How To Choose Your People Chapter 7

Chapter 7 — Sympathy (0.9)

SYMPATHY (0.9)

Sympathy: A relationship or affinity between persons or things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other. The act of or capacity for sharing or understanding the feelings of another person. A feeling or expression of pity or of sorrow for the distress of another.

– The American Heritage Dictionary

Maxwell was a cheerful, optimistic man who plodded off to a regular job each day and spent every night writing short stories. These he sent off to the popular magazines. Although he did sell two stories, he acquired a huge collection of rejection slips. He persisted, however. One day, he promised himself, I'll quit that dull job and write all the time.

Meanwhile, he married a lovely girl who was kind and understanding. He knew she would "stand by him" through everything. And she certainly did. Every time he received a rejection slip, she said, "Poor darling. They don't appreciate your talent."

One day he came home to find four of his favorite stories returned. Slumping dejectedly in the chair he moaned, "I guess I just don't have what it takes."

His tender wife sat on the arm of his chair to comfort him. "Now, dear, you've just been working too hard. You need a rest. Why don't you take a vacation?"

So he did take a vacation – from writing. Maxwell now spends his evenings glumly watching television and drinking beer. His sweet wife understands why he gave up his ambitions and consoles him: "You tried so hard, and you are a good writer. I'm sure the only people who get published nowadays are the ones who know the editors personally."

That's Sympathy. She's a darling. And she's deadly.

The only trouble looming in this chapter is with the definition of the word Sympathy. So let's clear that up first.

We say "we're in complete sympathy with each other" when we're talking about the closest possible harmony with someone. We say "he's sympathetic to our cause" when referring to a person who's smart enough to agree with our own ideas. And is there any one of us with a character so stoic that we don't welcome a sympathetic person around to soothe us when someone has stolen our little red wagon, our lover or our knee warmers (depending on which stage of this game we're playing)?

Sympathy, as we generally use the word, can mean a high toned empathy and accord, the charitableness and understanding of the big-hearted, a shaft of warm sunlight slicing through the murk. However, we're talking something else here.

The .9 is a counterfeit. He doesn't choose to be kind; he's chronically sympathetic. He can't do anything but commiserate.

FEELING TOGETHER

The prominent manifestation of this emotion is obsessive agreement. We're in the Fear band here and it is Fear that dominates the .9. So at this position of the scale, Sympathy is not valor, but cowardice, stemming from a basic fear of people. He's excessively afraid of hurting others. He's compulsively "understanding" and "reasonable" about all the lowest-tone unfortunates of the world. He's the person who's "reasonable" about the axe murderer. He'll be understanding about the toadying leech.

Sympathy means "feeling together," so if one were sympathetic with a hightone person, everything would be glorious; he'd feel high-tone. But the person at .9 seldom achieves more than a superficial tolerance of upscale people and conditions. He is most comfortable when he can sympathize with Apathy and Grief. Of course, his "feeling together" causes this chameleon to wobble drunkenly through the low tones always somewhere between complacent tenderness and tears.

He looks harmless. And that's just how he wants to look. He's desperately trying to ward off blame. "See how understanding I am?" "See how I wouldn't hurt anybody?" His addiction to praise and fear of blame make him compulsively understanding.

It was a quiet, pleasant party. We were exchanging ideas about the future of religion when Casper – a new arrival – interrupted contemptuously: "Surely you've read Schemerhorn's theory on penalties and predicaments?"

No one had, but he rambled on interspersing his complicated monologue with obscure references. When he ran out of breath, we picked up our conversation again. Someone said, "I think most people need to believe in something, whether or not they call it religion. So if . . . "

Sneeringly, Casper cut in: "That's just infantile thinking! In my opinion, there's only one intelligent viewpoint. Vosgarten's treatise on the majestic obsession covers the whole concept. . . " After enduring two hours of Casper's rude arrogance and unintelligible speeches, an aggressive member of the party challenged him: "Why can't you just say what you want to say, man? We don't understand you. Do you believe that?"

"Well, it doesn't fit into my model of reference. It's like Wumvoogen says.. . "

"Don't get started again. I'm trying to tell you that we can't understand you. You don't make sense. You've monopolized the conversation and you haven't said anything. Furthermore, you don't listen to anything the rest of us say. What's the matter with you that you can't communicate?"

To our amazement, Casper's defenses collapsed and his eyes filled with tears.

Although everyone felt some compassion for him (and eased the conversation back to neutral grounds), only one compulsive Sympathy person emerged. A pretty young woman named Judy, silent until now, leaned toward him, "Casper," she said, "I see beautiful qualities in you."

"I can't believe you mean that."

"Of course, I mean it."

"Oh, people say those things, but they don't follow through. It takes more than words to convince me."

"I want you to believe me. I mean it sincerely."

