Comments on: Our Disembodied Selves and the Decline of Empathy

By: Pete Hamilton

Pete Hamilton — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:15:03 +0000

This is a fantastic article, and I say that as one who lived it first hand. In my first years of high school I lived on AIM and online games. I had little social life and I was awkward in face-to-face situations. Thankfully I had some good friends who started inviting me out and broke me from my shell. I quickly realized what I had been missing. To this day, however, I have some minor trouble dealing with difficult situations. My empathy is sometimes forced and stiff. This could, however, be attributed to the opposite. Since graduating high school, I’ve spent 5 years in the military and being crammed into a ship for any extended period of time with people can wear at the most patient man’s empathy. It’s interesting to look at it from both view points.

I’m seeking balance now. With good friends in several states and countries, it’s difficult to maintain meaningful relationships. Technology is allowing me to stay in contact and find opportunities for more meaningful encounters. There’s nothing better than meeting up in some unknown wilderness and exploring it with a good friend you haven’t seen in a while. You learn a lot more than just the lay of the land. Again, great article, and I look forward to reading through the rest of this site. (I just found it this evening.)

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:52:39 +0000

…and yet our President was lambasted by the right for daring to think that a Supreme Court Justice should have empathy.

Atticus Finch likley rolled over in his fictional grave.

The Right attempted to portray empathy as far less than “manly”; they tried to protray it as Unamerican.

A sad, sad time.

By: Steven Kippel

Steven Kippel — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:58:40 +0000

I have started a “gentlemen’s club” just to get a bunch of guys together once a month for a cheap, manly activity. It’s great.

By: Nataraj Hauser

Nataraj Hauser — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:25:32 +0000

Those of us who practice contact improv(isational) dance know this, observe it, and see the obvious disconnect that comes from an extreme lack of routine physical contact. Contact among adults is pretty tightly bound into a little box that permits sex, handshakes, and sports. Pretty much anything else is off limits for most adults. Men hugging men? Unlikely in America. Women hugging women? More, but their feet are two feet apart and they lean in so that only their shoulders touch. Contact improv BLOWS past all those limits and reconnects the dancers to their body and to the body(ies) of their partner(s). Empathy is a natural consequence. Very few social a-holes last in contact improv.

Allyssa (#49) also makes an interesting point. Surely there are more than a single cause, but I see individualism (magnified by the isolation and relative anonymity of the Internet), and lack of common interpersonal physical contact as significant contributing factors. Of course, the 2000′s also witnessed a massive schism between political factions here that created an Us vrs. Them mentality. For some, that Them list is getting pretty damn long.

By: Allyssa

Allyssa — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:26:13 +0000

Because I have been exposed to other cultures aside from that of American culture, I have observed that in contrast to collectivist cultures, there is less empathy in the American culture due to the values of capitalism and individualism.