When I read the increasingly frequent criticisms of empathy, that same cultural pendulum comes to mind. Yale Professor Paul Bloom, the architect of much of the recent anti-empathy opinion, has written critically of empathy for several years. His thesis:
Empathy is a “parochial, narrow-minded” emotion that misleads us into making bad decisions. In a video promoting his upcoming book, he says, “Empathy is fundamentally, from a moral standpoint, a bad thing.” He claims, “It makes the world worse.” His solution is to employ a “cold-blooded” rational compassion that takes emotion out of the equation.
by John Payne, Moment
