Looking at the title of Paul Bloom’s essay, “Empathy is Overrated”, the topic he presents seems like a controversial concept to think about. Talking about empathy, the capacity to understand or feel for another person, in a negative manner doesn’t seem like a beneficial way to think about such a basic human conception. However, Bloom presents his perspective on what empathy really does for us in a way that allows the reader to put themselves in the situations he describes and see empathy the way he does. After analyzing Bloom’s writing, I believe the main point he is trying to express is the misconception of the real driving factor in empathy. The majority of people are taught that empathy is being able to understand someone, to feel what they are feeling, but Bloom sees it in a different fashion. He sees feeling someone’s pain, anxieties, fears, etc., as a non-beneficial way to be there for someone when they need you. Instead, he views compassion as a more constructive measure of condolence. “What really matters for kindness may be self-control, intelligence, and more diffuse compassion” (Bloom 4).
Because of these underlying views on empathy, another point Bloom makes in his essay is how the effects of empathy are seen in different situations and more often than not the negative outcomes outweigh the positive (5). The decisions that we make based upon empathy tend to be unethical and could have better solutions if we viewed them in a more intellectual, compassionate approach. This is another main point highlighted where Bloom talks about how “empathy reflects our biases” (2). We are more ought to feel for people we can relate to, and if we try to apply empathy on a large scale this is where problems arise. “Intellectually, we can value the lives of all these individuals; we can give them weight when we make decisions. But what we can’t do is empathize with all of them” (3). In saying this, Bloom is pointing to the importance of creating the distinction between what feelings to apply in a situation, intellect versus empathy.
Empathy is a feeling that we learn, we do not come hardwired to feel for other people in this sense, and that is partially why different people have different views on something that feels second nature. This notion of learning how to think is where I felt the essay written by David Foster Wallace, “This is Water”, and Bloom’s essay highlight one another well. Though they are presented in different ways, Wallace’s take on the education system we have established teaches us how to think. “Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience (Wallace 3). This control that he is talking about here, the ability to control how we think introduces the points Bloom brings up in his essay. Bloom’s idea of decision making and the role that empathy has those circumstances. I think bringing the ideas in both of these essays creates for an interesting conversation regarding our motives in providing moral support, and the angle at which we should approach the situation.
