In 2013, Paul Bloom wrote the article, “The Baby in the Well: The Case against Empathy” in response to the devastating tragedies that had taken place right around this time. He argues that empathy is not enough and we need to look and address the world’s problems clearly or dispassionately. Bloom is persuasive in his writing because he points out the issues we are having, how people are reacting to them, and ways we could act better. Bloom indicates that empathy has been used for a long time and we tend to place ourselves through the eyes of another person to feel what they are feeling. It’s our instinct to show empathy and if we can figure out how to move empathy from a theory to real, then we can learn how to produce more of it. Bloom
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He says that sending money and supplies to an area that had a tragedy isn’t a permanent solution and it isn’t going to fix everything. For example, he uses the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newton, Connecticut to prove that as soon as everyone heard about the murder of twenty little kids, we immediately empathized with them and donated money and sent toys (2). This is a nice gesture for people to do, however it didn’t fix the problem that was going on there and the grief that all the families are carrying on their back. Another reason that Bloom gives is that there is too much violence in the world today that we can’t fix everything. Therefore, sending money and gifts isn’t going to fix the whole world; it only makes us feel better about ourselves because we think we are helping other people. Bloom repeatedly says how we focus on the one and not the many, which is also known as the identifiable victim effect. “We become oblivious of problems that seem unrelenting” (3). We forget about the problems that we know are always going to be there, like that starving children in Africa or all the murders in the world. We trained our brains to know that those problems are always going to be there, which lead everyone to forgetting about them and focusing on one thing. Another reason Bloom provides is that empathy can cause more problems because we only think of short-term fixes and we …show more content…
He shows that he is credible and trustworthy by starting off his essay showing the opposing side and how showing empathy isn’t a bad thing; it is just something that needs to be regulated. He uses Obama, who is an important person, at the beginning to show that he believes that we don’t show enough empathy and that if we don’t show empathy then we don’t act (1). Bloom isn’t saying he is wrong; however, he is just showing what we could do to make it better. This makes him trustworthy because he isn’t attacking the opposing side and trying to get everyone to think that empathy isn’t a good thing, because it is. Also, he isn’t sarcastic about any of this which shows us that he is taking this seriously. Bloom did a good job with showing us view and informing people that we need to focus more on the bigger picture. He also is a Professor of Psychology at Yale University and he researches how children and adults comprehend the physical and social aspects of the world. He has won many awards from his research which encourages us to believe that his essay is very
He says that sending money and supplies to an area that had a tragedy isn’t a permanent solution and it isn’t going to fix everything. For example, he uses the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newton, Connecticut to prove that as soon as everyone heard about the murder of twenty little kids, we immediately empathized with them and donated money and sent toys (2). This is a nice gesture for people to do, however it didn’t fix the problem that was going on there and the grief that all the families are carrying on their back. Another reason that Bloom gives is that there is too much violence in the world today that we can’t fix everything. Therefore, sending money and gifts isn’t going to fix the whole world; it only makes us feel better about ourselves because we think we are helping other people. Bloom repeatedly says how we focus on the one and not the many, which is also known as the identifiable victim effect. “We become oblivious of problems that seem unrelenting” (3). We forget about the problems that we know are always going to be there, like that starving children in Africa or all the murders in the world. We trained our brains to know that those problems are always going to be there, which lead everyone to forgetting about them and focusing on one thing. Another reason Bloom provides is that empathy can cause more problems because we only think of short-term fixes and we …show more content…
He shows that he is credible and trustworthy by starting off his essay showing the opposing side and how showing empathy isn’t a bad thing; it is just something that needs to be regulated. He uses Obama, who is an important person, at the beginning to show that he believes that we don’t show enough empathy and that if we don’t show empathy then we don’t act (1). Bloom isn’t saying he is wrong; however, he is just showing what we could do to make it better. This makes him trustworthy because he isn’t attacking the opposing side and trying to get everyone to think that empathy isn’t a good thing, because it is. Also, he isn’t sarcastic about any of this which shows us that he is taking this seriously. Bloom did a good job with showing us view and informing people that we need to focus more on the bigger picture. He also is a Professor of Psychology at Yale University and he researches how children and adults comprehend the physical and social aspects of the world. He has won many awards from his research which encourages us to believe that his essay is very