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empathy: good or bad?

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I am speaking next week on a panel about empathy:

“Generative Empathies” (Rabb Room, Lincoln Filene Hall, Tufts University, March 30, 12 pm) with …

  • Amahl Bishara, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Tufts
  • Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams, Jr. Professor of Romance Languages and Literature and Director, Cultural Agents Initiative, Harvard University
  • Peter Levine, Associate Dean for Research, Tisch College

I don’t know quite what to say yet, but I am inclined to raise the following points.

First, for a very long time, writers have argued that sad stories generate empathy and improve the character. From his dismal exile on the shore of the Black Sea, the poet Ovid addresses a soldier friend in these lines:

Is it true? When you heard of my misfortune
From a distant land, was your heart sad?
You can hide and shrink to say it, Graecinus,
But if I know you well, it was sad.
Revolting cruelty does not fit your type,
And even less your avocation. For
The liberal arts, your highest concern,
Soften the chest so that harshness escapes.
— Ex Ponto, 1.6 (my trans.)

Ovid presumes that his story will soften the gruff Roman’s heart, especially because it comes in the form of a poem and the soldier is a devotee of the artes ingenuae: the liberal arts, or literally, the freeborn arts. The poem will work because the reader has been habituated by many previous poems to dislike cruelty. Apparently, “ingenuae” has aristocratic connotations, and so Ovid’s phrase for the “liberal arts” implies a higher class of people who have been civilized or humanized by the arts.

Here is another classic source for the idea that writing generates empathy:

  1. And early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
  2. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
  3. They say [sic] unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
  4. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
  5. This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote [or drew] on the ground.
  6. So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself up, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
  7. And again he stooped down, and wrote [not drew] on the ground.
  8. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
  9. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?
  10. She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more (John, 8:2?11)

What was Jesus writing? One answer: something concrete about the specific Woman, which made the scribes and Pharisees think about her (and about themselves) instead of applying the abstract law.

For centuries in the English-speaking world, to enter the ranks of the civilized and humane meant reading Shakespeare. One possible reason: Shakespeare’s special capacity for empathy, which is related to his refusal to push arguments of his own. Keats found in Shakespeare the quality that he called “Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Other critics have noted Shakespeare’s remarkable ability not to speak on his own behalf, from his own perspective, or in support of his own positions. Coleridge called this skill “myriad-mindedness,” and Matthew Arnold said that Shakespeare was “free from our questions.” Hazlitt said that the “striking peculiarity of [Shakespeare’s] mind was its generic quality, its power of communication with all other minds–so that it contained a universe of feeling within itself, and had no one peculiar bias, or exclusive excellence more than another. He was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men.”

So we have a model of the humane and sensitive educated person as one who has been habituated by the reading of moving stories to be empathetic and thus to show mercy or otherwise depart from harsh decisions.

This model conflicts with the idea that a just person knows the truth and obeys the consequences.  St. Augustine recalls his sinful younger self enjoying the theater, where he was “forced to learn I don’t know what wanderings of Aeneas, oblivious to my own, and to lament the dead Dido, because she killed herself for love, while meanwhile with dry eyes I endured my miserable self dying among these things before you, God, my life. … In the theaters I took pleasure along with the lovers when they used each other for vice, even though their behavior was just the imaginary sport of a play, and when they parted I was sad along with them, as if I were really compassionate; yet I enjoyed both parts.”  At the moment of his conversion, Augustine hears a voice saying, “take up and read, take up and read.” He understands this as a command to open the Bible at random. The first words he finds are those of Paul: “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” [Rom. 13:13?14]. Augustine recalls: “I wanted to read no further, nor was there need” (Conf., 1.13.20; Conf. 3.2.3.; Conf., 8.12.29).

This is a model of the just person as one who is unmoved by inappropriate empathy and who avoids reading texts that might make him sympathize with sin. Although he is a very different kind of person from Augustine, Judge Richard A. Posner writes in “Against Ethical Criticism” that “empathy is amoral.”

