Empathy Epidemic
But the secondary problem is American individualism, which compels bourgeois Americans to focus what small amount of energy we have either on optimizing ourselves (exercise, skin care, “self-care”) or on our very close familial circle (that amorphous, ever-expanding activity known as “parenting” that includes everything from making Spirit Week cost... See more
The Loneliest Decades of Our Lives
In his first press briefing back in the White House, President Trump, who has long been criticized for an “empathy gap,” quickly moves from mourning the victims to political attacks. He assails former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as “a disaster,” blaming him for diversity objectives at the F.A.A. The inference is that diversity by defini... See more
Live Updates: No Survivors After Plane and Helicopter Crash Near Washington, Officials Say
Discomfort aversion - because facing this people, dealing with people, adds back friction into the equation. Friction we’ve become accustomed to solving away
We have manicured out of our lives and our feeds and our day-to-day existence the need for any and all interactions with anyone who has not been hand-picked by us, who is not of the same class or race or political position. We have found more and more ways to avoid engaging with others of our species. And in doing so, we have eroded our empathy.
How emotionally healthy are we, as a people, when, in moments of profound and painful tragedy, we feel compelled to insert our political opinions or policy positions? Can we not, just for a moment, feel for the victims?
(Someone recently described the act of making a phone call to me as “aggressive.”) Dozens upon dozens of human touch points have been erased from each and every day of our lives.
Empathy is cultivated through interactions with people we don’t know well, those glimpses into other interior worlds. We have, over the past two decades—slowly and then quickly—“optimized” other people out of our lives. One app at a time, we’ve greatly reduced our need to casually engage with anyone we don’t know—or even to meaningfully engage with those we do.
Yes, you could argue that many Trump fanatics lack basic human empathy (or at least, are ambivalent to the suffering of others). But let’s be honest — the rest of us have been struggling with empathy for some time now.
Our around-the-clock overexposure to global human suffering, our daily feed of what we once considered catastrophic events — political, ecological, cultural — when combined with diminished attention spans, smaller and smaller chunks of content, and baked-in cross-platform imperatives to remain emotionally removed from any given person, place, or ev... See more