 When this question first puzzled me weeks ago, I didn’t realize how many assumptions it holds. That empathy is a gift to the person whose feelings (real or imagined) one feels vicariously. That it is always desirable, at least to that person. That it is either earned by merit or a basic human right. The more I think about it, the more complicated it gets.
The capacity for empathy is innate, one of many unconscious ways we copy those we interact with. Babies cry when they hear a baby cry. Dogs bark when they hear a dog bark. Empathy helps us learn from each other’s experiences, predict others’ behavior, and cooperate. In evolutionary terms, passing on the relevant genes depends more on empathy’s survival value for empathic individuals and communities than for the people whose feelings are mirrored. Even so, empathy is not always helpful. I don’t want to empathize with the hater or promoter of unfounded fear. Parents calm an anxious child by not getting anxious themselves. I’d prefer my surgeon pain-free and focused, even when I’m distracted by pain. Caring, yes. Understanding, yes. Recognizing another’s humanity, yes. But whether or not empathy is appropriate in any particular case may have nothing to do with deserving. Image: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Les Noisettes (The Nut Gatherers), 1882. Detroit Institute of Arts.
13 Comments
Connie Gill
2/21/2022 08:46:38 am
It's a very interesting hypothesis you pose, and I sense I won't do it justice in a comment. My perspective is that empathy is always helpful. Having and experiencing empathy is vital to human connection and compassion. As a trait, empathy develops and broadens our intellectual perspective. As a state, empathy deepens our emotional experience. Yet you make an important point that how we enact our feeling of empathy may need regulated to a specific circumstance. Applied empathy, acting upon empathy, requires that we assess the situation and choose an appropriate response that will be most helpful to ourselves and others. 2/21/2022 09:57:58 am
Fair points. Some writers build emotional regulation into the definition of empathy, resolving my dilemmas about parental anxiety or a surgeon in pain. I think of that more as sympathy and understanding. More difficult (to me) is empathy for participants in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville or the 2021 insurrectionists at the Capitol. I do aim for human connection and compassion. Is sharing their hatred the only path there, even if I know enough not to act on it? Curiosity seems a more palatable and achievable way toward understanding.
Dennis Doren
2/21/2022 11:14:33 am
I agree empathy is a complicated topic. My understanding is the capacity for empathy, while innate in most of us, is lacking for about 1% among us (people usually called psychopaths). Yet computer models of societal efficiency in accomplishing certain survival tasks have shown that as a whole, society tends to be more functional with a small portion of these non-empathetic individuals (at about the 1% we have). Too many overwhelms us, while too few builds in more inefficiency (read: too much empathy can make society less functional). It seems that empathy serves to keep us sufficiently cohesive but can serve to be detrimental if we all gave that "gift" all the time. 2/21/2022 04:39:26 pm
Fascinating about psychopaths serving a societal purpose. I'd mentioned psychopaths in an early draft of this post (my first drafts are always longer), but only as an exception to the innate capacity for empathy. Can you tell me more about how having a few people lack empathy altogether (as distinct from most being only moderately empathic) would make society more functional and efficient? I can't picture how that works.
Dennis Doren
2/21/2022 04:59:59 pm
The computer simulations actually were designed to test "cooperative" versus "parasitic behavior", not empathy directly. I drew the extension of such research findings to empathy versus lack thereof (what might be called callousness, another definitional characteristic of psychopathy). What was found was a society that was full of cooperation failed to be as energized as a society that had a small portion of those who took advantage of others. Of course, too many of the latter, and society completely broke down; but having a small portion of people who take advantage of our "innate" trusting/caring natures apparently keeps the rest of us working together for better. As is found in various studies, humans are not fully logical beings. Some animosity does us some good, as long as it does not overwhelm us. 2/21/2022 09:41:15 pm
Dennis, intriguing. I wonder what is the relation, if any, between empathy vs taking advantage on the one hand, and the more commonly drawn example of socialism (cooperation) vs capitalism or private enterprise (competition). A lecturer on the history of capitalism was saying that the Marxist collective ideal doesn't energize or motivate innovation - a partial reason for the fall of the USSR. Similar dynamic or unrelated?
Dennis Doren
2/22/2022 06:06:28 am
You question is bringing me beyond my area of expertise. With that said, my understanding about why the Marxist ideal diminishes motivation is because there is no reward for effort beyond the minimum required. Without reward, motivation for extra effort gets extinguished over time. I am thinking that a world without psychopathy, however, would be more like a world with less human opposition. Human opposition seems to cause us to set boundaries between “us” and “them”. Working to make “us” overcome “them” seems to be a very strong motivator, whether in support of a sports team or to earn more money “than the Jones” or “mak[ing] America great again”/ “build back better”. I don’t think our “team” identity has based substantially with rewards or lack thereof - just look at people who support constantly losing sports teams or political groups that keep failing them. 2/22/2022 07:36:53 am
Thanks for this, Dennis. "Human opposition" is a useful term and concept I didn't know before. Related to competition but not quite the same. Thinking in terms of us vs. them extends way beyond one percent of the population. Is the role of psychopaths to give most people someone they almost have to categorize as "them"? 2/27/2025 06:52:47 am
I find this exploration of empathy's complexities very insightful.
Dennis Doren
2/27/2025 12:04:57 pm
Without trying to choose a side, it is easy to say that the political climate in the USA today, typically described as polarized, is one involving a high degree of “human opposition” and the denigration of “the other” - read: lack of empathy. What is most unfortunate to me is that none of our leaders are taking the position of empathy - being opposed to “the other” serves them better at this time. To be clear, any study of history shows some degree of such opposition (in the US and elsewhere) but there is also a point where too much causes great harm - think the civil war. To the extent any “leader” espouses an “us versus them” philosophy when that “them” is in reality just another branch of “us”, that leader is dangerous to the “local”civilization. Think of any dictator who “disappears” his foes or overtly promotes violence on an internal group. That civilization changes dramatically during those times. “Human opposition” can easily go too far. Even so, the Mandelas of the world have also shown that a leader’s having empathy for “the enemy” can have great healing effects even over greatly disrupted civilizations.
Dennis Doren
2/27/2025 12:17:24 pm
I forgot one thing. Why is there far more disruption to civilizations than smooth sailing? Why don’t we notice empathic leaders far more often relative to the oppositional ones? I think of two related reasons: if the essential balance is about 99% - 1% (cooperative - parasitic), then small deviations from the 99% are hardly noticeable (say from 99 to 98)but those same deviations from just 1% can represent a huge change in the oppositional strength (a change from 1 to 2 percent means it has doubled). In keeping with that, there are a lot more people on the fringes of the 99% (in their degree of cooperation) than can mathematically be on the fringes if the 1% (in parasitic behaviors). A doubling (for instance) of the oppositional sentiment has a far greater chance to pull people from their original cooperative perspective than does a very small change in the cooperative can pull from the parasitic. 3/3/2025 07:01:55 am
Indeed. I think we're moved to action most when we perceive the "enemies" or the victims as people like us. National Guard shootings of four white students in 1971 drew far more coverage than years of events on HBCU campuses. Suffering in Ukraine (with which I deeply sympathize) draws move overt American sympathy, except in the White House, than did suffering in Cambodia or Rwanda. 3/3/2025 07:04:13 am
Wow. The mathematical angle is fascinating. I expect to mull on it a good while. Thanks! Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin.
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