The Empathy Gap

I'm pleased to say that this gap is minimal here at Poverty in America.  How wonderful is the community here?  Just check out this terrific comments thread and feel the love.  I certainly do.

But alas, we have a ways to go before we've got the nation singing kumbaya together.  Philosopher J.D. Trout has a new book out on the "empathy gap," which talks about the limits to empathic and charitable responses to social problems, and the need for social policies to serve the greater good.

Dr. Trout gets at the latent subjectivity and judgment bound up in our belief systems (my emphases):

"Very clever experiments in judgment & decision-making and behavioral economics...yield startling and robust results about the frailties of our intuitions. They show how people miscalculate risks, discount the distant vs. nearby needy, are subject to framing and status quo biases, trade many statistical victims for just one concrete victim, and gripe about taxation as they adapt to it. These are just a few of our cognitive and empathic frailties. And they are potent imperfections; in all of these cases, our errant beliefs influence our actions, and frustrate our pursuits."

That's from his new blog, The Greater Good.  The NY Times ran a Q&A with him last weekend that's much easier to digest, in which he makes this important point:

"...policy is more efficient than empathy as a way of meting out goods. There are formulas that are more accurate and less costly than subjective judgments in so many areas, including whether to parole a prisoner or hire an employee."

I couldn't agree more.  Where I think social policy design is lacking is in the homogeneity of policymakers.  There's a tremendous communications and experience gap between those who are living through poverty and those of us who are writing about it or crafting anti-poverty solutions.  In 2007 I worked for many months in Louisiana on a policy advocacy project that tried to connect activists with DC policymakers, through local planning sessions followed by trips up to Capitol Hill and back again.  Our legislation ultimately didn't pass (and we know who to blame for it), but it was incredibly invigorating to work together and travel together and meet together with our elected leaders.  We have some true advocates on the Hill, and some clear obstructionists.  We figured out who they were in the process of learning how to articulate our recovery needs and communicate them to our elected officials.  It was pretty cool.

I hope this site serves as on on-going, educational conversation for all of us along the anti-poverty continuum - from those of us who want to exit it to those of us who are allies and are trying to eradicate social inequality and economic deprivation. I'm thrilled to hear so many supportive voices here and look forward to when we all meet up on Capitol Hill someday.  :)