Among the many issues plaguing humanity these days, one from which many other issues emerge is a widespread and arguably systemic lack of empathy.

It’s easier for autocracy to gain momentum and rise to the top when empathy is scarce. It’s easier for the chasms separating society into arbitrary classes to widen when empathy is scarce. It’s easier to maintain an uneducated populace that demonizes the other when empathy is scarce. You get the picture.

Despite being a core element of humanity, empathy is a surprisingly divisive topic academically. To keep things simple, the definition we’ll work with is a basic one: empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

It’s both an innate skill and one that is learned and honed with practice. As such, in an era of abysmally low empathy on a global scale, we’d be wise to turn our gaze to a society where empathy is an ingrained part of the culture, and see what lessons we can learn from it.

A Fragment of Utopia

In his upcoming book, “Japan 2025 - The World’s Last Utopia”, author Felix Chan argues that empathy is one of fourteen philosophies that act as an invisible framework supporting Japanese society. Specifically, he calls it “calculated empathy.”

The term in Japanese is Omoiyari (思いやり), derived from Omoi, meaning thought or feeling, and Yaru, meaning to give or send. In other words, the Japanese concept of empathy means to give your thoughts or feelings to another.

So what makes it “calculated”?

If you’ve ever been to Japan, you’ve probably found yourself riding a train or subway at one point or another. You know how crowded it can get, with train cars resembling sardine cans. And yet, it’s always quiet. Absolutely no one is talking on the phone, and anyone talking to another beside them does so quietly. This phenomenon is an oddity that you cannot find in any other country.

Why?

According to Chan, who calls this phenomenon “the Silent Commute”, the reasoning behind it is Omoiyari. Each passenger on the train understands that in a confined space, one person’s voice affects everyone else, a sort of weapon threatening the harmony of the group. The risk of upsetting this harmony is not worth the act of having a phone call or a loud conversation.

It is in this sense that the empathy towards the well-being of others around them is “calculated”. It’s a prediction, a risk assessment, but not one made consciously each time. Rather, it is ingrained culturally and occurs subconsciously.

Another example, also involving public transportation, is priority seating. In Japan, these are seats designated for the elderly and disabled, often marked by floor markings and a distinct seat color. No matter how crowded the train gets, unless you belong among the elderly and disabled, you simply don’t sit there.

The risk being calculated here, according to Chan, is that if you do sit there and then fail to notice a grandma boarding the train, forcing her to ask you for the seat, you will feel shame, and shame is not worth that momentary comfort—simple as that.

As these examples portray, Omoiyari is empathy that stems from prioritizing harmony with others over slight personal gains. Naturally, this empathy requires conceptualizing what benefits those around you. And when everyone does so, society is a whole is better for everyone. When you sit on the subway, you know other people have your well-being in mind, even if subconsciously.  

Utopia or Dystopia?

Some of you, especially those brought up in the Western world, no doubt take this explanation as nonsense bordering on communism. If I want to make a phone call, I make a phone call. If there’s an available seat, I sit. What good is the harmony of the group if the individual is surpassed and too afraid to exercise their basic rights? At that point, it’s basically totalitarianism!

Or something like that.

Such line of thought, right or wrong, naturally stems from one’s cultural upbringing. Every culture sits somewhere along the axis of individualism on one end and collectivism on the other. Associating them with west and east respectively is an easy shorthand, but the world’s geo-social landscape isn’t so clear-cut. Still, it’s true that Japan is on the collectivism side of things, though probably closer to the middle than to the end.

It’s important to understand that unlike, say, North Korea, people in Japan aren’t living under a totalitarian regime dictating what they can or cannot do. Talking on the phone on the subway won’t get you imprisoned or executed.

The difference is one of cultural values. The Japanese are free to exercise their rights, but whether doing so is always worth it, in their eyes, is a different question. If you’re empathic, you have a better understanding of how your actions can affect others, and so harming others is more likely to make you feel ashamed. And if you value not feeling shame, which is a trait common to collectivistic cultures, you’re fine taking some other, lesser form of discomfort if it means preventing shame. 

It is, as Chan called it, a calculation. The Japanese individual is free to choose, and this is the choice that makes the most sense when said individual is brought up in a pro-empathy culture like Japan, where one’s personal harmony is inextricable from that of those around them.

In other words, just because a country’s laws allow you to walk stark naked into a kindergarten doesn’t mean doing so is free of consequences you would want to avoid. It’s a matter of common sense, and what counts as common varies from culture to culture.

So no, Omoiyari is not a sign of a dystopian nightmare. Quite the opposite, actually.

It’s a sign that Japan is doing something right; that countries high on individualism ought to consider taking a step away from that end of the spectrum for the benefit of their own society.

Empathy, after all, is a tide that raises all boats.

Signs of the Tide

One of the examples of Omoiyari depicted in Chan’s book is what he calls “the Driver Sticker.” Essentially, a magnetic sticker slapped onto the front and rear bumpers of cars. New drivers have green and yellow V-shape sticker marks (Wakaba), which they must display for one year after getting their license. Elderly drivers have orange and yellow, clover-shaped marks (Koreisha).

The goal of these stickers is that by seeing them on the road, you immediately become more patient. You are given a valid reason as to why the guy in front of you is slow or just made a mistake, and you plan your driving around that. In other words, the sticker triggers the Omoiyari of whoever sees them, causing other drivers to give new or elderly drivers more space on the road.

I bring this up because this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to Japan. I grew up in Israel, a far cry from Japanese culture, yet I had to display a small yellow sign with “new driver” written on it when I first got my license.

Likewise, I lived a few years in Finland, and can assure you that silence is a regular feature of commuting by public transportation (though whether the cause is empathy or chronic introversion is a question for another time).

Japan is full of signs of Omoiyari—collective empathy. From how the barista hands you your coffee to how strangers see you on the street. It is a feature of a society that works.

But luckily, fragments of these features can be found elsewhere in the world. It is up to us to recognize them, bring attention to them, and ensure they aren’t taken for granted. The world needs all the empathy it can get right now. It’s a banner worth raising.

And if you find a notable lack of empathy around you, get more familiar with Omoiyari. Learn its ways and spread it around. It’s the empathic thing to do, isn’t it?