I have been very much struck by one of the most powerful and counter-intuitive but compelling books that I have come across in a long time. Paul Bloom’s Against Empathy seems to suggest a ridiculous idea; how can empathy be a bad thing? But the sub-title The Case for Rational Compassion raises the nuance of emotional response, and I think he raises some very easily misunderstood issues.
Bloom defines empathy as the ability to feel to some degree what others are feeling; and he notes how many have argued that this is at the root of moral behaviour – indeed, how lack of empathy is at the root of many evils. He notes that empathy has a lot going for it: “One of the best arguments in favour of empathy is that it makes you kinder to the person you are empathizing with”. Lab experiment bear this out – but as Bloom points out, lab experiments are by their nature short-term, immediate and constructed. The real world is so different to the lab – and this is Bloom’s argument – that the effects of empathy in the real world are completely different; so much so that empathy actually erodes rather than supports the behaviours we would want to see. For me, this was initially hard to swallow – but Bloom gives plenty of examples.
We often feel empathy for children – and we know that this empathy can motivate real concern and action. Many orphanages around the world have been the beneficiaries of this concern. But the effect here has not always been what we would hope – and longer term, Bloom argue that empathy has enabled the creation of an tourist-orphanage industry and created pressure on poor parents to put their children into orphanages – often to make money for the ‘orphanage’ owner. Another example is giving money to child beggars. I have done it myself after my heart was tugged by the dirty ragamuffin carrying his baby brother and asking for a dollar. But by allowing myself to be swayed by my empathy, was I perpetuating his time as a beggar? Was I inadvertently giving him and his family a strong incentive for him to remain on the streets rather than get an education? Worse still, might I even have been contributing to the well-documented cases of gangs kidnapping children to create more beggars? Perhaps, in fact giving money was one of the worst things I could possibly have done for this child. Never mind my motivation; what was my impact? (TED talk on this topic)
This is tough stuff to read, as it holds up a mirror that is not always comfortable to look in. What is boils down to is that our good intentions, our deep empathy, our commitment to care, are not by themselves enough to make a better world. They are starting points but they must be combined with careful and critical attention, and while empathy can – must? – be a motivator, sometimes we get to better solutions if we can strip out the raw emotion. But don’t just take Bloom’s word for it – Ou Virak (@ouvirak), President of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights in Phnom Penh writes “Cambodia needs to get out of the beggar mentality. And foreigners need to stop reacting to pure emotion.“
Bloom is with Virak here, and he powerfully draws on his own experience of parenthood to make what was for me a compelling point; that while our empathy for our own individual children is natural, the very depth of that very specific and highly directed empathy can blunt our feelings for others. In what is perhaps a troublingly honest passage – at least for me – Bloom writes that “hearing that my own child has been slightly harmed is far more moving to me than hearing about the horrific death of thousands.” Parents, if we are honest, we know this is true. And his point is that our empathy naturally falls on those closest to us – relatives, friends, those like us, perhaps of the same nationality, race, gender, sexuality, tribe… in other words (and he runs through the evidence here) empathy actually opens us up to biases that are better left behind in civilised society. Now, none of this is to deny the important of family, but as Bloom acknowledges, anyone dealing with anyone outside immediate close circles cannot afford to indulge the natural biases to look after our own; to do so “would be fine…for a father, but… terrible… for a policy maker” and a poor moral guide to shape social choices. Looking around the world today, where this seems to be a driver of far-right behaviour, surely, this is wisdom that we need to pass on to our children and students.
If Bloom stopped there, this would be a valuable book. But he goes on further, and it’s hard not to go with him. Having dismantled the role of empathy at a policy level, he also eviscerates it at some professional levels. His basic point is a familiar one; that professions are rational at root – even (especially?) those involving high emotions. Anyone who think it is important for an empathic therapist to feel anxious or depressed while dealing with anxious or depressed people is missing the point of therapy. While it is quite possible that some prior experience of mental illness would enrich the therapist’s insights (which Bloom would say is compassion), for therapists to empathetically experience the maelstrom of depression when meeting patients would grievously impair their ability to help. So also for a doctor, teacher or parent. Bloom writes that “my worst moments as a father are not when I do not empathise; they are those when I empathise too much and cannot disengage from my children’s emotions to give them what they need – even when they do not realise it themselves.” Any parent knows this – we need people who counterbalance our emotional states, rather than dive right in with us. We need those who care about us to meet our panic with calm and our gloom with good cheer.
We do not need empathy to act. When my baby is scared of thunderstorms but I am not, I can understand her fear though I do not feel it myself. When my students are stressed, I understand why, even though I know it will be OK. That doesn’t mean I don’t care; it means I have rational compassion – not empathy. And it means I am better able to help than if I am in emotional turmoil myself. Compassion is feeling for and not feeling with and if Bloom is right, we should cherish it more than the easy and obvious empathy.
I have taken a while to get here, as Bloom’s claim is so counter-intuitive. But I think he is right; and furthermore, I believe he has helped me better understand some issues that I have been thinking about for a long time – for example, why Service is about so much more than just raising money and ‘doing good’ and also Why Critical Thinking is central to proper Moral Thinking. So there are immediate and practical applications of these ideas, and they can inform thinking in schools – and much further afield – on a daily basis.
This is not just a beautifully written, funny and moving book. Nor is it simply the application of deep thought to reach a surprising conclusion, or even a masterpiece of profound ideas packaged in a deceptively simple manner. More than that, this is an important book to anyone interested in making a better world – and all the more so as it jolts us out of our usual views, and nudges us towards deeper understandings. Bloom may not be entirely right (I have a hunch that empathy is the pre-cursor to compassion for example) but looking for cracks in his argument is a reward in itself.
References
- Bloom, P. (2016) Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. Ecco Books.
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You may also enjoy this piece in The Atlantic-a discussion on 'empathy' in marketing, it poses some very interesting questions: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/selling-what-they-preach/519156/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email
"That mutuality—the expectations people have for companies not just to sell us things, but to sell us ourselves—helps to explain the new trendiness of ethical sourcing, and fair trade, and the rise of the b-corp, and Chipotle’s decision to print literature on its burrito bags. It also helps to explain why empathy itself has become so popular of late, as a commercial ethic as well as a moral one—a fitting corollary to authenticity and inclusivity and other aspirations that are helping to shape the culture of the moment."