
Empathy as a hidden motor of human history - kawera
https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4962/is-empathy-the-hidden-motor-of-human-history
======
rustynails
This was a good read. I enjoyed the different take on the children of WWII. I
also noted the parallels with the stolen generation of Aboriginals in
Australia that was mentioned in the article. The stolen generation had good
and bad points.

While it's not a short article, it doesn't do the topic the justice it
deserves.

There are many overlapping concepts with competing priorities: ethics,
morality, benevolence, empathy, political correctness. Some of these (to my
mind) are less desirable. For example, political correctness rejects one set
of prejudices and replaced them with another set of prejudices. Alternatively,
benevolence talks about the welfare of all and is far more logical and
meaningful to me. I've never agreed that people deserve different treatment
based on gender or skin colour (which is the heart of political correctness to
do so, eg. 50% of women MUST be in IT).

The article takes several swipes at Peter Singer without explaining his views
adequately. I feel that Singer believes in prioritising where best to help.
You do that by applying a level of logic to empathy. While this doesn't work
for some, it provides a basis for collectively prioritising effort and
attention for the broader community.

There is a lot of confusion around empathy. I suspect the hateful and
intolerant campaign against Matt Taylor for his shirt was driven by people
with good intentions who believe themselves to be empathetic. Yet, their
behaviour lacked empathy and is more aptly described as intolerance and
bullying. I lead this back to Singer's point of view about applying logic and
reason with empathy. The author of the article talks about the need for both
and appears to discount Singer as having no empathy, just reason.

Ultimately, any empathy that is applied equally (eg. Across genders, skin
colours, sexual orientations, etc ) is a good thing. The reasoning is also
helpful as it avoids morality judgements and allows us to prioritise our
efforts.

~~~
Natanael_L
My view in short is that attempting to act with empathy without first ensuring
you understand the subject and those affected is exactly what you _not_ should
do. Too many people want to treat the symptom instead of finding and solving
the cause.

Logic and empathy has to be applied together - you need to figure out why
people act like they do (which requires both), and then find a solution that
is as beneficial as possible to as many as possible (which again requires
both).

Applying logic like a robot will lead to optimizing the wrong numbers and will
hurt people, and empathy without logic will lead to knee-jerk reactions that
again will have unintended sideeffects which will hurt people.

And both logic and empathy requires the forgotten old principle of
proportionality. You don't break down and cry over somebody's bruises (you'd
be considered insane) and you don't fix a failing break by instead taking out
the engine to ensure you won't crash.

------
crispy2000
> One of the best programmes on offer (...). A class of primary-aged children
> ‘“adopts” a real live baby for the year (I’m not joking). Every few weeks
> the baby visits the class with a parent and programme instructor. The kids
> sit around the baby and start talking about it – Why is she crying? Why is
> she laughing, or looking back to her mother when reaching for the toy? The
> children are trying to empathise – to step into the baby’s shoes.

Many do this without needing government programmes. It's called family:
siblings and cousins.

Reinventing the wheel?

~~~
mercer
One thing that I've noticed and that kind of concerns me is that in my
environment (urban, well-educated, white, late-twenties, Western-Europe)
there's a distinct lack of regular interaction with people who are
significantly older, younger, less-educated, and/or 'less' white.

Perhaps the reason why I notice is it that in my previous Evangelical
Christian life I interacted with a much greater variety of people through
regular church-related activities (every Sunday and Thursday, and special
events on top of that).

From mentally disabled (apologies if that's not the PC term) to genius-level
mathematicians, from as-local-as-<insert typical local food> to a huge amount
of different ethnic backgrounds, from watching babies in the Sunday
kindergarten to volunteering for 'coffee duty' at events for seniors, and from
dirt-poor to local jeweler/banker/realtor; all of that came together on, at
the very least, a weekly basis. And it's one of the few things I really miss
from my church-going years. Literally every single one of those people in some
way enriched my life.

I think it's a very good thing to try to counterbalance increasingly common
lifestyles of 'homogenous interactions' through initiatives like this. I
really think it does increase empathy, and I really think it's necessary.

------
awl130
> Marx said that the fundamental driver of human history was the conflict
> between classes. Darwin believed it was the evolutionary struggle for
> survival. Others have claimed that the most important force for change is
> the clash of civilisations, the rise of political ideologies and religious
> movements, or advances in technology. A growing number of thinkers, however,
> are starting to recognise that empathy is an essential missing ingredient in
> these traditional narratives.

