It all boils down to empathy

Why many care abut victims of wars and atrocities

by

James Rowles*

*Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) in International Law, Harvard University

It all boils down to empathy.

John Donne (1572-1631) wrote the following:

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1624)
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

—Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and several steps in my Sickness, written in 1624

Ernest Hemingway in his classic novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls, chose the title of Donne’s poem for the title of his novel, set in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. In it Hemingway explores the conflict between caring for others and a cause, on the one hand, and focusing more on yourself, on the other. For Whom the Bell Tolls posed an important and prescient question, as World War II began in September 1939. The book was published in 1940.

Donne was writing during the first years of The Thirty Years War (1618-1648), a kind of 17th century world war in Europe. Hugo Grotius published his classic treatise on international law, De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace]), in 1625.

Why do many people care about the victims of wars and atrocities?

And why do many people filter out the distressing news of these victims, and focus more on themselves and less on matters over which they feel they have no influence. Or about which they simply do not care.

Each answer to that question is a personal answer. Often the answer is merely the product of one’s own life experience. But frequently there is more at play.

Here is my answer to the question.

What experiences opened me to feeling empathy for the victims of war and oppression?

When I was eight and sent to boarding schoool in Arizona because of my severe asthma, I became very interested in Indians. At my school, we dressed up in costumes for Halloween. One year my mother made a superman costume for me, by hand. Another year I was Cochise, a famous Indian leader in those parts, with a real headdress my mother and I had gotten at an Indian store. There were a lot of Indians in Arizona. My mother was fascinated by the Indians. Later in life, when she became an accomplished artist, she painted a magnificent large oil painting of Cochise.

I also became interested in Mexicans. My mother and I made several trips to Nogales, the Mexican border town near Tucson. At school, I had a five- or six-week course in Spanish in the fifth grade, which quickened my interest in Mexico and Mexicans. I also remember a movie with Marlon Brando, One-Eyed Jacks (1961), which had a profound effect on me.

Another key factor was my early interest in short-wave radio. To help me overcome my homesickness far from my home in Houston, my parents gave me a fantastic Zenith Transoceanic short-wave radio. It was quite a present for an eight-year-old boy. I was fascinated by listening to stations far away, from clear channel AM stations I could hear late at night to stations in foreign countries I could listen to on the short-wave bands.

I became a ham radio operator at 11, getting my Novice license (KN5BVF) after passing a written test and also a 5 words-per-minute Morse Code test. Two years later I got my General Class license (K5BVF), after passing another written test and a Morse code test at 13 words-per-minute.

I communicated with other “ham” radio operators, first in Morse Code when I was a Novice, and then in voice when I got my general license. I was intrigued by communicating with stations that were far away, particularly in foreign countries. I remember the thrill I felt when I made contact in Morse Code with a station in British Somaliland.

I read up on the countries where the stations I talked to were located, in my Junior Encyclopedia Britannica, and learned a lot of geography and some history in the process.

I was also influenced by my developing love of history. In the fifth grade I won a prize as the best student in my Ancient History class, the best of all three students. I loved my European History class in the 12th grade, and won a prize my senior year as the best student in History. I graduated from Stanford with a summa cum laude and Honors in History, and won a prize for the best Senior Honors Thesis in History that year.

Languages also opened my heart to empathy for people who spoke the language I was studying. I didn’t make friends with any Romans when I studied Latin in the 8th and 9th grades, back in Houston, but I did develop a keen interest in Germans and Germany when I began studying German in the 10th grade. I had an extraordinary teacher, a Harvard graduate who had studied in Germany in the 1930’s when Adolf Hitler was in power. He was a serious and strict taskmaster. I learned then that languages were to be taken very seriously, and that you had to work hard to learn to read and write and speak one.

I wrote the German Consulate and got on the mailing list for their newsletter and the program of Die Deutschce Welle, Germany’s international short-wave station.

Another movie that had a deep impact on me was The Young Lions (1958), with Marlon Brando. A third was Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), which I saw in the fall of my senior year with a beautiful Jewish girl with whom I was smitten.

The summer before my senior year in high school, I had been accepted and planned to go on an exchange program to Germany with The Experiment in International Living, where I would live with a family. But I was elected captain of my high school football team, and decided to forego my summer in Germany so I could oversee the team’ s training and practice sessions during the summer. It was time well spent. We won the league championship.

At Stanford, I passed the language requirement in German, and took upper division  courses with juniors and seniors when I was a freshman. The summer after my freshman year I participated in a different student exchange program, with an organization known as People-to-People which was founded by President Dwight Eisenhoweer. I lived with different families in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, speaking German all the time. Each homestay was for a minimum of three days, but if you hit it off with the host family you might stay for up to two weeks. In between homestays, I traveled independently, on my own, alone. Before cell phones.

The connection with Eisenhower’s exchange program was intriguing. When I was seven and Dwight Eisenhower was visiting Galveston, Texas, where we had an apartment because of my asthma, I got to see him at the Galvez Hotel. Decked out in full cowboy regalia, with twin six-shooters in my holsters, boots, a Western style jacket and a cowboy hat, I stood out. Ike noticed me, and came over to where I was in the line and shook my hand.

In Heidelberg, traveling between homestays, I met a veteran of World War II who had lost a leg in the war. One evening I couldn’t find a place to stay that was within my student budget, and after I walked by this man the second or third time, talking to him each time in German, he offered to put me up at his place.

Exhausted, I accepted his offer. He lived at Fischgasse, 7 in old Heidelberg, in a ground-level flat that was really basic. The flat was in a building that was at least two or three centuries old. Over three days he showed me the sights in Heidelberg, energetically moving on his steel crutches to set the pace as we walked through the city. He also showed me pictures of him with his girlfriend when he was a young soldier, before he lost his leg. Even at the time we met, when he was perhaps 40, he was a handsome, energetic man full of vitality. He was also extremely kind to me. We became good friends in a way. And through him, at the gut level, I grasped the enormous tragedy of war.

(to be continued)

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See also “Why I care about the war in Ukraine,” Trenchant Observations, June 26, 2022.

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