Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves

How Art Shapes Empathy

Mary W. McCampbell, Mary W. McCampbell

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781506473901
• eBook ISBN: 9781506473918
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism

Anyone reading comments in online spaces is often confronted with a collective cultural loss of empathy. This profound loss is directly related to the inability to imagine the life and circumstances of the other. Our malnourished capacity for empathy is connected to an equally malnourished imagination. In order to truly love and welcome others, we need to exercise our imaginations, to see our neighbors more as God sees them than as confined by our own inadequate and ungracious labels. We need stories that can convict us about our own sins of omission or commission, enabling us to see the beautiful, complex world of our neighbors as we look beyond ourselves.

In this book, Mary McCampbell looks at how narrative art--whether literature, film, television, or popular music--expands our imaginations and, in so doing, emboldens our ability to love our neighbors as ourselves. The prophetic artists in these pages--Graham Greene, Toni Morrison, and Flannery O'Connor among them--show through the form and content of their narrative craft that in order to love, we must be able to effectively imagine the lives of others. But even though we have these rich opportunities to grow emotionally and spiritually, we have been culturally trained as consumers to treat our practice of reading, watching, and listening as mere acts of consumption.

McCampbell instead insists that truly engaging with artists who have the prophetic capacity to create art that wakes us up can jolt us from our typically self-concerned spiritual stupors. She focuses on narrative art as a means of embodiment and an invitation to participation, hospitality, and empathy. Reading, seeing, or listening to the story of someone seemingly different from us can awaken us to the very real spiritual similarities between human beings. The intentionality that it takes to surrender a bit of our own default self-centeredness is an act of spiritual formation. Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves presents a journey through initial self-reflection to a richer, more compassionate look outward, as narrative empowers us to exercise our imaginations for the sake of expanding our capacity for empathy.

Chapter One

Art as a Model for the Empathetic Imagination

HOW STORIES REFLECT OUR LONGINGS

In her reflections on writing “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” O’Connor reminds us that the real heart of writing is found in the “lines of spiritual motion” that mold and reveal the hearts of her characters—lines that are “usually invisible.”1 In light of this, she cautions us against “misreading” her most well-known story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” by looking for and at the wrong things: “And in this story you should be on the lookout for such things as the action of grace in the grandmother’s soul, and not for the dead bodies.”2 O’Connor is referencing our cultural training to crave sensation and focus merely on the rudimentary, visible plot rather than seeking to lift the veil that discloses the invisible, yet most real, spiritual dimension. The form of any traditional narrative invites readers and viewers on a journey that leads us to a final disclosure of truth and meaning. Our desire for an ending is an eschatological one as we lean toward the promise of both resolution and revelation.3 These moments of final disclosure are directly related to either a change in a character or a change in our perception of a character. Without this, we would have no stories. Although we have been conditioned by many mainstream blockbuster movies (and other forms of streamlined entertainment) to focus on special effects and pretty faces, the real meat of any worthy story lies in the reader/viewer’s deepened understanding of the motives and morality of a character that leads to change, conflict, or stasis.

In O’Connor’s work, violence often precedes these moments of deepened understanding, shocking both her characters and her readers into an apocalyptic moment of self-exposure and discovery of the earthly and heavenly Other. The most important character changes in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” are not the deaths of its secondary characters but the shifting internal landscapes of both the grandmother and The Misfit. These characters, like the story’s readers, have had their spiritual sensitivities numbed—so much so that sin, be it the grandmother’s religious hypocrisy or The Misfit’s nihilism, has become normalized. Regarding this instance and many others, O’Connor famously says that “you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”4 The artist must make the invisible—the truly important spiritual lines of reality—visible by shocking us into attentiveness.

O’Connor’s storytelling methods, both her construction of plot and her development of eccentric characters, are wonderfully stylized and extreme. But not all stories use literal violence to lead us to the final moment of revelation. On some level, however, a sort of violence, dissonance, and disruption must occur in the form of an internal or external conflict that leads to character change. Like the reader, a character must be shaken up, disrupted, perhaps even forced into seeing a new reality or state of being. And these various forms of character change guide readers into unexpected revelations about the characters.

