The Politics of Empathy

'The Baby in the Well', http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/20/the-baby-in-the-well

'Why do people respond to [certain] misfortunes and not to others?' Take the case of Baby Jessica who fell into the a well and triggered a huge rescue operation that captivated the entire nation. In comparison, glaring problems such as starvation of children in Africa, or homicide in the US, are regarded as background noise. Going further into what has been called 'the identifiable victim effect', when subjects are asked to donate to develop a drug to save a child's life, versus being shown a picture and information of the child itself, the donations instantly increased in the latter. When one reads about 2000 people who have died in an earthquake in a remote country, we recognize the numbers as significant due to Reason, not Empathy.

Empathy can be problematic when it comes to policy-making as people often see or want to see only the immediate outcomes, rather than the lasting effects of their actions. Statistics matter less than the 'victims who have names and stories'. [We see the negative consequences of 'Empathy' in the 2016 U.S elections when the media kept emphasizing on the 'real, hardworking American white working class' and their personal stories of struggle. Not to say that one should not empathize with them, but rather than focus on issues such as the decline and relevance of their industry,  or even look at how overall employment rates have increased, or at the working conditions of other ethnic groups, these stories tend to mislead, enlarge and overlook the core issues that should affect the election results]

'Moral judgment entails more than putting oneself in another's shoes...A reasoned, even counter-empathetic analysis of moral obligation and likely consequences is a better guide to planning for the future than the gut wrench of empathy.' Appreciate the fact that 'even if we don't empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love'.