We are all familiar with the word “empathy”, but few know the name of the radical woman who introduced this word into the English language.
Violet Paget (1856 – 1935) was a Victorian writer who published under the pseudonym Vernon Lee and is known as one of the most intelligent women in Europe. She coined the term “empathy” after noticing how absorbed her partner Clementine Anstruther-Thompson was contemplating the painting.
According to Lee, Clementine “felt at ease” with the painting. To describe this process, Li used the German term einfuhlung and introduced the word “empathy” into the English language.
Lee’s ideas resonate strongly with today’s growing interest in how empathy relates to creativity. Developing your own creativity is one way to understand yourself and others. In the 19th century, the poetic term “moral imagination” was used for this process.
To imagine means to form a mental image, to think, to believe, to dream, to portray. This is both an idea and an ideal. Our dreams can take us from small acts of empathy to a noble vision of equality and justice. Imagination kindles the flame: it connects us to our creativity, our life force. In a world of growing global conflict, imagination is more important than ever.
“The great instrument of the moral good is the imagination,” wrote the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in his A Defense of Poetry (1840).
The moral imagination is creative. It helps us find better ways of being. It is a form of empathy that encourages us to be kinder and love ourselves and each other. “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty; that is all we know and need to know,” wrote the poet John Keats. “I am not sure of anything but the holiness of the affections of the heart and the truth of the imagination.”
Our moral imagination can connect us with everything that is true and beautiful in the world, in ourselves and in each other. “All worthy things, all worthy deeds, all worthy thoughts are works of art or imagination,” wrote William Butler Yeats in an introduction to the poetry of William Blake.
Shelley believed that we can strengthen our moral imagination skills “in the same way that exercise strengthens our bodies.”
Training the Moral Imagination
We can all engage in special exercises for the development of moral imagination.
Start reading poetry. Whether you read it online or find a dusty old book at home, Shelley claimed that poetry can “awaken and expand the mind itself, making it a receptacle for thousands of incomprehensible combinations of thought.” It is “the most reliable herald, companion and follower of the awakening of great men for a beneficial change of mind.”
Re-read. In her book Hortus Vitae (1903), Lee wrote:
“The greatest pleasure in reading lies in rereading. Sometimes it’s almost not even reading, but just thinking through and feeling what is inside the book, or what came out of it a long time ago and settled in the mind or heart.”
Alternatively, more active “mindful reading” can engender critical empathy, a deliberate method of thinking designed to be value neutral.
Watch movies. Touch the magic of creativity through cinema. Regularly relax with a good movie to gain strength – and do not be afraid that this will turn you into a couch potato. Writer Ursula Le Guin suggests that while viewing a story on a screen is a passive exercise, it still draws us into another world in which we can imagine ourselves for a while.
Let the music guide you. While music may be wordless, it also develops empathy in us. According to a recent study published in Frontiers magazine, “music is a portal to the inner world of others.”
Dance can also help develop what is known as “kinesthetic empathy.” Spectators can internally imitate the dancers and or model their movements.
Finally, give vent to your own creative flow. It doesn’t matter what your skills are. Whether it’s painting, writing, making music, singing, dancing, crafts, “only the imagination can hasten the existence of something that remains hidden,” wrote poet Emily Dickinson.
Art consists of this alchemical, transformative process. Creativity helps us find new, true, better ways of being. “We can be creative—imagining and eventually creating something that isn’t there yet,” wrote Mary Richards, author of Opening Our Moral Eye.
Author Brené Brown, a popularizer of empathy today, argues that creativity is essential to “living from the heart.” Whether it’s a painting or a patchwork quilt, when we create something we step into the future, we believe in the destiny of our own creations. We learn to trust that we can create our own reality.
Don’t be afraid to imagine and create!