The need for empathy has been particularly relevant in the past year, with the rise of populism globally accompanied by the fear of others. But in recent years, too, there has been much non-fiction on what it means to be empathetic, and the scientific and moral basis of empathy. The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin deals with the challenge posed to humanity by globalisation, and the failure of our consciousness — which, in the past, was used to a far more locally orientated world — to fully respond to a far more global space. On the other hand, others are more positive: Steven Pinker , for instance, argues in The Better Angels of Our Nature that helped by rising compassion, global rates of violence have declined, and could continue to do so as long as we continue to harness those emotions.
Empathy is at the heart of Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West , a powerful tale woven around characters facing displacement and their attempts to find a better life. Based in an unnamed country — but perhaps with elements that many across the world can relate to — the book draws you into the world of another and makes you root for characters despite you having no personal connections with them or their homeland.
In the past, Austrian author Stefan Zweig had a deeply engrossing, if painful, take on empathy. His book Beware of Pity has regained attention after being brought to the stage in London. It centres around what it really means to care for another, rather than simply do something to flatter one’s ego. It revolves around Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer, who is drawn into the life of the family of a rich local family near the town where he is stationed, and a young woman who is crippled. Hofmiller, to his horror, discovers that what he first believes is kindness and pity proves to be destructive. “There are two kinds of pity,” one of the protagonists concludes. “One is the sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart’s impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another’s unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion but only an instinctive desire to harden yourself against the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one that counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, is to truly place yourself in the position of the victim. The pity which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and beyond.”
