‘we’ll also struggle to give a shit.’ 😂 Yes, I think that’s it, Jacquie. There’s something oddly sacred in caring about fictional characters and I suspect, if they’re authentically drawn, poor old mousy will always be lurking somewhere underhoof.
When I first read the excerpt, I struggled to make the connection precise, but with your guidance and your excellent anticipation of my misgivings I was able to see your point clearly. Then, as you proceeded to make your larger point, I found myself championing your words as they were delivered to me.
This reminded me of Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being where he writes:
“All languages that derive from Latin form the word “compassion” by combining the prefix meaning “with” (com-) and the root meaning “suffering” (Late Latin, passio). In other languages, Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish, for instance – this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefix combined with the word that means “feeling”.
In languages that derive from Latin, “compassion” means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, “pity”, connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. “To take pity on a woman” means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves.
That is why the word “compassion” generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.
In languages that form the word “compassion” not from the root “suffering” but from the word “feeling,” the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other’s misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion—joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit, współczucie, Mitgefühl, medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme.”
Over the last 15 years I’ve been trying to reconcile my own lack of what I would consider genuine sympathy in my younger years with the conflicting emotions I’m feeling now at 53. And there is definitely an element of fear involved. For me it’s a terrible sense of loneliness and estrangement, and shame for the way I was and the ones I’ve lost. I would never have imagined that my world would contract as much as it has and that all the friends I had for years and years would wither away to almost nought, much of it admittedly due to faults and shameful choices on my part. And now, here I am, able to count on one hand the people who genuinely enjoy my company and who are receptive to my own moments of grief and despair. Then, there are those who call me their “friend,” but engage me with tenterhooks anytime I’m around them, or who reach out to me via FaceTime once a year. 😒
But social media has also directly impacted this. It feels like Sympathy (with a capital “S”) has been trivialized because it must now be asserted, no matter how hollow, blatantly false, or dubiously sincere it might be, almost every day of our lives. If you do not affirm a sympathetic position on every news clip or fringe notion served up for your consideration, and if that position does not comply with what you are expected to assert, then you yourself are no longer an object of sympathy or compassion. And some would seem to imply that you should simply go away and never be heard from again. I’m not good at playing those kinds of games. When people tell me what I should say, I often responded with sallies or something so shocking (usually as a joke) because I can’t stand having words into my mouth. But even that is fraught with peril because a comment thrown out in jest is now twisted and thrown back at you in the form of a dart.
Through fiction I have been revisiting the ways I responded to the grief of others. I’ve done this by portraying characters that bear absolutely no relation to me, but have qualities that I remember being the qualities of others: straight conservative Austrian Catholics, female Indian astrophysicists, provincial Greek witches in the 1930s. And the problem now, is that we’re not supposed to write stories from such points of view unless we belong to those groups. What a boring prospect.
Regarding “The Secret Agent”, I read that back in 2000. I was really impressed with some of the contemporary qualities of the novel that you mention: the character running what was considered a pornography shop (photographs of ballerinas!), the Anarchist who wears a bomb and carries and India-rubber trigger in his hand wherever he goes. And I recall a coachman with a hook for a hand, which felt very proto-James Bondish to me.
Such a great essay!
‘we’ll also struggle to give a shit.’ 😂 Yes, I think that’s it, Jacquie. There’s something oddly sacred in caring about fictional characters and I suspect, if they’re authentically drawn, poor old mousy will always be lurking somewhere underhoof.
On a totally different topic, I loved your book Of Wind and Wolves. Waiting in great anticipation for the next one. Is it coming soon, JM?
When I first read the excerpt, I struggled to make the connection precise, but with your guidance and your excellent anticipation of my misgivings I was able to see your point clearly. Then, as you proceeded to make your larger point, I found myself championing your words as they were delivered to me.
This reminded me of Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being where he writes:
“All languages that derive from Latin form the word “compassion” by combining the prefix meaning “with” (com-) and the root meaning “suffering” (Late Latin, passio). In other languages, Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish, for instance – this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefix combined with the word that means “feeling”.
In languages that derive from Latin, “compassion” means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, “pity”, connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. “To take pity on a woman” means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves.
That is why the word “compassion” generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.
In languages that form the word “compassion” not from the root “suffering” but from the word “feeling,” the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other’s misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion—joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit, współczucie, Mitgefühl, medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme.”
Excellent essay as always.
Over the last 15 years I’ve been trying to reconcile my own lack of what I would consider genuine sympathy in my younger years with the conflicting emotions I’m feeling now at 53. And there is definitely an element of fear involved. For me it’s a terrible sense of loneliness and estrangement, and shame for the way I was and the ones I’ve lost. I would never have imagined that my world would contract as much as it has and that all the friends I had for years and years would wither away to almost nought, much of it admittedly due to faults and shameful choices on my part. And now, here I am, able to count on one hand the people who genuinely enjoy my company and who are receptive to my own moments of grief and despair. Then, there are those who call me their “friend,” but engage me with tenterhooks anytime I’m around them, or who reach out to me via FaceTime once a year. 😒
But social media has also directly impacted this. It feels like Sympathy (with a capital “S”) has been trivialized because it must now be asserted, no matter how hollow, blatantly false, or dubiously sincere it might be, almost every day of our lives. If you do not affirm a sympathetic position on every news clip or fringe notion served up for your consideration, and if that position does not comply with what you are expected to assert, then you yourself are no longer an object of sympathy or compassion. And some would seem to imply that you should simply go away and never be heard from again. I’m not good at playing those kinds of games. When people tell me what I should say, I often responded with sallies or something so shocking (usually as a joke) because I can’t stand having words into my mouth. But even that is fraught with peril because a comment thrown out in jest is now twisted and thrown back at you in the form of a dart.
Through fiction I have been revisiting the ways I responded to the grief of others. I’ve done this by portraying characters that bear absolutely no relation to me, but have qualities that I remember being the qualities of others: straight conservative Austrian Catholics, female Indian astrophysicists, provincial Greek witches in the 1930s. And the problem now, is that we’re not supposed to write stories from such points of view unless we belong to those groups. What a boring prospect.
Regarding “The Secret Agent”, I read that back in 2000. I was really impressed with some of the contemporary qualities of the novel that you mention: the character running what was considered a pornography shop (photographs of ballerinas!), the Anarchist who wears a bomb and carries and India-rubber trigger in his hand wherever he goes. And I recall a coachman with a hook for a hand, which felt very proto-James Bondish to me.