Saturday, October 01, 2011

The empathy fad

Empathy has become a huge buzzword, as if it were a cure-all for all society's ills.

NY Times columnist David Brooks writes:
As Steven Pinker writes in his mind-altering new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” we are living in the middle of an “empathy craze.” There are shelfloads of books about it: “The Age of Empathy,” “The Empathy Gap,” “The Empathic Civilization,” “Teaching Empathy.” There’s even a brain theory that we have mirror neurons in our heads that enable us to feel what’s in other people’s heads and that these neurons lead to sympathetic care and moral action.

There’s a lot of truth to all this. We do have mirror neurons in our heads. People who are empathetic are more sensitive to the perspectives and sufferings of others. They are more likely to make compassionate moral judgments.

The problem comes when we try to turn feeling into action. Empathy makes you more aware of other people’s suffering, but it’s not clear it actually motivates you to take moral action or prevents you from taking immoral action. ...

There have been piles of studies investigating the link between empathy and moral action. Different scholars come to different conclusions, but, in a recent paper, Jesse Prinz, a philosopher at City University of New York, summarized the research this way: “These studies suggest that empathy is not a major player when it comes to moral motivation. Its contribution is negligible in children, modest in adults, and nonexistent when costs are significant.” Other scholars have called empathy a “fragile flower,” easily crushed by self-concern. ...

Moreover, Prinz argues, empathy often leads people astray. It influences people to care more about cute victims than ugly victims. It leads to nepotism. It subverts justice; juries give lighter sentences to defendants that show sadness. It leads us to react to shocking incidents, like a hurricane, but not longstanding conditions, like global hunger or preventable diseases.

Nobody is against empathy. Nonetheless, it’s insufficient. These days empathy has become a shortcut. It has become a way to experience delicious moral emotions without confronting the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from actually acting upon them. It has become a way to experience the illusion of moral progress without having to do the nasty work of making moral judgments. In a culture that is inarticulate about moral categories and touchy about giving offense, teaching empathy is a safe way for schools and other institutions to seem virtuous without risking controversy or hurting anybody’s feelings.
Brooks nails it.

My theory is that psychologists like the empathy concept because that it how they make their money. A client comes into the shrink's office and tells a sob story, the shrink shows some empathy and bills for the service, and the client walks away as if she has benefited. So empathy is gold.

But empathy is not even necessarily a good psychological treatment technique. It is mostly a method for feel-good shrinks to manipulate patients.

The election season is warming up, and politicians are competing to try to show that they have empathy somehow. Pres. Obama has been tutored on this, as he is widely perceived as being cold and having low empathy. Others learn to recite cutesy little heartwarming stories to convince us that they have empathy. In reality, there are about 20 other more important personal characteristics for a president.

In my child custody case, I had a psychologist who kept using the word empathy whenever he had some disagreement with me. He did not even use the word consistently. If I fed my kids macaroni and he did not approve of macaroni, then he would say that I lacked empathy. If I wanted partial custody, and my ex-wife opposed it, he would say that I lacked empathy. I tried to ask him under oath what he meant by the term, and he could not define it.

The Wikipedia article on empathy lists 17 different experts who have 17 different definitions of empathy.

I take a more scientific attitude towards this sort of thing. If empathy were really so important, then it would be possible to measure it, and to do studies to show that it is effective in benefiting someone in some tangible way. As Brooks says, the studies fail to show the benefits. But the psychologists apparently do not even read their own studies.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

George, you can't take any of it seriously. Does pressing your kids to eat vegetables and making them responsible for getting out of bed on time for school make you a bad parent and show that you lack empathy , or is that what a good parent might do ?

Of course you were also faulted for keeping them out of school one day, and making sure that they were with their mother on mother's day, too.

Could it be that when you do what might be considered in the "best interest of the child", you lack empathy, and when you're empathetic, you're not doing what is in the best interest of the child ?

