The Case for Less Solidarity
There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit,” then-Senator Barack Obama said in a 2006 commencement address at Northwestern University. “But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit.” What we need, he said, was the ability to “see the world through those who are different from us.”
Since Obama’s speech, the phrase “empathy deficit” has gained a foothold, appearing everywhere from academic journals to mainstream media outlets. Among the varied responses to the 2016 United States presidential election were calls for a greater general empathy. Many liberals tried to peer across party lines to understand the motivations of Donald Trump voters, for instance interviewing Republican constituents and reading books about rural poverty (think J.D. Vance’s or Arlie Hochschild’s ). But these efforts didn’t alleviate tension between parties, which might be because empathy-building efforts don’t always work. They can even backfire in some cases: when people take the perspective of someone they think will act selfishly, they act more selfishly themselves. If empathy deficits fuel social divisions, why doesn’t empathy building salve them?
