I agree entirely with the suspiciousness towards empathy, while acknowledging its value as a tool (AND, let's not forget, a likely evolutionary basis for morality overall -- but we should be beyond relying on that now!). And yet. And yet.
I wonder if the whole effect isn't exacerbated nowadays with the individual feeling of helplessness though, in the face of mass suffering, death and even genocide. Focusing on one (perhaps plucked FROM the relevant number) might allow us to do something, instead of feeling it's all pointless altogether because we not only cannot save them all, we cannnot even save a significant proportion: and yet the saved ones ARE saved, like in the story of the child on the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. It matters to them.
So, perhaps the best way to use individual empathy for good is to tell (or learn) a story of one, to hook the reader (or yourself) but to follow on with decisions based on numbers?
I agree with the article but I think you were right specifically at saying numbers don't affect us. They do surprise us but numbers actually mean nothing unless you already have the moral intuition. The numbers serve the moral intuition in other words. It's hard to grasp such a vast number as well that we tend to reduce large numbers into some abstraction (e.g. 8452 is thought of as 4 separate numbers because 8,452 is just a ridiculously large number). So on top of numbers adding no moral dimension to the tragedy, we have our mind's capabilities working against us. If you say 6 million people died in a genocide that sounds horrible but if you show things that happened in the holocaust and then say 6 million people died by it then they are associating those shown things onto 6 million people even if worse things happened to some of them. Numbers are ambiguous and have no part, by themselves, in how we interpret anything but definitely not in how we interpret complex feelings like moral despair.
How many Jews were killed on purpose in the WW2 Holocaust camps. Is it 4 million? Is it 8 million? These 2 numbers seems to bracket all reasonable non-evil historian estimates. But what about the Gypsies and political prisoners (Dachau was established 1934). ? Is not the greater question what is the social, religious, political, technological forces that led Europe to this. That question fascinates me. The number debate is a pathetic sideshow that I think leads to empathatic excess on the state of present day Israel.
If I may be so bold: spend a few thousand words on the novel as a means of development. I believe I’ve heard you hit that note before and would like to hear more of it. Side-pod with Tamler? Balance the ledger.
Given we experience a fiction of our own, are the readers of fiction equipped with more devices of plot and character? Do non readers have the full arsenal of romantic/humanistic confabulation? Is one normative?
You seem to be saying it’s better to be without. We are more rational when we are less human. Or we are less humane when we encounter the elements of humanity’s invention.
I agree entirely with the suspiciousness towards empathy, while acknowledging its value as a tool (AND, let's not forget, a likely evolutionary basis for morality overall -- but we should be beyond relying on that now!). And yet. And yet.
I wonder if the whole effect isn't exacerbated nowadays with the individual feeling of helplessness though, in the face of mass suffering, death and even genocide. Focusing on one (perhaps plucked FROM the relevant number) might allow us to do something, instead of feeling it's all pointless altogether because we not only cannot save them all, we cannnot even save a significant proportion: and yet the saved ones ARE saved, like in the story of the child on the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. It matters to them.
So, perhaps the best way to use individual empathy for good is to tell (or learn) a story of one, to hook the reader (or yourself) but to follow on with decisions based on numbers?
I agree with the article but I think you were right specifically at saying numbers don't affect us. They do surprise us but numbers actually mean nothing unless you already have the moral intuition. The numbers serve the moral intuition in other words. It's hard to grasp such a vast number as well that we tend to reduce large numbers into some abstraction (e.g. 8452 is thought of as 4 separate numbers because 8,452 is just a ridiculously large number). So on top of numbers adding no moral dimension to the tragedy, we have our mind's capabilities working against us. If you say 6 million people died in a genocide that sounds horrible but if you show things that happened in the holocaust and then say 6 million people died by it then they are associating those shown things onto 6 million people even if worse things happened to some of them. Numbers are ambiguous and have no part, by themselves, in how we interpret anything but definitely not in how we interpret complex feelings like moral despair.
How many Jews were killed on purpose in the WW2 Holocaust camps. Is it 4 million? Is it 8 million? These 2 numbers seems to bracket all reasonable non-evil historian estimates. But what about the Gypsies and political prisoners (Dachau was established 1934). ? Is not the greater question what is the social, religious, political, technological forces that led Europe to this. That question fascinates me. The number debate is a pathetic sideshow that I think leads to empathatic excess on the state of present day Israel.
If I may be so bold: spend a few thousand words on the novel as a means of development. I believe I’ve heard you hit that note before and would like to hear more of it. Side-pod with Tamler? Balance the ledger.
What capacity or capacities are present in readers that are absent in non readers?
Given we experience a fiction of our own, are the readers of fiction equipped with more devices of plot and character? Do non readers have the full arsenal of romantic/humanistic confabulation? Is one normative?
You seem to be saying it’s better to be without. We are more rational when we are less human. Or we are less humane when we encounter the elements of humanity’s invention.
Paulie B—let’s suppose we could fail to prevent the killing of 10 readers vs 20 non readers…
But 2 of the readers are Branden Sanderson fans.
One of the non readers really likes the TV adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster but has not picked up Wodehouse.