Taking the Train for the emergence of environmental empathy

A new movement of environmental travel on trains is gathering momentum since people are becoming aware of the urgency to take direct action for the climate.  Kick started by the environmental activist Greta Thunberg, other big names are following suit and are hopefully convincing others to do the same. There are also a number of initiatives which are promoting train travel for work. For example, Climate Perks is a scheme which encourages employers to give their employees ‘climate days’ to allow them time to travel on trains rather than flying for work. Also flight shaming acts on social media are beginning to appear such as #flygskam. 

We all know that train travel is more environmentally friendly than flying. When people take the train on holiday, they want to slow down, taking the train allows them to see the world they are travelling in. Taking the train for work gives people time to relax and get work done. In contrast when you fly you miss the interactions with the different environments and landscapes which give you the perspective of time and space. Therefore, train travel is an affective, embodied, multisensory experience in which time and space become intertwined through movement. This means that travellers are more empathetically connected with their environment throughout their journey. Train journeys also allow you to connect with people from all walks of life too, as you can move around and talk to fellow passengers.  This means that a cultural empathy could arise through a sense of belonging together on a journey.

There are growing issues with the destruction of the environment due to capitalism and lack of empathy is a significant factor in the continuing growth of this. Also, there are studies[1] which have found empathy on the decline due to the growth of self-serving intrinsic values, a decline in community, the growth of technology and social media and, a lack of social trust. I believe that there is a certain type of empathy that is needed for environmental responsibility, one that is deeply connected with the environment. However, empathy studies looking at the promotion of the awareness of the environment are predominately human centred. For example, according to some researchers empathy plays out as ‘experiential understanding’ in which the combined features are: ‘affective matching’ -  where the affective states of the other are similar to the observer; ‘other-orientated perspective taking’[2] - where the observer imagines the experiences and situation of the other; and ‘self-other differentiation’ – where the observer maintains the representation of self as separate from the other. With this type of empathy, authors argue that one represents the experiences of others through the replication of them. However, I argue that if you separate yourself from ‘other’ in order to empathise, how can it be a fully connected empathy? When looking at plant, animal and indigenous types of empathy I discovered that they are mostly affective in their nature. I argue that to have a symbiotic understanding of all living things on this planet it is necessary to empathise in the same way. The way humans have seen their relationship with nature has had profound consequences to the way that knowledge has been produced and acted upon. Because of this many researchers are calling for research to recognise the more-than-human in different ways.

I therefore call for an affective empathy for deep environmental understanding which would connect people with the environment in the moment so that they take action within that space and time. This type of empathy has already been researched using theories such as deep ecology[3] but has not been explored in terms of what happens when it emerges. In practicing new materialist[4] ways of thinking over the past year or two I have explored emergence of this empathetic way of thinking but have not yet applied it to environmental awareness. I believe a deeper understanding of this type of empathy would help educators understand what emerges through this type of empathy in terms of environmental responsibility. 

In order to understand what this type of empathy is, I have begun to investigate it through train journeys. To do this I have concentrated on my embodied, affective, material, multisensory experience of my journey. I am hoping that people will want to try this for themselves by shifting their travelling habits from flying to train journeys to experience the type of empathy I am exploring. I have decided to cut out short haul flights as they are the most damaging to the environment.

 I travel for work to EU countries as part of my research jobs about 3 or 4 times a year. I have decided that I will take the train whenever I can. I chose the train because it does tend to travel through wild landscapes rather than on bleak motorways. 

My last trip was to Bergen in Norway for a data collection job for a project called Sci-Culture. As part of this journey I took the train from Oslo to Bergen to save air miles. The journey is reputed to be one of the best in Europe and it takes you through the inhospitable wilderness which is difficult to get to. The journey was 7 hours long, so I had plenty of time to relax and take in the breath-taking surroundings. As it was November the landscape was covered in snow. We swept past lakes and mountains and the odd house was dotted empathically amongst the wild landscape. I put my headphones on and watched the landscape go by for hours and was suddenly overcome with an emotion I had rarely felt before. I became aware of my senses which were in play together whilst I was feeling this emotion and I felt an overwhelming urge to write about what I was experiencing. I was aware of my own body connected to the outside and inside spaces. Here is what I came up with:

The world wild
Flashes of brown, green and white
An overwhelming feeling of love excites me
I notice the empathic existence amongst the expanse of the freedom of nature
The glistening snow, captured and balancing upon tired branches
Beauty is enhanced through reflections
More love
My body resonates with the movement of the train
Shifting in rhythmic motion with the music and the scenery together
We are symbiotically connected
Entangled together in a dance of affective love
Constantly moving, constantly changing
The world wild captures my soul and I feel with its whole being
And in this moment, I become it

Watch the video of my journey here

When I looked back on this experience, I felt that I was experiencing an embodied, material, affective empathy. Whilst in the experience I felt a great deal of appreciation for the world and noticed how the Norwegians had not aggressively encroached on the landscape like I was used to seeing in the UK. There were not many houses in the countryside and when there were, they seemed to have been placed empathically amongst the landscape because they seemed to be built around the wild landscape rather than encroaching upon it. I felt an overwhelming appreciation of the beauty of nature and a deep love for the planet. The moment had brought out empathy in that immanent moment. One way I can explain this moment was through the Japanese theory of ‘Mono no aware’.  Mono no aware is explained as an empathy towards things, it is “the ability to discern and bring out the unique inner charm of every existing phenomenon or thing, to identify oneself with the object being contemplated, to empathize with its mysterious beauty.” (Prusinski, 2012, pg. 27 and 28). When aware, “on the one hand is an affective term, stating spontaneous cognition, and there is an identification by the perceiver with the object…….however, the view is objective, and there is a removal in time and space from object to perceiver” (Kazumitsu 1962, pg. 559). Kazumitsu explains that when Mono no aware is being experienced “the feeling is a flicker of intense light that may shine brightly, but only for an instant, resulting in a powerful emotional experience that can only be felt in the brevity of it. The beauty lies not in object itself, but in the whole experience, transformation, and span of time in which the object is present and changing”. Broken down Mono is related to the material world, everything that exists and is alive, whether it be visible or invisible.  This is connected to aware by a small particle called ‘no’.  ‘Aware’ then relates to the serious expressions towards ‘mono’. When feeling mono no aware the senses are open and both feelings and the mind are identical in that moment. I also felt that I experienced the Japanese term ‘Yugen’ which means a deep understanding of the mystery and aesthetics of the universe which cannot be described. In an attempt to explain what this feels like Zeami Motokivo described Yugen as: 

"To watch the sun sink behind a flower clad hill.
“To wander on in a huge forest without thought of return”.
“To stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands”.
“To contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds and, subtle shadows of bamboo on bamboo."
This is the kind of empathy I am hoping will emerge in my research.
But what are the essential ingredients in which it is likely to emerge? This is what I will explore next.

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[1]  Krznaric, R. (2014) Empathy: Why it matters and how to get it. Croydon: The Random House Group Ltd and The Global Risk Report 2019.

[2] Coplan and Goldie (2011) Empathy. Oxford University Press.

[3] Deep Ecology a theory that states that all living things are equal and humans have no right to intrude on the non-human for their own needs.

[4] New Materialism is a theory which moves away from the dualisms in human society and repositions the human amongst the non-human and gives agency to matter.