”īloom argues that empathy leads to bad decision-making as people are overshadowed and therefore made impulsive by their feelings. It is biased, short-sighted, and innumerate-we should try to do without it. But why do people respond to certain misfortunes and not others? And in the hum of traffic, do we come oblivious to the less spontaneous, but more prominent global issues, such as the starvation of people in Africa or rising sea level? Why do certain misfortunes capture our attention over others and does this make them more important? This is where Paul Bloom forms his argument. In the wake of similar tragedies, people have donated time, money, and blood. Empathy seems so important to human society it’s something that combines us all as a community. Recall the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, the kidnapping Natalee Holloway, and the image of the battered Syrian boy–events that all caused public outrage and sympathy. When you first think of empathy, you probably imagine helplessness on their hands and knees and empathy coming to their aid with crutches. “Empathy–the capacity to judge what other people are thinking and feeling” An award-winning book written by a Yale psychology professor arguing that empathy is the bane of human existence, this book needed to shift my paradigm dramatically, and I wanted to finish with a new perspective of a world flourishing without something that seems so essential to humanity. When “ Against Empathy” first caught my eye, I expected to be mind-blown.
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