David Johnston - Empathy: Turning Compassion into Action

Empathy is not simply the title of David Johnstons book, its the title of David Johnstons life. Ive known David ever since he came to the University of Toronto Law School in the late sixties when I was a student. He came to teach corporate law, and since corporate law and I kept our distance, I never had the benefit of him as a professor, but we all knew about this wunderkind whod been a hockey star and, more magnetically to some of us, a friend at Harvard of Erich Segal, the uber-famous author of the uber-famous book (and movie) Love Story. Not only his friend but also, they say, one of the characters in the book was named after him.

And he was really nice. While law professors at the time were certainly really nice, they were not usually hockey stars or friends of world-famous people. So David Johnstons aura while I was at law school was mythica superstar in the real world who was, at the same time, modest, caring, humane, fair, and generous. That means wise and compassionate. And being wise and compassionate means being empathetic.

When I next heard about David Johnston, it was because he had just become the principal of McGill University after serving as a beloved dean in Western Universitys Faculty of Law. Our older son Jacob was a student there while David was principal, and once again, I heard his reputation described with the same adjectival quintet Id first heard at the University of Toronto Law School: modest, caring, humane, fair, and generous. That package of empathy, along with his brilliance, led him to an unprecedented three terms as principal. He was a principled principal who gave empathy a good name.

His career unfolded into many spectacular positions and achievements that stretched not only across academic fields but also into the wider territories of public policy such as economics, science, technology, and innovation, to name only some. And through them he tenaciously lived up to the empathetic adjectives that defined him, never once allowing their integrity to be sacrificed on the altar of expedience. His inner engine was the public interest, and the fuel that kept it running was an empathic understanding that, to protect the public interest, you have to protect it from empathys antonyms: arrogance, indifference, cruelty, injustice, and selfishness.

Thats why when David Johnston became governor general, the country cheered. Here was a national symbol who represented Canadas best self, who trumpeted the values that keep us at our best, and who reified those values in everything he did and believed in. He reminded us how proud we should be of our singular commitment to making Canada welcoming and accessible to all, regardless of identity; he encouraged us to look over our shoulders to see who had fallen behind so we could help them up.

The magic ingredient in his selfless and respectful approach to his role was that we all knew he meant it. It was who he was. It was aspirational for sure, but it was also, to him, realistic. That made it irresistibly inspirational. We wanted the country he wanted. And we wanted him to help us figure out how to get there and stay there.

Hence this book. It contains the symbiotic reflections of a powerfully rigorous mind and an unabashedly loving heart. The books integrated personal, historical, philosophical, and occasionally whimsical observations give us a template that can help guide us in our own lives, the life of our country, and the future of a world currently at profound risk from too little empathy. I was mesmerized by the stories of his familyhis enduring and eternal love for his wife, Sharon, their beloved daughters and their partners, and their adored grandchildrenand marvelled at the way he was able to turn those stories into insightful metaphors. He is devoted to his familys happiness and uses the emotional nourishment he gets, relies on, and cherishes from them to teach us why and how empathy starts at home.

Yet he is also a public intellectual and servant, so he finds guiding metaphors in the public sphere too, especially those he has personally seen or experienced, to help us understand how to improve our economy, save the climate, protect refugees and minorities, invest in ideas, stay healthy, listen with an open mind, strive for fairness, and be brave.