📅 Thought for today:
‘Empathy makes good people better, then, because kind people don’t like suffering, and empathy makes this suffering salient. If you made a sadist more empathic, it would just lead to a happier sadist’
— Paul Bloom
#thoughtfortoday #compassion #candor #candour #rational #psychologicalsafety
Paul Bloom is the author of “Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion”.
I am a fan, not least because of the knee-jerk reaction of some people to the title, having not read the book.
From the back cover blurb, “…limiting our impulse towards empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make.”
It is provocative and contrarian and this is exactly why we should consider Bloom’s case carefully and measure its arguments against reality, not our biases, opinions and assumptions.
In a similar vein I am a fan of Radical Candor by Kim Scott, which is actually making the case for Compassionate Candour, and Amy Edmondson, which makes the case for Psychological Safety – and to practice PsySafety you need Rational Compassionate Candour – and two ears, used often.
And whilst these latter books are written for the workplace, all three can apply very effectively to our personal lives.
Next up is “Toxic Positivity” by Whitney Goodman.
