After submitting my essay draft and receiving my feedback I have struggled and lost enthusiasm fro my essay. It was strange because up until that point I was really enjoying my chosen subject and my research. I know I have to make changes to my essay question and I have a good idea of what I would like to change it to I just need to find the best way to communicate it. I decided to go back to research as a way to inspire me to start the process of adjusting my focus. My question will be about the effect of fiction on the development of empathy how this affects society. I have so far found a lot of studies and theorists that talk about the positive aspects of empathy and just how powerful fiction appears to be in terms of determining how we function as a society but I have found a few studies that make counter arguments. They are not against the concepts of empathy but that often effects we assume are positive have negative repercussions.
Paul Bloom
Paul Bloom has faced a bit of a backlash regarding his views on empathy because, as he puts it himself “I’m against it.” He acknowledges that being against empathy can seem as if you are against an array of positive human qualities such as compassion and kindness. He is not. He just believes that if you are trying to achieve the qualities then empathy is "a poor guide".
In this article he talks about many factors that would suggest that empathy is a good thing then goes on to point out his reasons for seeing it as a "it a poor guide to social policy". Blooms argument centres around the fact that empathy is biased, studies have shown that we show more empathy towards people that are similar to us in terms of ethnic or national background, we also sympathise more with attractive people. Another problem is that empathy is based around individuals, we care more about an individual that we can attribute some personal information than we do about 100 people. Are we capable of feeling empathy for a large number of people without knowledge of each individual.
Bloom goes on to say that because of these biases empathy has a negative effect on decisions that effect large numbers of people, such as political policy. If we use empathy to make these decisions we do not take into account that 100 lives are more important then 1 or that a life in a far off land is as important as your neighbour. making decisions that will benefit future generations would be very different if we removed empathy from the equation.
"Without empathy, we are better able to grasp the importance of vaccinating children and responding to climate change. These acts impose costs on real people in the here and now for the sake of abstract future benefits, so tackling them may require overriding empathetic responses that favor the comfort and well being of individuals today."
Bloom moves on from the idea of large scale social decision making to explore the effects of empathy for the individual. On the surface it would seem that empathy is entirely beneficial, helping us form relationships and function as part of a society. The problem comes when empathy starts to have a negative effect on the individual. woman have double the rates of depression than men and have also shown to have higher levels of empathy in studies by Helgeson and Fritz. The study by Helgeson and Fritz involved a questionnaire that contained questions such as “For me to be happy, I need others to be happy,” “I can’t say no when someone asks me for help,” and “I often worry about others’ problems.” . Although empathy triggers positive interactions and acts of kindness it can have a destructive effect on the individual in the long run. Barbara Oakley notes in Cold-Blooded Kindness (2011), “It’s surprising how many diseases and syndromes commonly seen in women seem to be related to women’s generally stronger empathy for and focus on others.”
There is more information that I am going to come back to in this article, Blooms claims could act as a response to my previous research.
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