A Lesson in Empathy

    Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

     Here is a mental exercise. Take what you are most devoted to and passionate about and convert that into a feeling of patriotism for your country. Imagine four years of rain, mud, bullets, and dead friends culminating in losing the war against your most hated enemy. The enemy then forces your nation, that you love most dearly, to pay for the entire cost of the war, never form a military again, and surrender valuable tracks of land.
     After your participation in the largest battles of the war and seeing the courage and strength of your nation only to have it surrender, you feel betrayed. Not by your enemy or the soldiers you fought alongside. Instead, the political backbone of the nation surrendered, destroying the triumph of the military efforts.
     Now imagine, after four years of devoted, unfailing service, after betrayal by the thing you most loved, you raise up opposition to end this political monstrosity that has taken the place of  your beloved country. You are arrested for acting out your beliefs, but, eventually, you are released. Sharing your thoughts with your friends, they pass on your inspiring ideas to give hope to the people. Your people. Who lost all dignity, wealth, and hope after the war. With a surge of emotion, you announce a plan to achieve just revenge against the enemies that destroyed your country and your people. The adversaries responsible for the imploded economy and the death of millions of brave men.
     After years of planning, you succeed in getting large-scale attention and support for your revenge plan. In fact, you go a step further and say that victory will be a new world. A better world where success will out last the lives of your supporters - and the lives of their children and grandchildren  - in a version of stabilized, near-eternal glory.
     But you fail to achieve this dream for millions of your countrymen. The antagonistic countries oppose your dream, and they fear and hate you just as you fear and hate them. How can inspirations of greatness and righteous revenge be objected to? Because they were accompanied by mass racial genocides.
Can you empathize with Adolf Hitler?

     Part of what historians must do to succeed in understanding history is to stand in the shoes of the people that experienced it. For another example, to understand the impact of Martin Luther's Reformation, historians place themselves in Luther's life to flush out motivations. After this the lives of church officials, royalty, nobles, and the common people of all nationalities are similarly related to to explain history's reactions as they progress. Whether or not these individual perspectives are accurate is unimportant since to understand actions, the initial biases must be empathized with. A true test of a historian is to relate to the most disagreeable characters while sharing bias, prejudice, and conviction in order to portray history as the past actually happened.

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Agatha Tyche