I support you but, they are corrupt, or at the very best irrational. At what point does it start becoming irrational to expect
irrational people to begin behaving rationally, or justlty ?

Emapthy has to do with caring. Had you given up the fight for your kids, you'd have been accused of not caring about them. As you fight for them and ask, what do I have to do or change to be with them ? they tell you you're not empathetic.

I don't fault you, I admire you. You're rational. Hell, you're a scientist. Perhaps, because it's your kids at stake here, and you are empathetic, and emotional, you have to believe that facts and rationale will prevail in the end. I pray that this will be the case.

Anonymous said...

First, I am making my opinions and observations. Previous commenter made wonderful observations.

Agree with previous some comments but one of comments---- "you have to believe that facts and rationale will prevail in the end" ----- which I respectfully disagree. I believe this type of thinking is trap that kids and parents have been in this mode lost 50 years and got whacked by the system.

If it is all rational and about facts then things won't be this corrupt. Wars have to be fought. Evil/bad won't give away by common sense and rational discussions and they will stay in power and control with greed. In fact, they will demolish you. This has been the case with all justified wars. Other solution to not fight wars is to educate people at fundamental level. This will take long time.

It is intolerable excuse to play with kids and parents to make money. We have to take it for world wide protest. Canada, New Zealand, Australia, UK, some Asian countries same problems.

We're all witnessing children and parents being abused world wide. This is a catastrophy of human condition amd moral values.

Try not to rationalize or you have to prove point to this corruption about empathy. It is about what stakes they have with your team both political, financial, network based, your status and power, the biases, and could they get away,...

Empathy is like placebo effect. One may feel good because it distract the person temporarily from stressing situation until person addresses it with new learning or falls back into stress.

Anonymous said...

Thank you. What I meant to express was not that I, personally feel that George has to believe that facts and rationale will previal in the end but, rather George has the need to believe this. I agree with you that it is a trap. A trap that George and millons of others have fallen into.

Regardless of how obvious it is how intelligent George is, desperation, hope and emotions have perhaps,clouded his perspective.

I agree with what you've said.

Anonymous said...

This power structure that George is facing has coordinated a self serving consensus It's "conclusions", if there are any, are intentionally as vague and ambiguous as posssible.

A body of "experts/professionals" acting in concert trump the reasoning of a lone realist.

This court appoints, lists and limits who George might solicit to refute irrational and unfounded allegations against him.

I've wondered about when judge Kelly, or Kelsay ?, long ago, told George, that, "the people on our list,are good people. That's why they are on the list.", was said with a sort of "tongue in cheek".

It's not a court of "law" as they admit themselves. What sort of court precludes you from employing any expert, other than those that they have on some "approved" list ?

Anonymous said...

You guys are awesome. Making brilliant observations and deep thoughtful comments. We need to make it active engagement.

We need people like you.

George, could you make in your blog whenever somebody posts a comment, it shows as latest update on the front page with date so we could reach those comments quickly instead of going page and trying to identify where the new comments are. It all depends on blog-site providing that feature. Unless I missing something, every time I have to scroll and identify comments.

There was situation. One of the lawyers said evaluators are neutral and identified four evaluators. Opposing lawyer came and said they did not wanted some people in the list. People listening to this conversation asked both lawyers if they're going to be neutral why are you deleting some names of evaluators list. Lawyers' were told, "isn't this contradiction to what you said about they're being neutral but you seem to cherry pick them". Then both lawyers said, No, No, they're neutral.

Guess, what, later we obtained emails between these two lawyers, one of the lawyers went elaborate exchange of emails to cherry pick evaluator who they have financial relationship and who will support the gender.

There are physical witnesses to the whole conversation of these lawyers and we have their emails of corruption.

One of the evaluator indicated they have to pay rent and live of from this income. The person indicated they pay $60K to admin and they have to make lot of money to stay in the field.

We have many of confessions like this. Lawyers told us some of evaluators are gender biased and they have ongoing financial business dealings with lawyers.

