Why empathy expanded in the last 300 years: literacy. I'm reading in

[applegrove]

Stephen Pinker book "The Better Angels of Our Nature" on page 175 where he cites Peter Singer's book "The Expanding Circle" that

'over the course of history, people have enlarged the range of beings whose interests they value as they value their own. An interesting question is what inflated the empathy circle. And a good candidate is the expansion of literacy.

Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point.'

This explains why some on the right want to rid the US of liberal arts university education. The GOP is surely trying to shrink the empathy circle of each and every American. Why they want to undo the enlightenment. Why they hate the UN.

[dkf]

1. Technology helps too.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Well, to be fair, books and the press are technology.

But I know what you mean, communication technology in particular.

:thumbsup:

[applegrove]

4. Technology will get the written word to places it was missing around the world. Hopefully

it will help expand empathy in those places.

[JVS]

3. Is the expansion of empathy even a verifiable claim?

[applegrove]

5. The premise is that violence has kept going down over the centuries and that it seems is verifyably

true. "The Better Angels of Our Nature" is a really great book. I highly reccommend it.

[JVS]

6. The absence of a full scale war between industrialized countries in the late 20th century...

has often been attributed to a fear of nuclear annihilation. I'd be slow to call this an increase in empathy, seeing as we've demonstrated ourselves to be more than willing to bomb the shit out of countries that don't have the means to fight back.

[izquierdista]

7. How so?

Each century seems to bring better technology for war and killing. In the 20th century, more people were killed in wars than were even alive in the 10th century.

[applegrove]

9. Compared to hunter gatherer societies or the middle ages there is much less murder. Much less war.

All the graphs (and there are tons of graphs in the book) show the decrease in rates.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. But a greater percentage of 10th centrury people were killed in war

than were in the 20th century - and considering the level of killing of the 20th century THAT is scary.

[applegrove]

16. More actual people are dying but in much smaller % of the population. There are so many

more people alive in the world today than there were even 50 years ago. If you are born today you have just a tiny chance of dying a violent death. Much less than if you were born even 300 years ago.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Violence at an individual level perhaps

But state wielded violence...aka war...I am not so sure. And today you can have a kid flying drones...that will make this even easier.

[applegrove]

10. More people are likely dying violent deaths but as a percentage of the population the numbers are

way down.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. That is only because we saw exponential growth

You should include genocide and starvation...

While empathy has gone up...I reasonably expect a population collapse in my lifetime I wonder how that will be explained.

The last population collapse was over 100.000 years ago and was related to a super volcano.

[applegrove]

12. They do include genocide in the numbers of violent deaths.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I still say individually gone up

But not with total war.

We can agree to disagree and this will be tested with the population collapse.

[JVS]

18. I'm also not sure the number of people killed violently is a measure of lack of empathy

We live in a world where we have the capability of feeding everyone and we don't. This seems a pretty strong indicator of not giving a shit about those people who end up not getting fed. Whether people getting killed in conflicts between groups over resources that truly were limited and did make a life or death difference to people on their side demonstrates a lack of empathy is questionable in my mind. At least those violent agents had the well being of their own people in mind, in the modern case it's just total indifference to human life.

[applegrove]

20. I have not gotten to the empathy chapter in the book yet. I just got that

little teaser about how literacy expanded empathy, because of all the perspectives you internalize when you read, and that blew my mind. The book is about violence and violent natures being reduced.

[Odin2005]

22. In forager societies 15% of people meet violent deaths, IIRC.

Th violent death rate at the height of WW2 was far lower than the rate in forager and primitive agricultural societies.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. I agree that the claim is somewhat dubious, but Pinker's book is full of data

One would at the very least have to dispute the clear data he presents on murder rates and the like. Intuitively, I suspect we're all prone to think that perhaps this increase of empathy is a historical myth, but that doesn't get us very far in the face of the data.

Seriously, check out Pinker's book. I disagree with a lot of it, but it can't be cast aside with snark. It's a serious argument.

[whatchamacallit]

14. Judging from stuff I've read in here today

I'd say people have become illiterate.

[Odin2005]

19. I really need to get that book, thanks!

[applegrove]

21. Yeah. After reading only a few chapters I dug around for a highlight marker. This book is a keeper.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. And wanting to be proven wrong

Just got the ebook. Highly skeptical but willing to eat my shoe, metaphorically speaking.

[applegrove]

24. You'll love it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Well gotten a few good reads from here

Some I remain unconvinced. Others expand horizons.

So you never know.

:hi: