Could Empathy Die as Technology Progresses?
Let’s put things in perspective. There will be 3 points to consider in this question:
- What is it, and what takes to have or develop empathy
- How empathy has been used in the past without modern technology
- How is empathy used now with technology
Empathy is a hard thing to define
Based on an internet definition: empathy is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.
Thus, it is possible to have multiple levels of empathy depending on each individual. Some people are very good at sensing other’s emotions, some people are not so good. With this definition in mind, let us now consider 2 aspects on how empathy is developed. The first aspect is biological/genetic makeup, and the second is environmental/educational.
The biological aspect has to do with the amygdala. This is a small part of the brain located in between your ears. A lot of the emotional response of humans is attributed to this tiny section. In her book “The Fear Factor” , Dr. Abigail Marsh explores her findings in how the amygdala plays a key role in our definitions for “good” and “bad” human beings. Her studies in neuroscience link how human empathy is highly connected to the size of the amygdala inside the brain.
Could amygdala responses to others’ fear represent a similarly empathetic response, one that could predict compassionate responses to others’ distress? Perhaps.
Thus, our first aspect of empathy could be defined as predetermined by birth, and this fact alone could be topic for an entire new article (or book(s), but for this article let’s stay with only the key points). Individuals are born with higher/lower levels of empathy; but now this brings to our second and most crucial point. What factors do environment and education play in the development of empathy?
Currently, it is well-know that raising a child in different environments play a role in their future. Thus empathy, regardless of the size of the amygdala can be somewhat learned, or at least improved with the right environment. But just are abilities learned? By obtaining information. It is my objective in this article to propose the following: information increases your ability to have empathy. The more you know about a certain person/topic/situation, the better your empathy will be.
To show this, let’s look at our second point: Empathy throughout history.
This is a little difficult since history is vast, and I will leave a link just to show how many there are. For the sake of writing, I will not focus on their historical facts, but instead on the common aspects by which their motivations ran. In most cases, societies in conflict always lacked a real understanding of what their “opponents” were. An example could be the Spain invasion against the Aztec Empire (around 1519). In this massacre, the Aztecs did not really understand who or what the Spaniards were. In fact, horses were creatures that did not exist in the Aztec empire but were brought by Spaniards in their ships. This led to many Aztecs to believe that Spaniards on horses were a mythological Centaur (which is a reason for which it is attributed the trickery that the Spaniards played to defeat the Aztecs). On the other hand, Spaniards saw the Aztecs as simply slaves or cheap labor with nothing close to human rights, as their self-proclaimed rights demanded that more labor and treasure was needed.
Both views of each other (and sometimes even of themselves) were distorted, but more than anything misinformed. I could go on with this topic, but the amount of empires, and nations that have (intentionally or unintentionally) put erroneous labels for unknown foes/foreigners/neighbors are too many to count. Throughout history, empires, nations, and leaders have always needed a misinformed reality of a common opposition to defeat. This opposition, and the goal of going against it, is used as the symbol for union in between societies, and as justification for any atrocities that followed.
All this, is to make a simple point: Societies in the past, could never have empathy towards others because they never had information nor incentive to do so (the incentives for the opposite could easily be found by looking at the history of war). Even if they had the most empathy-able amygdala, what good would it take if your understanding of foreigners were always as demons/criminals/etc. ?
And now let us take a step further with whom empathy was possible in those times. The people from your same society. If you lived in any empire, you would understand the necessities of your allies, you would see their families, and their human values. Therefore, that day-to-day interaction has led to empires and nations to develop a strong sense of empathy towards each other. Most people understood their necessities, anxieties, problems, and that feeling is what unite them to move forward with war, conquering and the like.
Thus, in order to develop empathy, we need to understand others, but to do so, you need information and interaction with the people you want to feel empathy for. This brings the final point of this writing:
Empathy and Technology
Technology has opened a wild number of possibilities for our understanding of many subjects. Empathy does not seem to be one of them. Empathy is something that you need time to grasp.
For starters, it will never be possible to fully understand another human being completely. But it is our desire to start with something. Time to understand, sadly, is something that current twentieth century technology does not allow. Forums, news, social media, comments, etc. all of them force to simplify information and generate “the big picture” of any subject without enough time (for more enrichment on this topic, Dr. Neil Postman’s works are invaluable). If there is an accident, the responsible can be held liable for it and be severely criticized by people who don’t know the person nor the incident. Unknown individuals have developed apathy (opposite of empathy) towards a person they don’t know much about. Today, three sentences are enough to categorize a person almost as human or inhuman. This is not to say that sometimes it is possible to do that. However, it should never be the number one explanation to everything. Technology has brought a dichotomy of reality: black/white, right/wrong, innocent/guilty, right/left, me vs you, (and many more) when these should be only the very last cases to consider.
Now, the next and final point of technology and empathy. Information overload. With so much information available, many individuals arise to the idea that everything they read can be regarded as true. But in reality, good information is difficult to find. Even the information I said about the Centaurs (which was passed down to me by a tourist guide inside an archeological site at a pyramid that played a role in the Aztec Empire fall in Mexico) has been criticized, but the part of horses not existing in the Aztec empire is true. Information is difficult to find, and many believe that it is enough to do a simple search to know enough. In fact, this is true for let’s say the price of a hamburger, but what about understanding the culture of a foreign country to yourself? Do you think reading about it in a movie or documentary will be enough to understand it? Even with books, the amount of time for understanding being raised in X culture different from your own is tremendous. I will not go into the details of it, but I will say that technology has often made us forget that. There situations in which a movie could misguide us to believe a false statement, or wrong generalization of an entire culture. Which is something that hampers ourselves and our treat with others.
In the past, empathy was excluded to your own members, which was genuine, but was very limited (which at the same time, could be used to lead atrocities). Today, empathy has become scarce, and superficial, which has led to a weak interaction in between us humans. However, it is up to ourselves to decide to open up to dedicate time and opportunity to share other’s view. Regardless of the size of your amygdala, history or culture, empathy will require time, and effort. It is not something easily learned, but it is something that guide us to be better, as it is empathy that has led us to our very own friends (and that is at least, my humble opinion).
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