Some of the evaluators licenses need to be suspended. They did gross misconduct with children and got caught. These are provable on paper and with witnesses.


We need Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Van Dham, Michael Moore to kick them out of family courts and hold them accountable.

Family courts are outrageously corrupt.

We read family code. It designed and fine tuned by lobbyists such a way they do not fault any officers of the courts (Lawyers, evaluators, counselors...). It is tuned to draw money from families or tax $s. They just blame parents and children.

Remember the saying that lot of people buy into this quickly --- "In family courts, parents are dressed up to behave worst. In criminal courts, bad people dressed up to behave nice".

Initially, I fell for this in the beginning. Overtime when I understood, Oh! my.. this is family courts promoting "saying". If you deeply understand underpinnings of corruption Truth is family courts are so corrupt they're playing with lives of children by controlling parents.

I heard from numerous people, how criminal courts work. It's same game to make money out of population. Although some things are much better.

I start receiving some emails to ChildrenUnlimited@hotmail.com

We're here for you. We need to build gross roots so everyone is connected. It takes few people dedication. I am dedicating my life work towards this. Do it for the children of the world.

Rise Up!

Anonymous said...

You guys are awesome. Making brilliant observations and deep thoughtful comments. We need to make it active engagement.

We need people like you.

George, could you make in your blog whenever somebody posts a comment, it shows as latest update on the front page with date so we could reach those comments quickly instead of going page and trying to identify where the new comments are. It all depends on blog-site providing that feature. Unless I missing something, every time I have to scroll and identify comments.

There was situation. One of the lawyers said evaluators are neutral and identified four evaluators. Opposing lawyer came and said they did not wanted some people in the list. People listening to this conversation asked both lawyers if they're going to be neutral why are you deleting some names of evaluators list. Lawyers' were told, "isn't this contradiction to what you said about they're being neutral but you seem to cherry pick them". Then both lawyers said, No, No, they're neutral.

Guess, what, later we obtained emails between these two lawyers, one of the lawyers went elaborate exchange of emails to cherry pick evaluator who they have financial relationship and who will support the gender.

There are physical witnesses to the whole conversation of these lawyers and we have their emails of corruption.

One of the evaluator indicated they have to pay rent and live of from this income. The person indicated they pay $60K to admin and they have to make lot of money to stay in the field.

We have many of confessions like this. Lawyers told us some of evaluators are gender biased and they have ongoing financial business dealings with lawyers.

Some of the evaluators licenses need to be suspended. They did gross misconduct with children and got caught. These are provable on paper and with witnesses.


We need Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Van Dham, Michael Moore to kick them out of family courts and hold them accountable.

Family courts are outrageously corrupt.

We read family code. It designed and fine tuned by lobbyists such a way they do not fault any officers of the courts (Lawyers, evaluators, counselors...). It is tuned to draw money from families or tax $s. They just blame parents and children.

Remember the saying that lot of people buy into this quickly --- "In family courts, parents are dressed up to behave worst. In criminal courts, bad people dressed up to behave nice".

Initially, I fell for this in the beginning. Overtime when I understood, Oh! my.. this is family courts promoting "saying". If you deeply understand underpinnings of corruption Truth is family courts are so corrupt they're playing with lives of children by controlling parents.

I heard from numerous people, how criminal courts work. It's same game to make money out of population. Although some things are much better.

I start receiving some emails to ChildrenUnlimited@hotmail.com

We're here for you. We need to build gross roots so everyone is connected. It takes few people dedication. I am dedicating my life work towards this. Do it for the children of the world.

Rise Up!

Anonymous said...

It's really nothing unique, in how lawyers, doctors operate.

Get rear eneded in a car accident, or a work injury, and your lawyer will direct you to a doctor he says will do some sort of "favorable" evaluation, right ?

Then, the guy at the body repair shop will ask you right off the bat, when you bring in your car for an estimate, "will this estimate be for insurance purposes" ? Somehow, his evaluation will now be different ?

