Riffing off Samuél’s post, In Favor of Primordial Compassion, I was most intrigued by the notion of the relationship between morality and empathy. Is to be empathic a closet way of virtue signalling and/or imposing our moral code? Samuél concludes his piece:
“Reducing [empathy] to an idea or definition demeans its inherent value, somehow, resulting in extremely subjective ideas about hierarchical forms of empathy that amount to virtue signalling, moralistic conviction, political posturing and self-righteous noise.”
Having explored empathy and discussed it with many practitioners, it’s clear that the range of use is far and wide and, far from always being morally just. Sociopaths are said to use empathy to manipulate their victims. Marketers can use empathy to boost their sales. A negotiator can use it to sway their opponent (or the object of their pitch). The common notion is wishing to connect through a better understanding.
Being empathic doesn’t mean being nice. And given the enormous number of books and articles that feature empathy, it’s clear there will be much use — and some abuse — of empathy. As with any soft skill, it’s up to each of us to check in with our honest intentions. If empathy is not your gig, rather than trying inauthentically to flex your empathic muscle, just start with deep listening, without imposing judgment. The key here is not imposing your will or morality on the other.
What’s the link for you between empathy and morality?
To your point, "being empathetic" is not necessarily virtue signalling. In my mind, empathy is something innate that has eroded in an era when everyone wants to SEEM like they understand the plight of [insert name of marginalized group]. But speaking about how shitty life is for so many people isn't empathy, it's just boring. What ever happened to knowing our neighbors, whether beyond the white picket fence or in the apartment complex corridor? To me, that would be a far better start towards separating empathy from the moralistic concerns it is associated with today.
Thanks for chiming in Samuél. Always pertinent and stimulating!
I think it's useful to look at the question of hierarchy (cf: Maslow) as to what is innate and what motivates us. For example, I would say that empathy is less innate than our sense of survival. Also, I think we have different "innate" values/capacities of empathy. Much like intelligence or even physical strength/speed etc.
As to the boring-ness of other people's lives, I observe that MOST people prefer to think first of their own lives (whether it's driven by the ego, fear or a survival instinct). The "instinct" to want to uncover the quirks and kinks in someone else's life is about pure curiosity. Are you sufficiently interestED to find out -- without judging -- the ins and outs of someone else's life? The moralistic component comes through our judgmentalism. Our need to put others down (because of the chip on our shoulder and a poor self-understanding).
In a number of conversations I've been holding recently about "doing good" and the role of empathy in society, the idea or ideal of doing good everywhere at scale is lovely in principle, but it's misguided and designed to fail. So, let's hunker down and apply ourselves at a more realistic scale, where it's entirely messy and difficult, by being a bit empathic with our neighbours and local communities. If we can do it 'locally', we might be able to learn more about ourselves and about doing it further afield. Otherwise, like trying to "fix the world," we're bound for disappointment (call it: eco-anxiety or bubble-busting).
Love the points you raise, Minter, and the exchange below with Samuel about starting closer in with empathy. I agree with that and in fact, as I asked in my original article, how about starting with yourself?
On the point about distortions that empathy has suffered, I have a few random observations. I've been reading Luke Burgis' book Wanting about mimetic desire and how much it rules us and our so called "independent" choices - including among those who claim to be "different" especially if are defined by the difference as a guiding value. I've come to understand better why all this posturing and virtue signaling has gotten so much worse in our age of social media driven prestige building. Almost every good notion - and "empathy" is no exception - has taken on an ugly form and inauthenticity rules.
Jonathan Haidt has written/ researched a lot about how our kids are anxious and depressed because they feel like they're inadequate and constantly in competition. But I suspect it's also because they sense there is a lot of fakery at play and nothing is really what it seems. It's no wonder that even genuine empathy - which should be a relief, an elixir for our pain and a bridge we use to build our broken relationships - has been taken hostage by the "I have a social conscience" class.
But real empathy is of course something else entirely and thankfully to some degree innate. So as the catholic nuns in my elementary school in India used to say to us when we'd get in spats in the classroom, "Charity begins at home" :-). They knew why that was important. Funny the things you go back to!
I love that final quip. We should indeed start at home. It's generally more complicated and complex at home, but instead of running away from it, we would do better to deal with it (ie overcoming close communication bias)!
I've been reading how kids are abandoning Be Real... nominally because they're not as excited by the humdrum everydayness of ordinariness. The calls for fakery seem to outlast the calls for authenticity?
To your point, "being empathetic" is not necessarily virtue signalling. In my mind, empathy is something innate that has eroded in an era when everyone wants to SEEM like they understand the plight of [insert name of marginalized group]. But speaking about how shitty life is for so many people isn't empathy, it's just boring. What ever happened to knowing our neighbors, whether beyond the white picket fence or in the apartment complex corridor? To me, that would be a far better start towards separating empathy from the moralistic concerns it is associated with today.
Thanks for chiming in Samuél. Always pertinent and stimulating!
I think it's useful to look at the question of hierarchy (cf: Maslow) as to what is innate and what motivates us. For example, I would say that empathy is less innate than our sense of survival. Also, I think we have different "innate" values/capacities of empathy. Much like intelligence or even physical strength/speed etc.
As to the boring-ness of other people's lives, I observe that MOST people prefer to think first of their own lives (whether it's driven by the ego, fear or a survival instinct). The "instinct" to want to uncover the quirks and kinks in someone else's life is about pure curiosity. Are you sufficiently interestED to find out -- without judging -- the ins and outs of someone else's life? The moralistic component comes through our judgmentalism. Our need to put others down (because of the chip on our shoulder and a poor self-understanding).
In a number of conversations I've been holding recently about "doing good" and the role of empathy in society, the idea or ideal of doing good everywhere at scale is lovely in principle, but it's misguided and designed to fail. So, let's hunker down and apply ourselves at a more realistic scale, where it's entirely messy and difficult, by being a bit empathic with our neighbours and local communities. If we can do it 'locally', we might be able to learn more about ourselves and about doing it further afield. Otherwise, like trying to "fix the world," we're bound for disappointment (call it: eco-anxiety or bubble-busting).
Love the points you raise, Minter, and the exchange below with Samuel about starting closer in with empathy. I agree with that and in fact, as I asked in my original article, how about starting with yourself?
On the point about distortions that empathy has suffered, I have a few random observations. I've been reading Luke Burgis' book Wanting about mimetic desire and how much it rules us and our so called "independent" choices - including among those who claim to be "different" especially if are defined by the difference as a guiding value. I've come to understand better why all this posturing and virtue signaling has gotten so much worse in our age of social media driven prestige building. Almost every good notion - and "empathy" is no exception - has taken on an ugly form and inauthenticity rules.
Jonathan Haidt has written/ researched a lot about how our kids are anxious and depressed because they feel like they're inadequate and constantly in competition. But I suspect it's also because they sense there is a lot of fakery at play and nothing is really what it seems. It's no wonder that even genuine empathy - which should be a relief, an elixir for our pain and a bridge we use to build our broken relationships - has been taken hostage by the "I have a social conscience" class.
But real empathy is of course something else entirely and thankfully to some degree innate. So as the catholic nuns in my elementary school in India used to say to us when we'd get in spats in the classroom, "Charity begins at home" :-). They knew why that was important. Funny the things you go back to!
I love that final quip. We should indeed start at home. It's generally more complicated and complex at home, but instead of running away from it, we would do better to deal with it (ie overcoming close communication bias)!
I've been reading how kids are abandoning Be Real... nominally because they're not as excited by the humdrum everydayness of ordinariness. The calls for fakery seem to outlast the calls for authenticity?