Perhaps every viewer has watched a television show, made initial judgments about which characters she did or did not like, and then become deeply stirred upon learning their backstories and witnessing unexpected behavior. I remember when several of my most culturally savvy friends recommended the television series Friday Night Lights to me, and I could not imagine having any interest in a show about a high school football coach, his players, his family, and the small town that sees Friday-night football as an essential component of the good life. This all seemed so familiar, so boring, so shallow. My own high school’s football team won state championships under the guidance of my best friend’s father, a decorated and highly respected coach. Although I did attend one football game my freshman year, eager to ascend the high school hierarchy by showing my support of the untouchable players and their bubbly cheerleader girlfriends, my attentions and allegiances soon switched to makeshift punk rock shows, wearing all black, and boycotting all things relating to high school football and school spirit. Because of this, I thought that I knew the people depicted in Friday Night Lights, and my childish high school prejudices seeped into my adult perceptions of both people and art. Even so, I took the plunge and soon fell in love with the Taylor family and participated in their growth as I, along with Coach and Tammy Taylor, learned the painful backstory of the annoyingly Byronic Tim Riggins; discovered that Tara, the popular bad girl, just wanted to be unconditionally loved; and so on.5 Watching this show and growing to love these characters truly convicted me. As much as popular, white, suburban folks are certainly not often thought of as unfairly othered in contemporary American society, they had been othered for a long time in my own mind. I had forgotten to remember that God’s image resides within them in their status as complex, glorious human beings. Friday Night Lights, a masterfully drawn portrait of beautiful yet broken small-town Texas inhabitants, is just one example of the way the narrative structure of a good work of art teaches us how to be more patient, understanding, empathetic, and loving.

Like O’Connor’s seminal story and Friday Night Lights, there are many works of art that go beyond just asking us to empathize with their characters. They provide a parabolic model for the practice of empathy, illustrating intent, action, and final impact. Central characters in works of art as seemingly disparate as the nineteenth-century poem “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” contemporary films A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Lars and the Real Girl, and minimalist short story “A Small, Good Thing” each model the act of sacrificially loving their neighbors as themselves, taking us step by step through the sometimes painful yet always redemptive process. In looking closely at each of these, we can see how engaging these transformative stories can be a means to love.

“THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON”

The classic Coleridge poem “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” is a primer on the transformation of the imagination for good rather than evil. If all would take time to read, contemplate, and act upon the deeply Christian assertions of this poem, perhaps conversation would be more kind, productive, and loving. Coleridge’s poem is a short narrative that instructs readers how to follow what Christ deemed the second most important commandment, to “love your neighbor as yourself.”6 Coleridge uses the poetic form to take us into his own mind, making himself vulnerable as he exposes his tendency toward envy, resentment, and even hate. This focus on the truth of a selfish yet very human knee-jerk response allows us to bear witness to his change of mind and heart as he begins to see his neighbor through the eyes of empathetic love. In loving his neighbor with a transformed imagination, he is also learning how to better love God.

In a note directly preceding Coleridge’s poem, he writes that his dear friends Charles and Mary Lamb had come from London to visit him in the Lake District. The poet spent joyful hours mapping out their adventures together, yet shortly before his friends’ arrival, he had an accident and injured his leg, preventing him from going on their shared outing. Instead, he is left alone to ponder his misfortune, albeit in a glorious setting that he fails to notice. The more he imagines his friends’ explorations, the more resentful and self-pitying he becomes, and we soon see the famous Romantic poet in his most raw emo phase. “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” is a record of Coleridge’s emotional and spiritual journey as he moves from anger to contemplation, to wonder, to love.

The poem has a wonderfully whiny start as Coleridge shows readers the power that emotion (in this case, bitterness and anger) has on human perception: “Well, they are gone, and here I must remain, / This lime-tree bower my prison!”7 Although a lime-tree bower (in the British Lake District, no less) is traditionally associated with the idyllic rather than the carceral, the pouting poet sees it through distorted lenses of disappointment, jealousy, and resentment. He becomes even more dramatic as he fumes over the fact that these are friends who he may never more “meet again”—especially as they have chosen to leave him to his prison while enjoying the beautiful settings of the countryside “of which I told.”8

Coleridge’s self-pity commingles with near hatred of his friends as he imagines all of the fun things that they are doing, the “beauties and feelings” that they are experiencing without him.9 In typical Romantic fashion, he also imagines the comfort he could find in future years, remembering his time as a “worshipper of Nature” alongside his visitors.10 His sense of temporal grief becomes increasingly dramatic as he imagines having no shared memories of this day in the future years when “age had dimm’d mine eyes to blindness!”11 Of course, his feelings of disappointment and even anger are understandable. They reflect the inherent selfishness in the human heart, the feelings that we often have but rarely share with others. And this acute, momentary hatred of his friends also springs from his own hurt and insecurity. He feels betrayed and used as his friends “wander in gladness . . . to that still roaring dell, of which I told.”12 How dare they enjoy this day without him, the architect of its delights? He even wonders if he might never see them again as he spirals more deeply into self-pity.

