Thanks to my friend and fellow Substack blogger David Cycleback and Julie Hotard, a clinical psychologist and cult expert, for introducing me to the word “apath.”
I’ll offer two examples of its use because I can find the word only in the field of social science, not in my handy Merriam-Webster dictionary app. Here’s an article about apaths. They are also discussed in this 2016 paper about teacher abuse and sociopaths in schools.
To the heirs of Merriam and Webster, I’ll offer this definition for your consideration:
Apath (noun, singular, plural apaths): One who engages in apathy, especially in abusive situations.
We all fall into apathy at various times and in various situations, but the word “apath” especially applies when one engages in apathy amid abusive and cultish behavior. That’s where apaths become dangerous. They go along to get along with domineering narcissists and sociopaths, becoming their enthusiastic enablers.
If you’ve read books or watched documentaries about cult leaders, there’s always a band of aides who enforce the bizarre norms. Those are the apaths.
In my experience, a single authoritarian leader may be absent if a critical mass of core apaths is strongly influenced by an abusive ideology—for example, when members of one race or nationality see all members of another race or ethnicity as subhuman and/or as oppressing them. While the Nazis under Hitler had a single authoritarian leader, the Eastern Europeans who earlier had engaged in pogroms believed that Jews were both subhuman and responsible for their poverty. Lynchings in the United States often didn’t have a single leader, just a band of apaths driven by a twisted ideology.
Spiritual teachings can be twisted into breeding grounds for apaths. Every religion relies on some degree of faith in the teaching and the teacher. Sometimes, the difference between teaching and the teacher can get confusing. I’ll return to that kind of confusion, but first, let’s examine the confusion in religious teachings about humility.
Here’s Verse 2 of the Dalai Lama’s Training the Mind:
Whenever I interact with someone, May I view myself as the lowest amongst all, And, from the very depths of my heart, Respectfully hold others as superior.
There have been occasional hints that a meeting—or at least messages—between the Dalai Lama and Chinese President Xi Jinping might happen. If they do, I wouldn’t expect the Dalai Lama to hold Xi as “superior,” although I’d expect him to respect Xi and other Chinese leaders. This verse is a mind training, not a directive to submit to tyrants.
Most of us are familiar with a similar sentiment from Jesus:
You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. —Matthew 5:38-42
Again, a reasonable understanding is that the Sermon on the Mount is an instruction on attitude, not a directive for every situation we might face.
I’m sure I don’t always succeed, but I try to be guided by the choices that will lead to less suffering for more people. The Dalai Lama must grapple with that equation every time he considers saying or doing anything about the tyrannical Chinese occupation of Tibet.
Sometimes, being a non-apath means carrying out a mission secretly, like those who harbor fugitives from oppressive regimes. We’ll never know the names of all those who have secretly harbored refugees. We do know some who have stood up visibly to tyrants. Which ones reduced suffering for the largest numbers? That we’ll never know.
Many Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, consider ahimsa (nonviolence or nonharm) an essential virtue. That has helped them avoid atrocities like religious wars and the justifications of slavery in the history of Christianity and Islam. Still, no religion is immune from abuses, especially in the confusion between teacher and teaching.
In Vajrayana Buddhism, we’re taught to incorporate the Buddha Nature of our teacher into our being to improve our ability to find it in ourselves. That can be tricky because our teacher, being human, is not 100% Buddha. I’ve heard teacher Anam Thubten say that’s the reason we’re encouraged to choose a yidam, a fully enlightened deity, to represent Buddhahood.
Nevertheless, in Buddhism and other religions, some students see the teacher or priest as infallible and fully representative of Buddhahood or God. They become victims and helper apaths, turning the other cheek and watching or helping as others get slapped.
In Thailand especially, where Buddhism is practiced by 95% of the population, monks have increasingly been arrested on a wide range of criminal charges. Here’s an example involving the embezzlement of more than $5 million in temple donations. Where the monastery's abbot is engaged, one can imagine the role that apaths played.
As Buddhism has come West, some abusive behavior has come with it. I explored that subject in more depth here:
The point is not to find fault with Buddhism or other spiritual traditions. It’s recognizing that the Buddha Nature (or God) is within. We’re prone to looking outside ourselves for answers, and that’s not a bad way to start. The Buddhist dharma makes you and me responsible for evaluating all teachings on the suffering metric. Our inner wisdom will tell us whether a teacher or teaching reduces or increases suffering.
Let’s be guided by empathy, not apathy.
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I went looking for a musical bonus about empathy and couldn’t do better than These Shoes by my dear friend, singer-songwriter Andrew McKnight.