The Challenge of Empathy: Part 1
The Limits and Weaponization of Empathy
Can empathy help us change the world or is it a hindrance to us?
In his best-selling book Against Empathy, Paul Bloom argues that empathy, as it factors into our decision-making processes and moral formation, is problematic rather than helpful. In this book, he works with a particular definition of empathy: feeling what others feel. This is a limited definition, but it isn’t a limitation. Based on his definition of empathy, Bloom writes, “the act of feeling what you think others are feeling - whatever one chooses to call this - is different from being compassionate, from being kind, and most of all from being good. From a moral standpoint, we’re better off without it.”1
As Bloom lays out his well-researched position, you encounter how the emotional entanglements of empathy, of deeply feeling and responding to others' feelings, can, in fact, be problematic. He argues that it is a “poor moral guide”. Of note, for the research Ideos does around empathic intelligence, he recognizes that “cognitive empathy” is “overrated as a force for good… After all, the ability to accurately read the desires and motivations of others is a hallmark of the successful psychopath and can be used for cruelty and exploitation.”2
On this point, Bloom is not wrong. Empathy has historically been identified as a source for the evil and immoral as least as much as it has for the good and beautiful. Bloom is essentially trying to convince his readers to join him in being against empathy, against efforts to change the world through empathy, because he believes that empathy is limited only to one’s feelings. He offers, as an alternative to a world ruled by empathy, what he calls rational compassion.
What Bloom’s analysis lacks, though, is a redemptive vision for how we might change the world. It is pragmatic and utilitarian, but leaves one longing for a vision that is inspirational or transformative. (A future post will delve further into his arguments and where we believe empathic intelligence connects with and augments rational compassion.) Is rational compassion compelling or powerful enough to heal what is broken in this world? That remains to be seen. Maybe it is a way forward that is slightly better, or marginally better, but does it carry with it the hope of healing and transformation?
The Weaponization of Empathy
Let's begin with what is very helpful in this book as a starting point for thinking through Bloom’s arguments about empathy. Bloom’s insights about the dangers and limits of empathy are crucial for understanding the difference between a standard definition of empathy (feeling what someone else feels) and empathic intelligence, the work we are doing at Ideos. The limitations of empathy noted in this book are something we experience all the time. Here is one way to summarize and apply these insights.
Empathy is easily manipulated and weaponized.
We are all suffering from the weaponization of empathy.
While empathy can be one of the most effective tools of manipulation and control in the hands of those with ill-intent, selfish ambition, or functioning in a non-relational way, our friend Dr. Jim Wilder offers a more helpful description of this mode of functioning: enemy mode. In his book Escaping Enemy Mode, written with Ray Woolridge, Jim explains how our brains can shut off relational function and turn even our most beloved relationships into enemy interactions we are determined to win. Students of attachment theory3 will recognize that living in enemy mode is a common and often unrecognized condition for those who have difficulty forming healthy attachments to others. Empathy can become a weapon to defeat our enemies when we are non-relational or in enemy mode. We can see the extreme version of this in those who are legitimately psychopaths.
Jim writes, “The simplest way to state the problem is that attempting to teach compassion to psychopaths simply makes them better psychopaths. Therapy for a brain where attachment is ‘off’ becomes a finishing school for predatory ToM (Theory of Mind) skills. Armed with a better understanding of how others feel and operate, intelligent enemy mode can manipulate, use others, and win more effectively.”4
An example of this may come from the much-debated therapy sessions of one Tony Soprano, the anti-hero at the heart of the mob drama The Sopranos. The series traces Tony’s experience with his therapist, Dr. Melfi, as he seeks a cure for his anxiety attacks and depression. Much ink has been spilled over his therapy sessions and what was revealed in these conversations. But, one interesting wrinkle woven through his therapist’s character is an actual book written about the experience of criminals in therapy and how they often learn skills that make them more effective in their criminal operations.
Without getting too far into the weeds, Tony is an example of the limits of empathy and how understanding others can make us better at being manipulative, selfish, narcissistic, and winning against whoever we have decided, consciously or unconsciously, is our enemy. Despite years of therapy, Tony never comes to grips with the way he manipulates or tries to manipulate others around him to fulfill his own vision of happiness and success. Even the people he loves are pawns to be used for his own self-fulfillment. You could make an argument that he becomes more brutal, violent, and self-indulgent as he gathers tools to help him deal with the stress and anxiety that drew him to therapy.
Assuming no one reading this is setting out to lead a vast criminal network in the suburbs and swamplands of New Jersey, what bearing does this have on us? Whether or not we are aware of it, others are working to manipulate us through empathy every day of our lives. The skills of empathy manipulation are often associated with psychopaths and criminal masterminds. They are also readily displayed in advertising, partisan politics, and social media. Armed with algorithms that can predict our behaviors, responses, and triggers, social media decides what we will see based on what will stimulate the desired response – technology completely grounded in an empathy-based framework. We have the illusion of agency and choice in a world of digital manipulation that knows us often better than we know ourselves.
