Empathy and Pain - Sacred Pain and the Phenomenal Self

Empathy and Pain

By: Bridget Dresser

GFP Neurons

    The brain is an insanely complicated network of neural connections, hormones, and electrical signals that can be altered incredibly easily. For instance, many people drink coffee every day, which adds caffeine to the brain to boost functionality and reduce exhaustion; this is technically a brain-altering substance. Pain is a brain-altering experience that comes from our sensory receptor neurons sending a signal to our brain through our nervous system, telling it that something is wrong. The way we experience that message is entirely subjective and dependent on individual factors such as the functioning of the nervous system and the brain, the strength of synapse connections between neurons, the condition and functionality level of the spinal cord, the presence of nerve damage, muscle tissue deformities, and countless other factors.

    In Ariel Glucklich’s article Sacred Pain and the Phenomenal Self, she critiques the argument made by Elaine Scarry that states that “...pain eludes language and is therefore utterly subjective and objectless...” (Glucklich, pg. 392) I agree with Gluckich’s assertion that pain is a deeply subjective psychological and physical experience, but is capable of being vicariously experienced by people with enough empathy for the victim of that pain, regardless of language or description after the event. The memories of pain can be painful for anyone witnessing their effects, such as people having visible reactions to scars from incidents causing injury. There is a reason that people flinch or let of a hiss of tension when movies show intense violence or when people see a viral video of someone doing something that caused them injury, like America’s Funniest Home Videos, or viral “fireworks-gone-wrong" compilations. Regardless of people’s emotional empathy, they tend to have an innate level of physical empathy for others, at least in the sense of recognizing how something hurts someone and not wanting to feel the same way.

Kalina Hunter-Gatherer

    Part of the reason humans have thrived as a species is our ability to communicate with each other before the invention of language. Our ability to warn others about what mistakes not to make again, with proof of why it isn’t a good idea, has been crucial to our survival and the creation of society. Everyone has heard the argument that cavemen needed to pass on information about things like what berries are poisonous or what areas to not hunt in, but these types of communication still exist today and are crucial to our functioning as a world society. We still warn each other about everything in order to not experience pain or discomfort. We look at the weather report every day so we wear comfortable clothes, we look at the news to avoid shut down highways or accidents on the road, we tell each other what restaurants to not eat at, and we warn each other about people and places that are potentially or actually dangerous for our communities.

    While this communication is vital to human survival, and it does make an argument for the ability to describe pain with language, the point I argue is that these types of communication don’t need words to be effective. We have been communicating in ways that effectively get others to empathize with us before language was even invented, so

“...the idea that communicating pain requires not only a uniquely efficacious language but the power to reproduce the experience in the empathetic observer, is both false and trivial.” (Glucklich, pg. 399)