Imaginative literature can engender in its readers emotional responses to experiences that they have not had. We read King Lear and feel how–or some approximation to how–a failing king feels, the wicked bastard feels, the evil daughters, the good daughter, the blinded earl, the faithful retainer, the corrupt retainer, the fool, all feel. We experience simulacra of the agony of madness and the pang of early death in Hamlet, the depths of mutual misunderstanding in The Secret Agent, the loneliness of command in Billy Budd, the triumph of the will in Yeats’s late poetry. This is the empathy-inducing role of literature of which [Hilary] Putnam and [Martha] Nussbaum speak. But empathy is amoral. The mind that you work your way into, learning to see the world from its perspective, may be the mind of a Meursault [from The Stranger], an Edmund [from Lear], a Lafcadio [the lion?], a Macbeth, a Tamerlane, a torturer, a sadist, even a Hitler (Richard Hughes’s The Fox in the Attic).

Empathy can even undermine justice. It can make the empathetic person feel more virtuous without doing anything, and it can even strengthen his position in a conflict by making him look better to third parties. This can be true of sincere empathy. I believe, for instance, that the median Israeli voter has achieved some empathy for Palestinians, and that feeling both blunts the urgency of justice and makes Israel look better than it should in the eyes of the world. Note the applause in this speech by Barack Obama in Jerusalem on March 21, 2013:

I — I’m going off script here for a second, but before I — before I came here, I — I met with a — a group of young Palestinians from the age of 15 to 22. And talking to them, they weren’t that different from my daughters. They weren’t that different from your daughters or sons.

I honestly believe that if — if any Israeli parent sat down with those kids, they’d say, I want these kids to succeed. (Applause.) I want them to prosper. I want them to have opportunities just like my kids do. (Applause.) I believe that’s what Israeli parents would want for these kids if they had a chance to listen to them and talk to them. (Cheers, applause.) I believe that. (Cheers, applause.)

In sum: I don’t think empathy will suffice on its own. It must be connected somehow with justice and with actually taking just action. If you favor systematic moral theories, than you may recommend using one or more general moral premises that distinguish good empathy from bad empathy. A feeling of empathy will not be a reliable guide to right action, only an urge that you must critically assess in other terms.

If, like me, you are skeptical about organized moral theories and believe that empathetic responses can convey truths about the world, then you will view an empathetic response as a valid source of guidance. But not as the only kind of valid input: relatively abstract and impersonal considerations must also apply.

my news habits are getting worse

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(National Airport) After a day with colleagues at the American Press Institute, I am reflecting on changes in my own habits of news consumption. A decade ago, I used to read almost the whole of the New York Times every day. That gave me one institutional perspective on the world–and I spent more time than I should have on ephemera. On the bright side, I daily explored a wide range of topics, from obituaries to human-interest stories, from tech to the arts. I still subscribe to the Times, but I find my attention span much shorter online; the temptation is always to click on something different. I tend to focus on a few developing stories–lately, the Israeli election, the temporary absence of Putin, and the congressional budget process–and obsessively read lots of largely repetitive news and opinion. I think sometimes I am just looking for a more positive angle on the same troubling story. I am not sure whether the total amount of time I spend/waste on daily news is more or less than it was in 2005, but I am pretty sure the total amount of daily learning is lower.

on requiring the federal citizenship test in high school

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I have an op-ed on FoxNews.com against the recent wave of state laws that require students to pass the US citizenship test. It begins:

Quick: how many amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been ratified?

The answer is 27. The question comes from the federal test required for new citizens. Arizona and North Dakota recently made passing that test a graduation requirement for all their high school students, and several other states are considering the idea.  I fear imposing this test will actually reduce the amount of civics our young people study and remember.

The federal citizenship test consists of 100 multiple-choice questions; individuals see a random sample of 10. The easiest way to prepare for it is to memorize the 100 right answers. When you see the key word “amendment,” you remember to choose “27.”

I argue against this test as a tool for improving civics. But the idea is well-intentioned and may do good if it prompts a discussion about what our kids should learn and how we should test them. Civics doesn’t get a lot of attention; those of us who try to raise its profile are rarely successful. This year’s debate about the citizenship test in high schools may have brought more visibility to the topic than anything that’s happened in all the years I’ve been involved with civics. In my Fox News piece, I ask readers to consider what a better assessment would look like. If legislators and other leaders ask themselves that question, we may see better policies–and then we should thank the proponents of the citizenship test for prompting this conversation.

states are implementing the C3 Civics Framework

[Cross-posted from the CIRCLE site] In 2013, the National Council for the Social Studies published the C3 Framework for the Social Studies. The C3 is not a prescriptive set of standards, but a guide for states as they revise their own standards and other regulations, frameworks, and laws that govern social studies. It is intended to make the social studies more coherent, more challenging, and better aligned with what citizens need to learn and do.

