In August 2021, my employer, MIT, announced that all instruction, without exception, would be in person, with vaccination and regular testing. In context, I found this anxiety-provoking. As soon as I took a Covid test, I was cleared to teach, even though I wouldn’t get my results until the next day. The protocol was designed not to protect individuals but to prevent community spread. Students would wear face coverings; my classrooms were a jumble of surgical masks and makeshift bandanas. Faculty were asked to teach without masks, a directive everyone seemed to ignore.
Empathy Rules
Four practices to help us bridge divisions and restore a sense of community.
February 17, 2022
Pepino de Mar studio/Stocksy
Summary.
Sociologist Emile Durkheim coined the phrase anomie to describe a destabilized and destabilizing state when rules and rule givers lose legitimacy. It’s what we feel when we face a virus that plays by one set of rules, politicians who play by another, and a professional life that proceeds independent of each — and when we face all of this in social isolation. Empathy can help us navigate this period of anomie. The author outlines four practices, which she calls “empathy rules,” that can help us cut across the divisions in our lives and build a sense of community.