In-group Empathy vs. Out-group Empathy

BY ADAM WAYTZ

In fact, there is a terrible irony in the assumption that we can ever transcend our parochial tendencies entirely. Social scientists have found that in-group love and out-group hate originate from the same neurobiological basis, are mutually reinforcing, and co-evolved—because loyalty to the in-group provided a survival advantage by helping our ancestors to combat a threatening out-group. That means that, in principle, if we eliminate out-group hate completely, we may also undermine in-group love. Empathy is a zero-sum game.

Absolute universalism, in which we feel compassion for every individual on Earth, is psychologically impossible. Ignoring this fact carries a heavy cost: We become paralyzed by the unachievable demands we place on ourselves. We can see this in our public discourse today. Discussions of empathy fluctuate between worrying that people don’t empathize enough and fretting that they empathize too much with the wrong people. These criticisms both come from the sense that we have an infinite capacity to empathize, and that it is our fault if we fail to use it.

Dipping a Toe into the Cultural and Policital Morass

"Throughout history, the clash of ideologies was never technically between Left and Right. It was always between authoritarian impulses and groupthink versus individualism and freedom of expression. Authoritarian impulses could be majoritarian, or the tyranny of a minority mob." Sumantra Maitra