In Jeremy Rifkin’s important new
book, The Empathic Civilization, he
recalls an event from 1914 he believes still has great potential meaning and
insight for our lives. At Christmas in 1914, great armies of Germany and France
were engaged in some of the most awful battle experiences ever known to mankind.
This was the time of trench warfare, no-man’s lands, and poison gas warfare. Never
had pure horror on this level ever existed.
Yet, Rifkin recalls how on Christmas
morning of that year, white flags of truce began to appear on the edges of the
trenches, and fighting men began to tentatively edge their way toward each
other’s battle lines. This time however, there were no weapons—only various
items of food and drink, and a few soccer balls. Throughout the day, archenemies
sang, ate, and played games together. They shared pictures of loved ones, and
talked about plans for war’s end. It was a remarkable and exceptional moment in
time.
Rifkin says this glorious moment
took place because these heroic soldiers—in spite of what their commanders were
ordering—chose to be human! I believe
Rifkin is seeing a distinctly important and vital element of our existence. Being
human is a choice, a consequence of judgment. Being human is not something that simply occurs because we are homo sapiens.
We enter into a situation, see the dynamics of the situation, determine what is
the best we can do in the situation, and then make judgments. The virtue of
these soldiers is seen in the goodness of their judgments. True heroism appears
when they defy commanders, and step out onto battlefields with entirely new and
different intent.
In Rifkin’s concepts, he makes a
distinction between “sympathy” and “empathy.” When we are “sympathetic,” we are
having a conceptual engagement with
other people where we rationally attempt to understand what is going on in
their lives. Then, when we are “empathetic,” we actualize in reality what we have conceived in our minds. Many
people are capable of conceptualization, but moving to actualization is where
the real differences of life are made.
Within the context of the Judgment Index, we can actually measure a
person’s capacity for both conceptualization and actualization regarding three
important areas of judgement – people/relationships, tasks, and the big picture.
A study of the people/relationship component will show a precise measure of the
movement from “sympathy” to “empathy” that Rifkin is describing. The soldiers
moved from “sympathy” to “empathy” and created a moment of true humanity in the
midst of an awful battlefield. We find that many people are much better at
conceptualization than they are actualization.
In one of the most important
statements in his book, Rifken states: “Without a well-developed concept of
selfhood, however, mature empathic expression would be impossible.” Contemplate
this statement for a few minutes. Its insight is remarkable. Here, we see the
essential insight of Robert S. Hartman that the work-side of what we do always stands on the pedestal
of the self-side of who we are. We will
never be as good at what we do until the potential of who we are is realized at
its highest level.
Across decades of our work, we have consistently
seen that the work-side tends to be stronger—even significantly stronger—than
the self-side. Our greater work is not to build people who are stronger in the
judgment needed to advance task performance, although advancing task performance
is always important. Our greater work is to build people who are stronger in
the judgment needed to advance personal understanding, self-awareness, and
personal growth and development.
The critical issue is that the
relationship between work and self is often discounted in importance. Leaders
in business and industry see a strong self-side as something nice to have, but
that it is a “soft side” issue to be taken care of at home or in church. Truly
enlightened leaders will see self-side development as both the right thing to
do, and as a strategic endeavor that can do nothing but bring positive strength
to any work agenda.
Work is always done by human beings. The best work will rise in
the context of work cultures that advance human
life. Fully human individuals
will advance accomplishment and contribution at the highest levels. Even in the
midst of awful battle, people can stop a war for a moment and celebrate each
other. People can choose to be human, and
a world can begin to show a potential for change. Yes, the soldiers would go
back to battle, but their lives would never be the same.