![]() Bloom likens it to seeing a doctor or a therapist. Compassion is more rational: you hear the other person’s predicament but you don’t feel their emotion – this frees you up to understand it, and to make headway on a solution. Realizing that begs the question: in a world with less empathy, how do we connect and help our fellow humans? Bloom is banking on compassion, and makes a distinction between the two that transcends semantics: empathy is feeling what other people feel, imagining their predicament, echoing their emotional state. Empathy can cloud our decision-making, and bring us too close to problems that require action rather than commiserations. ![]() Bloom argues that empathy is doing us damage – there is a place for it, but not so high up on society’s pedestal. Yale psychologist Paul Bloom’s latest book is called Against Empathy, which doesn’t leave you guessing where he stands. ![]()
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