Psychopolitics: Empathy's Downsides (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Nonzero

News & Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2019

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A new study says empathy can increase political polarization ... How empathy operates in today’s political environment ... Is cognitive empathy a form of intelligence? ... The Machiavellian uses of cognitive empathy ... A counterproductive #Resistance view of Trump supporters ... Paul doesn't understand how anyone can still support Trump ... Why "dehumanization" isn't the real problem ... Paul's core message: "Don't listen to your heart" ...

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast from Meaning of Life TV.
0:08.7	Hi, Paul.
0:10.0	Hi, Bob.
0:10.7	How are you doing?
0:12.6	I am doing well.
0:13.6	How are you?
0:14.5	I couldn't be better.
0:15.8	Let me introduce this.
0:16.5	I'm Robert Wright.
0:17.1	This is the right show available on both streaming video and via audio podcast.
0:20.4	You're a Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at Yale, where you hold an endowed chair, no
0:25.8	less, author of a number of books, How Pleasure Works Against Empathy. We're going to talk about
0:31.2	empathy today. We are. Right. And we're also going to talk about dehumanization.
0:36.5	Two excellent topics.
0:38.0	Yeah.
0:38.6	In fact, is it fair to summarize your moral philosophy
0:41.0	as saying that you are against empathy and in favor of dehumanization?
0:46.8	Yeah, I mean, it's incomplete because I'm also in favor of suffering.
0:50.6	So once you have that in.
0:53.0	I'm in favor of everything bad and against everything good.
0:56.9	And then you have me.
0:58.0	Okay.
	...

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