OK, our US Agitator readers are now two days back from the long Memorial Day weekend that signals lazy summer is around the corner. But it’s not here yet!

So it’s time for some serious pondering.

Do we need more empathy in the world, or less?

Fundraisers are often urged to ‘step into the shoes’ of others, especially those of donors, to get a better perspective on what actually drives giving. And copywriters are urged to write about the plight of one, versus the statistics of many.

At the root of such advice is the assumed value and virtue of empathy … being able to perceive, feel and respond to the situation (often suffering in some form) of others.

I suspect most of us agree that it would be difficult to be a highly effective fundraiser without a decent capacity for empathy.

But is empathy always a virtue?

Here is an interesting exchange of views I urge you to read.

First, in the New Yorker, Paul Bloom wrote an essay recently called The Baby In The Well: The case against empathy. He makes many observations that charities and causes and fundraisers will identify with. How, for example, there will be an outpouring of support for the baby who falls in the well, while the needs of millions of children living in dire poverty go unattended.

And while he doesn’t denigrate empathy, he does argue that, because it is usually driven by immediacy and personification, it can distract us (including policy-makers and society at large) from far more consequential and longer term concerns. And it can drive us toward inappropriate solutions.

So, in an essay peppered with interesting references to scholarly literature, Bloom disputes those who “enthusiastically champion an increase in empathy as a cure for humanity’s ills”. Instead arguing: “This enthusiasm may be misplaced, however. Empathy has some unfortunate features—it is parochial, narrow-minded, and innumerate. We’re often at our best when we’re smart enough not to rely on it.”

Provocative stuff.

After reading Bloom’s piece, read this rebuttal published on Huffington Post by Michael Zakaras, called The Case Against the Case Against Empathy.

Zakaras is so pro-empathy that he works for an new initiative called Start Empathy … a project of Ashoka (my all-time favorite charity). This program aims to help parents and educators more effectively cultivate empathy in young people.

Zakaras is an advocate of “cognitive empathy”, a concept both emotional and rational, saying: “It’s akin to perspective taking — to imagining why you might have different preferences and make different decisions than I would. This kind of perspective taking requires careful thought, self-awareness, and real listening. It is the opposite of an uninformed gut reaction.”

He argues:

“A compelling case can be made that we need more empathy — not less — in everything from our personal relationships to our politics. We live in an age of unprecedented global connectivity and rapid change, and empathy can help us navigate that world smartly and morally as we collide with others. In addition to getting along better, empathy will help us to negotiate more effectively, resolve conflicts more quickly, and work more collaboratively with our colleagues.

“In our efforts to solve difficult social problems in particular, we rely too heavily on reason and numbers and econometrics, and not often enough on empathy.”

Go ahead, before you take sides, invest 15 minutes or so and read both articles.

Bloom versus Zakaras. What’s your verdict? Is too much empathy too much of a good thing?

Tom

P.S. Many thanks to Agitator reader Dan Kirsch for the pointer.