But the narrative soon shifts, following a sudden change in Coleridge’s perspective. Once he begins to imaginatively visualize the delight upon his friends’ faces and remembers especially Charles’s great love of nature (which he has longed for while in the city), the poet’s feelings abruptly change. He thinks fondly on the “gentle heart” of his friend “to whom no sound is dissonant which tells of Life.”13 Coleridge must remind himself that he loves his friend deeply, and he begins to empathize with Charles as soon as he is able to envision himself in his friend’s place, enjoying nature after many years pent up in the soul-crushing city. Coleridge begins to forget himself, focusing on Charles’s great joy, and this newly acquired empathy also leads to the poet’s own happiness: “A delight / Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad / As if I myself were there!”14 Once his imagination has somehow dispelled his hatred and anger, he can see that the lime-tree bower that he is sitting in is no prison. Rather, it is a thing of great beauty. He realizes that his immediate environs are gifts in themselves that have been ignored as he has “not mark’d much that has sooth’d me.”15 His perception shifts dramatically, and he is now able to both empathize with another and see reality more clearly.

Although Coleridge is not sharing these experiences with his friends, he is able to imagine as if he was—and his love for his absent visitors becomes selfless rather than self-serving. Coleridge, unlike fellow Romantic poet William Blake, does not deify the imagination. In Coleridge’s writing, there is a deep connection between the spiritual realm and the imagination—and the imagination cannot be used correctly to enable us to see more clearly until it is somehow connected to that larger spiritual reality. This happens in “This Lime-Tree Bower” as the poet understands the sacredness of his friends’ own love of nature—and this manages to take him outside of himself. In this deeply personal poem, we see that the imagination can be either destructive or edifying, leading to hatred or to love. The poet chooses the way of love via empathy and, in doing so, instructs his readers how to do the same.

It is important to note that when the poet has been hurt, he also has the potential to cause hurt. Thankfully, he does not share his anger and bitterness with his friends, and his emotional and spiritual transformation takes place before he encounters them again. Although Coleridge has not been severely abused by his friends, he feels that he has been. And even this minor injury launches him into an initial reaction of resentment and anger. Although this poem is about the poet’s own movement from anger to empathy toward others, it is also important to consider that he needs compassion and understanding himself, even if his responses come from pain rather than love. Although his anger becomes irrational, his status as a glorious image bearer never diminishes, and extending empathy to him only comes by acknowledging this.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The 2019 film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood explores the intentionality it takes to acknowledge God’s image in and develop empathy for someone whose history of abuse and neglect leads him to patterns of abuse and self-protective cynicism himself. Although the popular film is about legendary children’s show host Fred Rogers, it is not a movie for children. The story starts with the familiar sounds and sights of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood set, including bright colors, trolley music, and the iconic, cheerful host taking off his cardigan. Despite this opening scene, viewers soon realize that the film will not be focusing on Mr. Rogers’s show. The nostalgic opening is a framing technique employed to introduce the real story of a friend of Mr. Rogers, a reporter for Esquire magazine named Lloyd Vogel. The first image we see of Lloyd is both comical and alarming. On his storyboard, Mr. Rogers shares a photo of Lloyd’s battered face and troubled eyes among the cheerful images of familiar puppet characters. The ever-compassionate host then says the following to his viewers: “Someone has hurt my friend Lloyd—and not just his face. He is having a hard time forgiving the person who hurt him. Do you know what forgiveness means? It’s a decision we make to release a person from the feelings of anger we have against them. Sometimes it’s hardest to forgive the ones we love.”16 Although Mr. Rogers’s tone and pattern of articulation sound as if he is speaking to children, he is actually speaking to the members of the adult viewing audience that, in reality, probably struggle more with forgiveness than do the children for whom his television show was intended. Lloyd Vogel is an adult who has been deeply hurt and, we soon learn, lives with the relational and psychological consequences of this wounding, eventually collapsing under the weight of them. But for now, we only see the deeply sad eyes and wounded face of a man who Mr. Rogers describes, not as ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: The Imagination as a Means to Love
• 1 Art as a Model for the Empathetic Imagination
• 2 Empathy for the Wretched and Glorious Human Condition
• 3 Stories as Self-Reflection
• 4 Who Is Our Neighbor?
• 5 Structured for Empathy
• 6 Growing Empathy for Our Enemies
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index