“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world”- Plato. This quote in my opinion really is what empathy is all about in a few words. I believe it really explains Possessor and the episode, “I Second That Emotion” in Futurama.
In an ultra- violent sci-fi- horror freak- out, Possessor has different scenes where empathy plays a huge role. The main character Tasya Vos is an agent whose job is to learn about one person at a time, enough to be able to mimic that person when she is in control of their body. This time Colin is her next victim. Tasya’s one task is to kill John who is the owner of a big company and Ava who is his daughter. By using Colin’s body (Ava’s fiancé), Tasya’s mission is possible. Tasya has shown throughout the movie that she has a conscious, unlike the people she works for. Her conscious can be seen as embodied empathy because many times during the movie, she has a hard time about killing the person’s body she was in. She starts feeling their emotions and she has internal battle of killing them off. Having her small family can be seen as dangerous in her line of work because she cannot have empathy when in someone’s body. Tasya goes through exercises in the beginning and end of the movie to check her consciousness is back in her own mind and there are no gaps in memories. One example was a framed butterfly, in the beginning of the movie she states, “I killed and mounted it one summer when I was a girl, and then I felt guilty about it. I still feel guilty about it”. This is an example of who she is and the empathy she has. In the end, after killing her family, when Tasya returns to her own body, she picks up the same butterfly. She says, “I killed and mounted it one summer when I was a little girl”. This now shows a different Tasya and that she no longer feels empathy or guilt for her kills, be it the butterfly, her ex-husband, or her own child. Vos no longer feels any emotions of her own because of how many times she had to train to be someone else in another person’s body.
After watching possessor, Futurama was a breath of fresh air (literally). The entire episode had perfect examples how Bender the robot does not feel empathy. It also seems like Bender does not mind NOT feeling this emotion. Of course, the professor puts an empathy chip, as if it was so easy to give someone the feeling of empathy. After feeling all Leela emotions, he fights it every time. He does not want to feel this way, maybe because he feels weak. Of course, when Leela feels something now he feels it as well. What I thought was interesting is how he knows that is Leela’s feelings and not his own. So, the chip gave him the feeling, but it wasn’t true empathy it was Leela’s feelings. Showing that what we learned in this week’s lesson of theory of mind. The professor even states at the end of the episode that the chip was turned off, viewers believe that bender can feel empathy without the chip. Quickly after the professor states that the chip was working in triple capacity. Which than we see the normal Bender that did not change because of this adventure. Bender really had no empathy for Leela’s feelings when she lost Nibbler. At the end, when Leela is crying and tied up and needs Bender to save her, Bender can’t because of Leela’s emotions. How ironic, that now he feels so much of Leela’s feelings and can’t help her. This is a true example of Embodied Cognition, how the body influences the mind. Bender can’t save her until she figured out how to not feel her sad emotions, she needed to be selfish and only care about her own emotions.
Not everyone can feel empathy, it takes a human form to have the capability of feeling ones feeling. But the feeling empathy does not make you weak- like I stated above, it is the highest form of knowledge.
3 thoughts on “The highest form of knowledge is empathy”
Hey Glynis,
I really like the quote you used in the beginning of this post, it speaks volumes and really connects well to the theme of both the movie and show we watched this week. I really like how you connected the butterfly and Vos’s family to show how throughout the film, Vos, lost all empathy. I think this is because in order to survive she had to become numb to everything otherwise she would fall apart. I really like your comment on how although Bender was sharing the emotions of Leela he couldn’t make it better only she could. This is so true in real life. People may console us and sympathize with us but at the end of the day we create our realities and it comes down to ourselves to get and feel better.
chowland
Hi Glynis,
I love the quote from Plato that you use to start your blog. Although, as we learned last week, Plato discussed the mind and body (and emotions) as separate entities (often at war with each other), it is interesting to think about the embodied nature of this quote. This is in part because, as we will learn in the next module, the conceptual metaphors that we use to make sense of the world are often embodied. But it also raises the question of what does it mean to see the eyes of another?
In Possessor, we get a literal version of this, where Vos is actually in the body of another, seeing the world through their eyes. You make a great point about how during the film, she seems to develop empathy for her victims, often finding herself unable to kill them. Great analysis of the significance of the butterfly at the end of the film. One really cool detail in the film is that as the camera zooms out from the son’s and Colin’s dead bodies, the blood pooling between them forms a shape very evocative of the butterfly. Why do you think Kroonenberg included this detail? How does it connect to Vos’s empathy (or, rather, the loss of it)?
In your discussion of Futurama, you make a really important point about how having empathy requires us to recognize that our feelings are not our own—even as we are “living through” the feelings of others. Your final point about needing a human (rather than a mechanical) body to feel empathy also relates to what we learned about embodied cognition. We use our bodies to access and understand the feelings of others. If we don’t have a body, then we can’t do that.
Jessica Hautsch
Hi Glynis!
I really enjoyed reading your response because it was super similar to mine! Even though Vos literally killed people when she was in control of someone’s body, she still felt empathy and this is shown when she has a hard time killing the non-volunteered killer. You pointed this out and it’s something that I didn’t really put together. It was interesting how being in Colin’s body was the body that made her lose all her empathy towards others.
I also watched Futurama after Possessor and it was definitely a relief. The gory film didn’t make me sick, it was just very disturbing. In Futurama I found it very funny when Nibbler was flushed down the toilet. I needed to laugh after watching Possessor and Futurama absolutely did that.
I liked how you mentioned that empathy is a human personality trait and this is why Bender couldn’t feel emotions. He’s a robot so I wonder if since he knows what feelings of sadness, happiness, etc. feel like, he’ll keep feeling them as time goes on.
alnunez