I could see the beginnings of a complicated and regrettable relationship here. Judy saw nothing "beautiful" about Casper in his moments of boorish arrogance. It required his defenseless state of Grief to bring her to life. The ultimate cohesion between this pair would be about as inspired as a glutinous mass of day-old spaghetti .

BEHIND EVERY FAILURE

Someone once said that behind every successful man there's a woman. What no one said (until Ron Hubbard uncovered this emotion) is that behind every upscale man who goes downhill and fails, there's probably a sympathetic woman. No high-tone man ever broke down from mere hard work or even a few setbacks. He can be crushed, however, by the slow, eroding benevolence of a Sympathy person who "helps" by supplying infinite justifications for his failures.

Sympathy is so devastating because he is telling the low-tone person: "The helplessness you feel about yourself is so justified that I feel it too."

No one needs that kind of assistance; it strengthens the person's problems instead of his ability to solve problems. It takes responsibility away from the individual. "Poor you. The world isn't treating you right."

The high-tone person (especially if he understands the tone scale) would say, "Well, this is most unfortunate; but let's take a look and see what went wrong. You can go out and try it again." But Sympathy loves company, so he doesn't help someone recover from a loss and go back to win. He can't; there wouldn't be anyone to spend his Sympathy on.

The high-tone person sees a drowning man and throws him a life line. The Sympathy person jumps in and drowns with the victim.

INFLUENCE ON LOW-TONE PEOPLE

We may find ourselves liking Sympathy better than the more aggressive people between 1.1 and 2.0 on the scale. He's not throwing barbs at us. He's not demanding that we change. He's not excessively critical. If we need to lay the head down for a good cry, he's right in there with a velvet-cushioned shoulder. It feels so comfortable to have someone who accepts us uncritically in our most unlovely moments (it's probably quite similar to the sensation of drowning).

But, he's ineffectual. He does nothing to improve conditions. The upscale person says "You're hurt; we'll patch it up." But .9 moves in on the same wavelength saying, "Oh, you're so tired. We'll have to take care of you." There's a deadly timelessness about that. He doesn't say "cure." He says "take care of."

Sympathy (as well as Propitiation) is most comfortable around sick people. And if they're not sick already, he'll help them along. If the person on the receiving end of all this kindness becomes convinced that he needs to be cared for, he remains at the bottom of the scale.

The .9 is too afraid of hurting others to do anything effective. He just agrees about how terrible it all is. A high-tone person is not afraid of hurting others for a just cause; he's able to take any necessary actions to benefit the greatest number. But Sympathy, instead of curing the alcoholic, sits down and gets drunk with him.

Don't work yourself into a lather trying to figure out whether a person is at Sympathy or Propitiation. Although each tone is slightly different in character, they intertwine like two tangled coat hangers. Sympathy often leads, automatically, to Propitiation. Mother says, "It's too cold out for you to walk (Sympathy). I'll drive you to school (Propitiation)." The student says, "It's too bad you fell asleep during the lectures. Here, you can copy my notes."

THE CRIME OF SYMPATHY

The crime of Sympathy is the crime of omission – the crime of not handling, not controlling, not disciplining, not providing strength. His pity and leniency merely reinforce low tones.

He's quite destructive when coupled with a highertone individual because the emotion results from a hidden goal to knock the higher person down to the point where Sympathy will be needed. He waits until the upscale person suffers a setback, at which time he comes alive. He slows down or stops the other individual by pitying him.

Sympathy finds many ways of castrating the higher tone person. The boss gets mad when he hears that the tippling salesman is offending customers, so he plans a showdown. Along comes Sympathy who soothingly purrs: "Now, now, boss. Of course it's upsetting, but let me handle it. I have a little more patience than you have."

Patience may be a virtue at the top of the scale, but at .9 it's only another euphemism for weakness.

THE DEADLY CYCLE

Everyone – even the topscale person – sinks down into the drearies sometimes. Sympathy, however, is more prone than any other emotion to revolve in a perpetual circle between happiness and melancholia. His brand of happiness, of course, is nothing you're going to want to bottle up and sell on the street corners. It's mostly a consoling self-righteousness: "Oh, how merciful and compassionate I am. I never turn my back on anyone who needs me."

He's a magnet for the dregs of society. He puts his attention on the criminals, the invalids, the skid row bums, addicts, alcoholics, and all the woeful, poor, stricken, limp, sobbing Grief and Apathy cats he can find. He's easily taken in by their lies. Grief says he has no money, no job and nobody loves him. So Sympathy says, "Oh, you poor thing. Life has treated you terribly. Of course I'll help you." So he goes down to Propitiation, providing shelter, food, money, sex – perhaps his whole life. Soon he's down there in Grief himself (he's always duplicating tones, remember) and we hear him sobbing "I've done everything I could, but nothing seems to help."

When Sympathy isn't slobbering over the needy types at the bottom, he's recklessly defending the destructive ones in the 1.0 to 2.0 band. He insists that "Nobody is all bad. Give them the benefit of the doubt."