As Vanessa Lancaster writes at Psychology Today, “In a society that vehemently protects our right to free speech, we lack the same vigor when it comes to freedom of thought. Every day, the majority of us succumb to the simplicity of algorithmic manipulation, volunteering our minds to potent social experimentation.”5
The profitability of this manipulation is clearly understood by those who are selling us products, who are seeking to sell our attention to their advertisers, and by partisan political organizations. One way this is easily discernible is in how frequently a singular story is repeated to clarify how you should feel about a politicized social issue. The story is meant not to invoke thinking or reflection but to end thinking through empathy. It is meant to grab hold of our emotions and to link them to the desired belief around a policy, politician, or party. Certain stories are repeated over and over again, as if inherent to the story itself is the fullness of wisdom, insight, and justice around an issue. This happens with issues of immigration, transgender rights, campaigning against political opponents, guns, war, the economy, etc. Complex issues are simplified into a singular story that is repeated because it effectively invokes our empathy.
Emotional Fatigue and Overstimulation
Another factor impacting empathy’s power to help us live compassionately is fatigue. We live in a time of unprecedented stimulation. We are plugged into an unrelenting flow of global information that has expanded far faster than our mental preparation and innate human capacity. Information technology has outpaced our understanding of its impact on our culture, and we are just beginning to take account of the changes and damage they have done to our lives.
This flow of information allows us to keep up with friends and family spread around the globe in real time. It also exposes us to endless human suffering. It isn’t enough to carry our own burdens and those of our friends and family; we are now thrust into a world where we are exposed to ecological disasters in places we didn’t know existed and have never visited. We are inundated with individual stories of suffering appearing in our notifications and live streams of armed conflict around the globe. The cost on our capacity for compassion and empathy is significant. We are overstimulated, unable to process what we are receiving, and increasingly numb and disengaged.
This overstimulation and our limited capacity to truly understand and live in one another’s stories can lead us away from each other. It is easier to utilize social media to find groups of people who already think like us and to spend our energy reinforcing our beliefs and increasing our animosity towards those outside our chosen affinity group. It is rare to find a way beyond our ideological enclaves. It is hard to find the energy to make those efforts, and no one profits off of those efforts, so they require us to swim upstream against a powerful current.
Empathic Intelligence and the Weaponization of Empathy
Rather than mere empathy, we believe that Empathic Intelligence, a framework for understanding the embodied relation wisdom revealed in Jesus, is the best way forward in a world weaponizing our empathy against us. Empathic Intelligence empowers us to be a redemptive presence in a broken world. It is an intelligence that allows us to be present to the pain of others while not losing ourselves within it or being manipulated by the selfish intentions of others.
Here are a few ways that Empathic Intelligence can help us serve the world and avoid some of the limitations of empathy and the dangers of its weaponization.
Secure Attachment
Empathic Intelligence begins with a cognitive empathy that is rooted in a secure attachment to God. This is the work that God does within us to renew our minds and reshape us into Christ's mind. This idea is missing from the secular concept of rational compassion. Our friend Geoff Holsclaw at is exploring this work of attachment theory and its connection to spiritual formation. He is a great guide for those who want to begin exploring this connection. We are in the midst of conversations about how to produce some collaborative projects unpacking attachment theory and its connection to empathic intelligence. When we securely attach to God, our ability to securely attach to others is deeply impacted. This has huge implications for moving beyond enemy mode and keeping us from weaponizing empathy against others.
Communities of Mutuality
It is difficult to grow our Empathic Intelligence without living in communities of mutuality. These communities shape and form us on a moral level and teach us how to live in healthy and redemptive ways with each other. We see, in the example of Jesus, the formation of these unlikely communities that brought together those who would have otherwise been separated by cultural categories. In learning to love and understand each other in these committed relationships, we grow in our ability to listen to each other, live with humility, and learn to serve rather than manipulate each other. Lives rooted in these communities are not so easily swayed by algorithms and weaponized empathy because they have an embodied wisdom that roots them in the love of God. In these communities, we gather to discern how to live amid conflict and difficult circumstances. Rational compassion would be greatly enhanced by the attached community and by escaping the limits of our own biases.
Exchanging Enemies for Neighbors
With lives securely attached to a loving God and rooted in the healing mutuality of community, our posture towards the world changes. We are now freed to follow the command to love our neighbor as ourselves. Growing in our understanding of and participation in the mind of Christ, we can live with a curiosity that helps us see the inherent dignity and worth of all people. Without feeling everything they feel and knowing we can never experience all that another person has felt, we can engage with genuine curiosity and care for them as a person. We can listen, learn, and extend compassion without losing ourselves because we are attached to God and rooted in the community. Our capacity for compassion is greatly enhanced by these attachments and moving out into the world as a compassionate presence with others. We are no longer limited by our own emotional capacity or ability to understand everyone. We grow in communal wisdom, have partners we know we can trust who can lead us with their capacity and understanding, and we can participate alongside them.
Concluding Thoughts
Bloom’s book and the ways in which empathy is being weaponized point us to the need for a deeper wisdom that will shape the way we live in the world. We believe that wisdom, embodied in Christ, is a path that we can seek to develop empathic intelligence. As we grow in this intelligence we expand our capacity for compassionate living and build up strength against the manipulation of our empathy.
Paul Bloom, Against Empathy, p. 2
Against Empathy, p. 3-5
“The attachment behavior system is an important concept in attachment theory because it provides the conceptual linkage between ethological models of human development and modern theories on emotion regulation and personality. According to Bowlby, the attachment system essentially "asks" the following fundamental question: Is the attachment figure nearby, accessible, and attentive?“ http://labs.psychology.illinois.edu/~rcfraley/attachment.htm
Wilder and Woolridge, Escaping Enemy Mode, p. 119
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-of-critical-thinking/202304/how-algorithms-change-how-we-think