One of the most innovative features of the C3 is its culminating “dimension”: Taking Informed Action. I chaired the civics writing team of the C3, and the Framework was influenced by CIRCLE’s accumulated research on k-12 civics, going back to 2001. The civics standards are consistent with the recommendations of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and its founding document, the Civic Mission of Schools report (organized by CIRCLE and Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2003). The “Taking Informed Action” dimension was also informed by the National Action Civics Collaborative, of which CIRCLE was a co-founder.

States and some large districts are now using the C3. Some refer to their process as “adoption,” but it always involves a great deal of customization to their circumstances and interests. For example:

  • Arkansas recently revised its social studies curriculum frameworks, which will be implemented in August 2015. The revision committee used the C3 Framework, among other sources, and the revised documents are all aligned to the C3 Framework.
  • Connecticut’s Board of Education adopted new social studies frameworks in February 2015, based on the C3.
  • The District of Columbia has revised its Scope and Sequence for K-12 social studies to incorporate indicators from the C3 Framework, has provided professional development aligned with the C3, is developing assessments that incorporate C3 outcomes, and has adjusted its Building Literacy in Social Studies (BLISS) program to explicitly incorporate elements of the C3 Framework.
  • Hawaii’s Department of Education is formally considering adopting the C3.
  • Illinois State Superintendent Christopher Koch began a process of updating the state’s history and social science standards in 2014 and asked for the social sciences to be guided by the C3. As Tom Chorneaureports, ”A big part of the revision in Illinois will focus on civics learning, as the standards task force organized by the superintendent will be led by the Illinois Civic Mission Coalition.”
  • In Kentucky, a writing team has been drafting Social Studies Standards for the Next Generation. They are drawing on the the C3 Framework, the Global Competence Matrix, and 21st Century Skills for Teaching and Learning, among other documents. They hope to present the results to the Kentucky Board of Education in April for consideration of implementation next school year.
  • Maryland has begun writing a new Maryland Social Studies Framework for pre-k-12 based on the C3 Framework.  Maryland is also using C3 in professional development.
  • New York State’s Board of Regents has adopted a new K-12 Social Studies Framework that draws explicitly on C3. New York also provides a C3 Toolkit helpful for people implementing at any level, from their classroom to a state.
  • North Carolina will not begin its regular revision of social studies standards until 2015-2016, but the state is using the C3 as a curriculum framework and has conducted professional development to help teachers use it.

As we have previously written, adoption of the C3 Framework is a positive step toward improving civic education in our schools. The lessons learned from its implementation and, eventually, its impact on students will inform criticalongoing debates about how to best educate informed and engaged youth.

how Millennials get news

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Here are some tidbits from How Millennials Get News: Inside the habits of America’s first digital generation, released today by the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The sample was 1,046 adults between the ages of 18 and 34.

  • 85% “Say keeping up with the news is at least somewhat important to them.”
  • Their three most common online activities are email, checking the weather or travel information, and “keeping up with what’s going on in the world,” which 68% do at least daily.
  • More than half (57%) say they followed the news to be informed citizens. Tied at 53% are two other reasons: finding the news entertaining and liking to talk to other people about the news. These recreational/social motivations must be considered when trying to expand the audience for news.
  • Of the news topics that they follow, national politics comes 9th (with 43% following it) and “city, town and neighborhood” comes 11th. At the top of the list are news about pop culture (66%), hobbies (61%) and traffic and weather (51%).
  • Most turn to professional news sources for serious topics, from national politics and local news to crime and health. For religion and faith and social issues, they go to social media.
  • 40% have a paid news subscription, and nearly 30% have a print newspaper subscription (if you combine people who subscribe themselves with those who benefit from someone else’s subscription).
  • About 36% have delved deeply recently into a hard news topic, such as national politics. When they do that, overwhelmingly they search the web for information. Only 7% go to Facebook and 4% to Wikipedia.
  • 70% say that they see opinions that both confirm and challenge their own views on social media. I don’t think we can tell whether they are seeing truly diverse views or only views that diverge in some respects from their own.
  • Those who are less active seekers of news are more likely to encounter diverse views. It may be that people who are most engaged with the news also tend to be ideological and go to trusted sources, in contrast to people who just “bump into the news” through social contacts. The latter, then, are more likely to see views that challenge their own. (This finding is consistent with the inverse relationship between diversity and engagement that we also see in the work of Diana Mutz, David Campbell, and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg and me.)