This is misstated; students of evolution believe that it is precisely the
evolutionary struggle for survival that underlies all else--namely the clash
of civilizations, rise of political ideologies, advances in technology, etc.,
AND empathy.

~~~
eevilspock
How is it misstated? That is what he is saying.

Not all who believe in evolution is limited to such a reductionist point of
view. Just as evolution is an emergent phenomenon that can't be understood by
a reduction to physics, I don't think all social phenomenon can be reduced to
manifestations of evolutionary forces. That we have sex more for pleasure than
for reproduction and that homosexuality is ever more accepted* are simple
examples of that. There are many more.

-

*I wouldn't be surprised if the genes behind homosexuality are more prevalent than before. If true, how would that bake your evolutionist noodle?

`

------
eevilspock
Yes, it is nice that the "Evacuation produced an unprecedented explosion of
mass empathic understanding, by enabling rural people to step into the lives
of the urban poor." But all that poverty and suffering existed long before
this reaction. Why did it take the evacuation for people to step out of their
bubbles of privilege? It literally took shoving the reality of these children
into these people's lives, forcibly popping their bubbles.

Self-serving cognitive dissonance is empathy's arch enemy. It is equally if
not more powerful. Sadly, it is only overcome when things get so bad people
cannot avert their eyes to the suffering of others. Even then (e.g. Rwanda)
empathy too often loses.

This is not history. This is now. Unequal and racist criminal justice. Growing
economic inequality that feeds on the exploitation and commoditization of
people. The tech industry's living in a bubble of good times and power,
building frivolous and self-indulgent products while people are being
gentrified out of their homes. The lucky 10% putting their already privileged
kids in private or effectively private schools, abandoning the children who
need it the most to ever more neglected public schools.

[EDIT: I knew this would be an unpopular comment. Started with 4 upvotes, then
two downvotes, the latter confirming my point of view. What other reason is
there for a downvote other than my calling out selfishness (who can deny
that?) and cognitive dissonance? Any down-voter care (have the guts) to
comment?]

~~~
knughit
Your edit is not HN-worthy.

Private school parents pay taxes yet don't consume public school resources,
effectively donating the cost of their public education back to the state /
public school children

------
cousin_it
Yeah, I think people can sometimes improve their empathy. I remember taking
that test on eye expressions a few years back and I flunked it horribly,
basically doing no better than random. This October I realized that loneliness
had started to seriously bother me (no idea why, I was always okay with
loneliness before) and I made a birthday resolution to be closer to other
people no matter what it takes. Today I retook the test and actually did
better than average (28/36). Moreover, the right answers were completely
obvious most of the time. I guess I had the circuitry after all, it's just a
matter of using it. Though of course for other people it might be different.

~~~
knughit
Considering the eye test is pictures of actors , not real people, you may have
simply remembers the answers, or watched more movies.

------
avs733
I am struck by a certain level of irony that this article exists on the front
page of hn at the same time as a blog post from a university president telling
students to effectively 'suck it up'.

Empathy, and its role in design[1], is becoming an increasingly important area
of study in engineering/STEM education. Being able to understand one's user
(or users) especially when they may differ greatly from you is hugely
beneficial to effective design of any product or system. It is implicitly
represented in most of the modern startup movements (e.g. lean startup) that
understanding your customer is vital to market formation or market progress.

We seem to avoid using the empathy phrase but it is ever-present.

[1][http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09544820902875033](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09544820902875033)

~~~
rustynails
I may be stating the obvious, but good HMI design is not a good example of
empathy. HMI design deals with consistency, clarity efficiency and aesthetics.
I do not associate these with empathy, which I normally associate with
emotions and welfare of others.

~~~
avs733
BINGO...that is the divide that we need to fight against because the
difference you just highlighted is one of language not behavior.

What you are suggesting as empathy really does have to do with HMI design.
While we may not agree with the 'feelings' of another, empathy is about
understanding them. Empathic deisgn, which focuses on understanding the
perspective of your users ("seeing and hearing" to use IDEO terms), is where
the principles of consistency, clarity, efficiency, and aesthetics come from.

The emotions and welfare might not be physical pain or deep loss but they are
(in turn) surprise, confusion, frustration, and enjoyment. Your HMI's work
when they understand and operationalize how your user interacts (physically
and emotionally) with your product. It might be called human factors, it might
be called design, it might be called something else but it is empathizing with
user. When you seek to consistency you are takign an initial (low level) step
towards making empathy part of your design. When you test that design, you are
taking another step.

[1] [https://www.parc.com/services/focus-area/innovation-
services...](https://www.parc.com/services/focus-area/innovation-services/)
(TED version:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhSvLcfBM3k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhSvLcfBM3k))
[2] [https://hbr.org/1997/11/spark-innovation-through-empathic-
de...](https://hbr.org/1997/11/spark-innovation-through-empathic-design)

