On Empathy, and Reflecting on the World Humanist Congress
By Janalee Morris, Executive Director, Humanist Canada
Last month, hundreds of humanists from around the world came together with a shared vision of a humanity that can do better. Yes, the speakers were all amazing. But the true value of such a gathering is the people — the human connections — that forge partnerships that make us all stronger. And those partnerships are rooted in empathy, for one another, for our fellow humans who inhabit this planet. We care deeply about issues of human rights and democracy because we have empathy for one another. As Fish Stark put it so simply: “Science tells us what is true, empathy tells us what is right.”
I recently read an article called “The 3 Types of Empathy and How to Increase Them in Your Relationships,” which defines empathy as “the capacity to experience the emotional state of another person” and describes three kinds: cognitive (intellectual understanding), emotional (sharing emotions), and compassionate (seeking to improve someone’s situation). As humanists, we need to master all three. Later in the piece, sociologist Sherry Turkle is quoted:
“Empathy is a democracy’s job… At the end of empathy, people are not supposed to agree with each other. You’re supposed to have listened to each other, and be willing to share a bit of road with another person [and] find a way to make peace so [we] can live in real life with each other in a democratic community.”
A Bag of Spilled Pens
On my way home through the Ottawa airport, I was struggling to check in two giant bags that had somehow ended up fuller than when I arrived (it may have had something to do with some leftover bags of Cheezies…). I was rearranging items to avoid extra baggage charges when a giant container of Humanist Canada pens spilled all over the airport floor.
A lovely woman standing behind me in line came to help me pick them up, and we got to chatting. Turns out we had a lot in common. Margo runs an organization in Calgary called InceptionU, whose tagline is “Be meaningful, not mechanical.” They celebrate humanity and creativity, and are, essentially, a humanist organization working to resist the narrative that business must put profit before people. Her kind act, rooted in empathy, has led to an ongoing conversation about how humanist values can resonate in business spaces.
The Three Empathies of the Congress
During the World Humanist Congress, we listened with cognitive empathy to understand the issues facing our partners from around the world. We felt emotional empathy as people shared their stories of struggle and discrimination, and of the corrosive effects of authoritarianism and anti-democratic movements taking hold. And now, our task is to embody that third kind — compassionate empathy — in the actions we take moving forward.
That is the kind of empathy my new friend Margo showed me in the airport, as she knelt on the floor to help me retrieve my lost pens. That’s what I call on you to show — as Louis O’Reilly, Vice President of Humanist Canada, said, “We need your time, your talent, and your treasure.”
Mattering, Equally and Without Exception
In her opening keynote, Rebecca Goldstein reminded us that all humans “morally matter and exactly to the same degree,” and that this mattering doesn’t depend on bloodline, creed, or permission from a throne or altar. She argued that every person’s right to flourish can be defended on purely secular grounds — through our capacity for self-reflection, and our ability to give and weigh reasons together, binding ourselves to one another in a common pursuit of the good. (Read more from Rebecca Goldstein here.)
This very humanist principle is itself rooted in empathy — that ability to imagine every human’s joy and suffering as if it were your own.
That is what I carry home from this Congress: not just ideas, but the felt sense of what it means to share a bit of road with one another. Let’s keep walking it together.