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Why don't we care more about whether people in positions of power have empathy? (rachelgilmore.substack.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Lastly, I will say that empathy does guide public decision making more than it should in a lot of cases. People will engage in stranger danger moral panics or support the “war on terrorism” much more readily than they’ll support attempts to curtail car accident deaths, despite the latter killing far more than the former two combined.

That is not empathy, it's exploitation of fear.

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  • [–] -2 points 3 months ago

    Call it whatever you want, empathy is part of the process. When people fear terrorist attacks, they’re empathizing with the victims. They’re literally imagining themselves in that situation and that is what produces their fear response. Exploitation of fear is exploitation of empathy, by definition.

    For whatever reason, people can’t seem to muster up the same empathy for victims of a car crash.

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