In a column for The New York Times this past January, Nicholas Kristof lamented what he called the country’s “empathy gap,” imploring his readers to grasp the complex circumstances that could plunge someone into poverty. Meanwhile, the psychologist Paul Bloom has argued that a sense of empathy can actually be “parochial [and] bigoted,” making it so “the whole world cares more about a little girl stuck in a well than they do about the possible deaths of millions and millions due to climate change.”
For Kristof, empathy is a willingness to understand an individual’s situation, a cognitive and emotional exercise that could in turn inspire compassion. For Bloom, empathy is a blinding emotion that can preclude more rational thinking. In the first case, empathy reduces stereotypical thinking; in the second, empathy as emotion-sharing draws too much attention to an individual, standing in the way of effective social change.
[For more of this story, written by Susan Lanzoni, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...y-of-empathy/409912/]
Comments (0)