Empathy, Accountability And Snow
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 28, 2010
Over the past couple of days, the northeast has been pounded by a blizzard. We've been hearing reports of mainly snowfall between 8 and 12 inches, although a few places have had more than that.
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As strange as this might seem to the masses, it's hard for anyone living in my area to have much empathy for places that rarely get the kind of snow we regularly get here in the Syracuse area. We hear 12 inches and say "yeah, what's that?" At the beginning of this month we had 54 inches and 98 straight hours of snow, and the day after it ended our roads were clear and life seemed as normal as any other day.
We've had a lot of fun with this topic locally, and the truth is that other places aren't quite as equipped as we are for snow removal. I've read where some communities didn't even have their own plows; that will mess up snow removal, for sure. They don't have salt or sand to put down on the roads, or so little that it barely makes a difference.
Frankly, I'm a little surprised at that. Over the last few years, there has been nothing but talk about coastal snowstorms, ice storms, and many canceled flights. One would think that someone would have gotten the message by now that weather happens, and that these communities should be prepared in some fashion to at least have a fighting chance against inclement weather. I'm sure it was at least considered when they were putting their budgets together, yet for some reason they decided it wasn't important enough to prepare for something they knew could happen, if not this year then possibly the next.
At the same time, sometimes I wonder about the ability to empathize with others when things like this come up. We can get into the comparison mode and see something that doesn't bother us much troubling someone else a lot and wonder about their fortitude. Even though I've had some fun with this particular storm myself, I remember driving back from a meeting 9 years ago from Virginia through Maryland in an ice storm, and for much of it I was the only person on the road, driving very slowly and knowing I was on my own because there were no rescue vehicles that were going to come save me if something went wrong. Living where I do, I knew how to drive in the conditions I was dealing with, but it was still a very dangerous trek, one that, in retrospect, I shouldn't have even undertaken.
Our levels of empathy seem to be driven by our own circumstances, good or bad. If someone had a pet that passed away, we either feel for them because we can imagine that happening to us, or have no feeling whatsoever because, after all, it's "just a pet" and we don't have one. It might be a parent that's passed away and we feel the pain, or we don't because we never knew our parents all that well, or we have other problems to deal with instead of yours. Or it may be the accountability factor, such as someone getting arrested for DWI and we're smug because we don't drink and we know everyone knows the rules about drinking and driving.
There are indeed different levels of empathy, but there's only one level of accountability, and that's just to be accountable. If you were accountable and something bad happens anyway, and it was worse than could be imagined, you can bet that everyone will be on your side. If you weren't accountable, or ignored the obvious, you're probably going to suffer some type of derision. It happens to the best of us.
But if you're on the end where you have to decide how empathetic to be, one can only hope that you'll know when to show empathy and when you can have a little bit of fun at someone else's expense. As far as this blizzard goes... wusses. 😉
Mitch, if you believe what Meyers-Briggs says about INFJ personality types (like me), empathy is not so much a choice of attitude as it is a level of interpersonal connectedness.
My own opinion is that my empathy transcends my rationalism. That is, I still feel pain for the drunk driver who gets pulled over because, at some level, I recognize that the person suffers from a disease.
As for snow, empathy and personal experience probably cover the spectrum as you point out.
You can probably relate to John Garrett, but would you call him a wuss? He hates winter but he deals with it. 🙂 I know you’ve called me a wuss about snow and I’m okay with that. I hate it and I hate dealing with it.
Cheers,
Mitch
Nah, he lives in a place with inclement weather so he has a right to gripe. I do as well, but I actually don’t mind all the snow, and I’ve lived in worse conditions as well.
It’s not bad having your empathy transcend your rationalism, as long as you still agree with the criminality or the bad act being, well, criminal or a bad act. Me, well, I’ve often written here that sometimes people bring things upon themselves unnecessarily, and in the case of a drunk driver, I tend to follow that one, even if I acknowledge that it doesn’t make them a bad person.
Having worked as a civilian in a Police Department that is known for a legacy of brutality, rationalism gets short shrift.
The criminalization of drunk driving is certainly not in question, there are too many tragic events surrounding this negligent practice. What hurts me, emphatically, is the idea that the arrestee is as much of a victim as any person saddled with a socially derided disease.
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitch, I have to say I don’t share that same empathy. Maybe a one time mistake, possibly, but usually if someone drives drunk they’ve done it before and were able to get away with it. There are some folks who you just wonder why they’re not in jail for a long time; we had a local thing a few months ago where in two days this guy drove into a restaurant then drove off the road the next day in another community, and we learned he’d been arrested 4 or 5 times previously for the same type of thing. That’s just wrong on all fronts.
I agree that nothing excuses criminal behavior. Some folks don’t want to be helped. And, there are some folks we’ll never get close enough to in order to help! As Richard Pryor said, “Thank god for penitentiaries!”
Hopefully, the first-time offenders can get the help they need so that they don’t pose a threat to themselves and others.
Cheers,
Mitch
Great points as always, Mitch. This snow season keeps the media talking about every community’s accumulation totals, encouraging people to try and out-snowfall everyone else.
Another point about empathy is that some people simply don’t know what to say and blurt out whatever comes to mind first, which ends up being worse than not saying anything.
These are the times we live in, so if someone says something that seems inappropriate, it’s best to take the high road, recognizing that the person wasn’t schooled about etiquette, as so many are not.
True Shirley. Actually, we have lots of fun with it, but directly I’d never gloat over someone else’s pain. There was the one shot of this couple’s home where the weather had actually blown their door open while they were out of town and their house was full of snow before one of their neighbors saw it. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Hi Mitch
As I swelter in the heat; I watch on in amazement at all that snow! Having lived in the UK I have experienced it but each year everyone seemed amazed when it arrived….so unprepared and moaning about it all.
As an Aussie I could smile as I knew I was coming home to warmer climes for the holidays 🙂
I tend to be more like the other Mitch in regards to empathy. Can get me in some scrapes as I agree with you about accountability and as a nurse have seen the end results of a lot of irresponsible acts. I have excused too much bad behaviour in others in the past.
Hopefully my discernment is a little more acute as I have gotten older. And it’s amazing that as I don’t get taken in so easily that a lot of those same people are no longer around in my life. Seem to be surrounded by some really great blogging buddies these days and people who take responsbility for their actions. Way to go I would say 🙂
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Pat. You know, I don’t have a lot of empathy for bad behavior, but most of the time I don’t have a lot of condemnation for it either. If someone else gets hurt because of the behavior, I might be bothered by it. But what people do to themselves is their right, no matter how stupid it might be.
I’ve written often here that people can do whatever they want to do as long as they’re ready to accept the consequences of their actions. If those consequences end up putting you in jail or getting you in trouble, so be it. It’s like the risk you and I take every time we write a blog post; we never really know how someone is going to react or what they might say about it.
And we do seem to have a great group of bloggers in our community, don’t we?