He's the most gullible victim of the 1.1 con. Also, because of the ease with which he is influenced, the Sympathy person can be readily corrupted; the glib 1.1 can lure him into all sorts of criminality, perversion or promiscuity (all of which are more common to the 1.1 tone). Eventually these activities get Sympathy into trouble, so we hear him grieving again.

Too weak to actually handle the low tones he attracts and too compulsively "understanding" to permit himself to retreat, he stays locked in a permanent elevator ride with Sympathy as the top floor and Apathy in the basement.

You can spot him by his fluctuation. Even if you point out that he's associating with low-tone people who are dragging him down, he's unable to handle and unwilling to disconnect. He might hurt somebody.

That's how such a nice person gets betrayed so often. He's noble though. He soon crawls back up to Sympathy and tries again.

IN BUSINESS

If you run a business and you want to stay solvent, don't put a Sympathy person in charge of a department. His overwhelming fear of hurting others is a dangerous attitude. He'll be ineffective on the job, he'll throw away your profits and he'll attract the losers because he feels sorry for them. He's the one who insists on hiring the griefy girl because she's had all the bad breaks. He'll defend the employee who goofs off because "he has a sick wife and fourteen children, you know."

IN THE FAMILY

It's the Sympathy person who most often marries the bad fellow. Here you find the beautiful young girl who weds the down-and-outer, because she just can't bear to hurt his feelings.

The .9 is one of the worst possible parents. His over-permissiveness breeds an uncontrolled, destructive child.

It's easy for loving parents to get lured into feeling Sympathy. How many of us could remain untouched if we saw a small child sobbing because his ice cream cone just fell in the sand? Attitudes of Sympathy and Propitiation are automatic: "There, there, don't cry. I'll buy you another one." This is not truly kindness because it neglects the future of the child; the gesture teaches him that no matter how careless and negligent he is, if he cries loud enough someone will pity and take care of him. It would be equally cruel to shrug unsympathetically and say, "That's tough; you should learn to be more careful." What is the high-tone response? Give the child a chance to recover from the loss with dignity, not as a beggar: "How would you like to do a job for me? You can earn the money for another ice cream if you want it."

When we see a youngster who is chronically hideous – crying, whining, screaming or throwing tantrums – it's a safe bet his parents are stuck in the Sympathy/Propitiation tones. They obviously surrendered, repeatedly, to this behavior; that's why the child continues using it. He's rewarded for his weaknesses, so he never develops strength.

Sympathy parents wonder "Where did we go wrong?" while the child grows into a perpetually immature adult who continues whining through life looking for a permanent baby sitter to hold his hand and agree that it's a cruel world.

When I was a child, I knew a young boy who was constantly getting beaten up by a neighborhood bully. One day he ran home crying and his mother decided not to be sympathetic: "You go back over there and lick that kid or I'm going to give you a beating myself."

More frightened of his mother's mood than the neighbor, the boy went back and beat up on the bully for the first time. With new confidence he soon established neighborhood supremacy as a fighter. As I recall, it was necessary to take on nearly every belligerent kid in the school first, but he eventually emerged as a peace-loving individual who knew he could defend himself.

A mother stuck in Sympathy will be so "understanding" that she creates a permanent loser. I'm not suggesting that we cultivate bullies; but we should recognize that fighting is higher-tone than surrender. And the person who cannot fight cannot move upscale.

Probably the best answer is to teach the child the tone scale so he can select higher-tone friends.

SUMMARY

He's the nice guy who marries the helpless clinging vine because "she needs me."

Not everyone who goes to read to the blind children is in permanent Sympathy. High-tone people care too. In fact, they'll probably be the first ones to teach the children to read Braille.

The highscale person will be compassionate; but he'll boost you back up. When you find someone who seems hard to place on the chart, who's never vicious, who's prone to noble deeds and good intentions, but who collects physical and emotional cripples faster than a dog picks up parasites in a flea farm, suspect a Sympathy person.

I started my study of this tone with the assumption that I would find very few people here – probably only those types who get their kicks out of going to funerals or placing wreaths on gravestones. I couldn't have been more wrong.

I finished with the shocking realization that it was one of the more populated levels of the tone scale. Those who aren't there already are frequently forced into Sympathy socially by the many popular pity-the underdog movements.

In the harsh light of research I recognized a disconcerting number of my favorite people at .9 – people I tried (sympathetically) to place at a higher tone.

The act of Sympathy convinces a person he has lost, and once he thoroughly believes that he can lose, he is unable to win. After a person finds the comfortable warmth of Sympathy, he begins to desire it. He may become so addicted that he runs around hoping for an accident or illness so he can get more.

This is a thick, gooey, insidiously destructive emotion. Everything's so serious.

In fact, it's a downright shame.