I know that there's a huge difference, in that kids and family's lives are at stake here. My point being is that, when it comes to lawyers, doctors, and evaluations....there's no nuetrality, there's collusion, and vested interests involved.

Sometimes, people who are ethical and moral will fall into the trap, too.

Say, your doctor tells you that wht your child needs is too expensive for you to pay for, and not covered by your hmo, or other medical plan you have, so he's going to diagnose it as something a little different so it will be covered and paid for by the insurance co. ? What are most people going to say ?

Again, it's not exactly, the same thing, but it's sort of a similar slippery slope.

At a crucial point in life, how many people are not going to go along with what their dr. or lawyer is strongly encouraging ? It's rationalized, somehow by the "professional" . It's convenient and self serving, and it's what "my lawyer told me to do."

I don't like it, but I think that it's more embedded in in the fabric of our society, and in more ways and areas than people want to realize, and address.

Anonymous said...

One of the nurses told me how corrupt doctors' profession. I believe now in one of the legal web site Avvo, they combined directory for both lawyers and doctors.

We have in California, one of the pediatrician provided a letter to the parent. When confronted with truth, doctor said, well, I thought other parent is telling truth. But that doctor went ahead and start hiding documents by blocking. Doctor caused misdiagnose of kids when a parent corrupted doctor for divorce games.

I have seen another case, the same game with pediatrician.

Lawyers indicated this is medical malpractice of doctors.

This kind of games also showing up at school with school teachers. I have cases where schools are playing games with parent who approach second. They get swallowed by the parent who approaches them first. If you're the 2nd one to approach, it is too late for you. Things are corrupted for you by then.

God help children and innocent parents. Across the board corruption due to incentives provided by family courts.

Another empathy fad is when you are a nice and kind person, you will surround yourself with nice people who will keep telling you things will change, other parent will realize, things will be getting better. You probably most likely will find a nice lawyer who will be passive and won't do much for you other than to milk money. So, nice guys get whacked in the system. Lives get destroyed.

Rise up!

Anonymous said...

`I know you're right about the techers of the kids being recruited by a parent or the "first" parent.

You'll find account after account, of the corruptive parent, luring the vitimized parent into situations where a teacher witnesses some sort of behavior by the victimized parent that is an orchestrated set up, to serve as some sort of false evidence used in court.

An "accused" parent will be invited or allowed to attend a school function, only to find themnselves in some peculiar situation, and they are later considered combative
or acting inappropriately.

George may have experienced this posssibly. George attended a school function to find that his children's last name had been listed as "Travers" vs. their actual last name.

Maybe it ws an innocent mistake or misunderstnding, or a ploy that was the act solely of his ex. but, I'm curious if any of you other readers of this blog have sensed a coordinated effort between the ex and a teacher.

Anonymous said...

We have another situation where parent takes TRO submits in schools. Schools immediately see 2nd parent as troublesome and go way to far to block the second parent. They assume what 1st parent said as truths and punish 2nd parent. The schools buys into the first parent information and they're actually do not need to hear from 2nd parent because it is not a mediation. But schools/teachers behave badly towards 2nd parent.

School is supposed to see parents or anybody by default neutral or positive. When first parent sets up the other parent,we have seen as far as blocking the other parent event to field trips, hide school comunications and give their unconditional support to first parent.

We found on one case school had tons of issues with dept of social services with close to 85 violations of personal rights, rude staff. So 2nd parent pulled the kids out of school. But 1st parent is still friends with schools and also opposed pulling kid out of bad school. But lost to 2nd parent.

It is unfortunate the 2nd parent waste so much time and resources to protect her/him and kids.

We have many cases this happening at many different schools with different families. It looks like schools need to be educated about insidious divorce games.

I have seen cases dated back to 90's when a parent playing these games with schools.

These actions are driven by incentives in the court system. They go unpunished except to reap rewards by lying and playing insdious games with innocent lives and children.