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This is a rewrite of Jamila McCoy? 's paper. | | | A Moving Experience in Bangalore | |
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< | As my friends and I shuffled through the crowds on MG Road, I was approached by three shoeless children with disheveled hair, smudged faces, and tattered clothing. I was drinking bubble tea as I browsed through the shops on a Saturday. After spending two months in Bangalore, I had grown somewhat accustomed to street children. Even though I knew it would not really matter, I gave them a few rupees and kept walking. The children followed me down the block, only now there were more pitiful looking children, and they surrounded me, all asking for money. One girl was shirtless, with large scars on her chest and on her hairless head. The children tugged at my clothes, and suddenly they bent down and began touching my feet. As all of this was happening, I stood rooted to the ground in shock, bubble tea in one hand and my purse hanging in the crook of my arm. Then, one of the boys took my bubble tea and started drinking it; when the other children noticed, they began to fight him for the tea. At that I felt so sad and powerless that I broke down in tears. I walked into a shop to buy bags of packaged snacks; when I brought them out, the children quickly took the snacks and began to fight amongst themselves over who got what. | >
> | As my friends and I shuffled through the crowds on MG Road, I was approached by three shoeless children with disheveled hair, smudged faces, and tattered clothing. I was drinking bubble tea as I browsed through the shops on a Saturday. After spending two months in Bangalore, I had grown somewhat accustomed to street children. Even though I knew it would not really matter, I gave them a few rupees and kept walking. The children followed me down the block, only now there were more pitiful looking children, and they surrounded me, all asking for money. One girl was shirtless, with large scars on her chest and on her hairless head. The children tugged at my clothes, and suddenly they bent down and began touching my feet. As all of this was happening, I stood rooted to the ground in shock, bubble tea in one hand, my purse hanging in the crook of my arm. Then, one of the boys took my bubble tea and started drinking it; when the other children noticed, they began to fight him for the tea. At that I felt so sad and powerless that I broke down in tears. I walked into a shop to buy bags of packaged snacks; when I brought them out, the children quickly took the snacks and began to fight amongst themselves over who got what. | | | As I watched the children argue, I felt like garbage. How could my friends and coworkers, members of the burgeoning Indian middle class, tolerate such pervasive poverty? | | | Vicarious Anger and Empathy are Motivating Factors for the Social Activist Lawyer | |
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< | Vicarious anger, according to Strawson, is moral anger. We expect others to receive the same respect that we would like to receive ourselves, and when they don’t, we feel “moral indignation” on their behalves (18). When combined with a strong sense of empathy, moral anger is an important tool for a social activist. As Heinz Kohut explains in* How does Analysis Cure?,* empathy is being able to “think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person” (link textp. 82). As an attorney advocating for social change, seeing through the eyes of a group both motivates and helps one understand what is needed and why it is needed. Vicarious anger prompted by a group’s situation is both facilitated by empathy (one is more likely to become angered if one can put oneself into another’s shoes) and facilitative of empathy, insofar as it can motivate the attorney to fight for the social change she desires. | >
> | Vicarious anger, according to Strawson, is moral anger. We expect others to receive the same respect that we would like to receive ourselves, and when they don’t, we feel “moral indignation” on their behalves (18). When combined with a strong sense of empathy, moral anger is an important tool for a social activist. As Heinz Kohut explains in "How does Analysis Cure?," empathy is being able to “think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person” (link text p. 82). As an attorney advocating for social change, seeing through the eyes of a group both motivates and helps one understand what is needed and why it is needed. Vicarious anger prompted by a group’s situation is both facilitated by empathy (one is more likely to become angered if one can put oneself into another’s shoes) and facilitative of empathy, insofar as it can motivate the attorney to fight for the social change she desires. | | | Vicarious Anger and Empathy Are Not Enough |
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