texts across cultures have identified similar values of solidarity discovered through the sympathetic imagination. Christians use their sympathetic imaginations to understand the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus and many teachings on morals. Similarly, the Qur’an preaches that “those who are patient in misfortune, affliction, and hardship—such are the people of the truth” (Qur’an 2:177, 59). If we can work through hard times by accepting compassion from others, by using sympathetic imagination, then we can live more sincere lives. Even Hindu texts recognize the value in identifying with others motives and emotions since “he who can see inaction in action, and action in inaction, is the wisest among men”(Bhagavad Gita 35). Thus, compassion and sympathy seem to reach the realm of universality. Through the sympathetic imagination, values in diversity can be better understood.