***Editor’s note: The following is a responce by Pat Guinane to Richard Swartzbaugh’s post Sept. 11 monologue entitled “Suffering cannot be understood beyond individual.”

Are we to believe that ignorance is the sole universal factor constraining our civilization? Should we accept the sad assumption that empathy exists solely within a narrow interpersonal web?

Is our entire society bound by political structures and beliefs, which funnel and filter all thoughts that do not concern our most intimate personal relationships?

The notion that truth and also empathy, or the communication and understanding of feelings, can only exist on the most personal level is not entirely true.

While I would agree that on the most basic foundation level of understanding it is impossible for one human being to embrace and completely empathize with the emotions of another, I do not believe our search for truth, for understanding, must cease when we are operating outside the group of individuals we are most familiar with, such as friends and family.

However, I would argue that in adopting that line or reasoning, one must take ignorance a step further. Contending that empathy can only be absorbed and translated in the closest of relationships is simply flawed logic. By that reasoning, one must ask how empathy could exist even amongst family and friends.

A much broader definition of empathy must exist. Surely, politics must be taken into consideration as the thoughts and feelings of those we are less familiar with are associated. But, I would argue that the search for truth and understanding is a basic human principle, which trumps such a narrowly applicable definition of empathy.

If we suppose empathy can exist only on the most personal of levels we are relying too heavily on a public, which must disinterest itself with politics and essentially, much of the outside world. The basic assumption that human emotion can only be conveyed among those who share the deepest of bonds is invalid.

Empathy can exist on any level. It is proper to assume that empathy will be stronger when individuals share a closer emotional bond. But how does one evaluate such a bond? I would argue that if operating under the theory that empathy exists only on an individual level, no two human beings share a personal bond tight enough that empathy can be fully shared.

If empathy can only be shared among the closest of human beings, there can be no true empathy.

I would argue that family members share the closest of personal bonds, but if you account for the varying life experiences and personal viewpoints individuals have, empathy still cannot exist among family members.

If a parent lost one of his or her children, the other children can empathize on one level because they too have lost a family member. But the other children cannot share the parents pain over losing a child. Even if the other children were parents themselves they still could not fully empathize with their parent’s loss because the situation was different. They may share many, but certainly not all the same shared experiences. In addition, those shared experiences were undoubtedly interpreted differently by each family member, based on each family member’s intellect, personality, outlook on life, belief structure and personal opinions.

I would argue that if empathy exists solely on a personal level a man and wife could not even empathize with each other over the loss of a child, because again their personal outlooks and interpretations of shared experiences would be different. Thus, I would ultimately argue that this argument presents much too stringent a definition of empathy.

If these most basic, interpersonal relationships cannot achieve empathy, than the concept itself has no place in our society, which I would argue is much too pessimistic a viewpoint. Even among family members and in other close relationships empathy must wade through politics and varying personal beliefs. At times the waters of politics may be mere puddles, but empathy must also forge oceans of disagreement.

We may never be able to understand what would motivate persons to level one of the largest buildings the world has ever seen. We may never know how such a loss of life can be justified, but we cannot let politics impede our ability to question such an incident and gleam some bit of understanding.

At the same time, we may never be able to empathize with those who lost loved ones in such a tragedy. However, it is not beyond our means to try to understand such a catastrophe, and to empathize with the victims, whether it be in our thoughts and prayers or through donations of blood, food and other personal items. It is also not beyond our means to attempt to put such an incident into words.

We cannot simply take the sadness of each victim and plug it into some mathematical formula, multiplying by property damage in dollars to calculate the magnitude of the tragedy. But, it is not beyond our means to attempt to define such an event with such phrases as “humanitarian catastrophe,” “moral outrage” and “unspeakable acts.”

And most of all, it is not beyond our means to empathize, on some level with the victims, that’s what makes us human.