If I’m being completely honest I don’t think the author had more than one point which is that empathy is overall not a good thing, and feel like that is summed up perfectly in his conclusion when he states” I worry that I’ve given the impression I’m against empathy. Well, I am”. (Bloom) the only problem with this stance and quote is that based on the text, I don’t believe the author knows what empathy is. He constantly attributes empathy with things that are distinctly not empathy. One spot specifically I see this heavily is when they are talking about the shooting in Newton, to me the actions of people from outside of Newton or more sympathetic than empathetic in most cases. I think this is shown best with the quote “The town was inundated with so much charity that it added to their burden. Hundreds of volunteers had to be recruited to store the gifts and toys that got sent to the city.”(bloom) This specific example is the first the author uses, and even the later examples are still more sympathetic than empathetic. And this doesn’t inspire confidence in me that this article is completely credible, because to me it feels like the author doesn’t fully know what they are writing about.
I personally don’t agree with the point of empathy being bad as a whole. I believe that empathy when used smartly can be amazing, but I know from experience that empathy abused in certain ways or empathy pushed to its limits can be extremely harmful to a person’s wellbeing.
Although ultimately i don’t think his view of empathy is all together accurate for a bit he’s article made me think what things could be considered empathy and how different views of empathy would affect their views on the concept
“In this regard, empathy distorts our moral judgments in pretty much the same way that prejudice does.” This is a sentence that has a lot of enfaces put on it in the beginning of the article. And I think it sticks out to me so much because in a lot of ways it’s true, and it’s just really interesting, and it’s so interesting to think about how empathy is selective and in some ways like the other side of the coin to prejudice. And it’s just an overall really interesting moral question to ponder.