Social Empathy in Action

One of the principles behind social empathy is that deep understanding of larger social issues can move a person to work towards changes that impact large groups of people. It is empathy on a large scale. Over the past couple of weeks, we watched an example of social empathy in action, seeing it unfold in real time.*

A brand-new member of the United States Congress, Representative Cori Bush, spent time in her life experiencing being evicted and living without a permanent home. She expressed this understanding in her speeches and most significantly in taking it to a demonstration on the steps of the Capitol. Sleeping sitting upright because lying down would be considering loitering and the police could remove her, she spent several nights camped out on the Capitol steps. She was calling for political leaders to do something about the impending end of the eviction moratorium that was put in place to help people during the economic stress of the pandemic. As there is still economic stress, especially given the unfortunate fact that billions of dollars authorized to help people with back rent is languishing in bureaucratic messes among the states, she called for action.

Source: E. A. Segal

Using both her understanding of the personal crisis and the workings of government, she stressed that the money is there to help people but not being used. With the deadline of August 1st that removed the protection from eviction looming and then passing, nothing was being done to fix the problem. Enter Congresswoman Cori Bush, personally all too familiar with the pain of eviction. She took the problem to the public, and it worked. She got the Biden administration to move on passing an Executive Order that would extend the protections from eviction in those areas impacted by the pandemic (which includes about 90 percent of the country).

Social Empathy Can Create Social Change

I know there is a policy wonkiness to this issue that may have made it difficult to follow. So let’s drill down to the bottom line in terms of making social change. This action was an example where social empathy created the momentum to focus public attention, and lawmakers’ attention, on a very real problem affecting ordinary people: eviction. It is a problem that not one member of Congress or the executive branch lives with in their current lives, and likely most have never contended with the threat of eviction at any point in their lives. But for that person who understands deeply what it means to experience eviction, it is a personal empathic insight. To elevate it to a higher level and call the entire country to pay attention, that is the power of social empathy.

We have other examples of social empathy used to impact public policy-making, some are large and some are small. But we don’t have examples that appear often enough. With so few examples in real time, I wanted to be sure to mark this occasion.