"The Empathy Deficit" by Keith O'Brien
One. What is the empathy deficit?
We read that Generation Wi-Fi, or specifically college students, today "are 40 percent less empathetic than they were in 1979, with the steepest decline coming in the last 10 years."
This lack of empathy results in the following:
A cold heart
No sympathy or compassion for those who suffer
No concern for others' misfortunes
Two. Why should we be concerned about the empathy deficit?
Cultures who score low on empathy, such as Moldova, score low on the Happiness Index. In Moldova, a common saying, we read in Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss, is "not my problem." No one wants to live there.
Economic injustice spreads from a lack of empathy. We read that "Rich People Care Less" and "Powerful and Cold-Hearted" in the NYT.
Three. What’s the problem with defining empathy?
There is no agreement or definitive definition. We know it’s about reading other people’s emotion and feeling their emotion and this shared feeling gives us connection with others. This connection in turn results in greater compassion.
We also read that when we have empathy we can read other people’s distress signals and we feel compelled to react compassionately toward those signals.
Four. What is the relationship between narcissism and empathy?
As narcissism increases (through privilege, entitlement, false self-esteem, wealth, or other causes), empathy decreases.
Narcissism is defined as “increased self-absorption” in the essay.
Someone once defined narcissism this way: On one hand the narcissist has this unlimited craving for the adulation of others; on the other hand, this same narcissist has utter contempt for others. The contradiction of the narcissist speaks to his insanity.
Five. According to college surveys, what is the state of empathy?
Analyzing 72 surveys, researchers found that empathy was flat from 1979-2000. Then around 2000, “there’s this sudden, sharp drop.”
A specific type of empathy, called empathic concern (how much one cares about others), dropped 48 percent between 1979 and 2009.
Six. What cultural changes have accompanied this dramatic drop in empathy?
The rise of video games, 24-hour cable television, widespread divorce, laptops and cellphones have created an insular world where people withdraw more and more into themselves and what David Brooks calls “The Big Me.”
With news overload coming at us on social media, cellphones, and 24-hour cable TV, we read that we suffer a sort of tragic news overload in which one world catastrophe bleeds into the next until we become numb and our empathy traits die off in a sort of gangrene or frostbite.
How Social Media Cause Anorexia
"Pics and It Didn't Happen" by Nathan Jurgenson
“Pics and It Didn’t Happen” by Nathan Jurgenson
One. How is Snapchat a radical departure from photography?
We read that photography has always suggested permanence and immortality (“the form that endures”), but that is no more with the ephemeral (transitory) images of Snapchat.
Snapchat says you don’t need permanent photos: “It rejects the burden of creating durable proof that you are here and you did that.”
Two. What is worrisome about the digital age of “visual oversaturation”?
We read that Michael Sacasas worries that “digital photography and sites like Facebook have brought us to an age of memory abundance. The paradoxical consequence of this development will be the progressive devaluing of such memories and severing of the past’s hold on the present. Gigabytes and terabytes of digital memories will not make us care more about those memories, [sic] they will makes us care less.”
In other words, if we’re bombarded with family photos on Facebook and other “meaningful” images all the time, we eventually become numb so that nothing feels meaningful.
Types of Arguments
(I've adapted these ideas from Chapter 3 of How to Write Anything by John J. Ruszkiewicz.)
Know what kind of argument you are writing:
Argument to advance a thesis:
You argue for a thesis as you champion an idea or a cause.
For example, you might argue for eating steamed vegetables three times a day and provide the many benefits of employing such a practice.
Another example would be a writer who argues that the Paleo diet is the most effective way to maintain lean muscle mass.
Another example would be for a writer to argue for water rationing and triple water bills for homeowners who go over their water threshold.
Refutation argument:
You refute an already existing argument or practice, showing point by point why the argument is weak, precarious, or even fallacious (fallacy-laden).
For example, you might refute Civil War reenactments on the grounds that they are white male fantasies based on the infantile hunger for nostalgia, the toxic Kool-Aid of White Supremacy, and the denial of moral accountability for the evils of slavery.
In your refutation, you paint Civil War reenactments as a grotesque pageantry akin to a racist Disneyworld where are all the actors are white and black history has been erased because "it would be too disturbing" to the bogus, idealized world inhabited by the emotionally-arrested aspirants of "the good old Confederate days" and their other shameless displays of morally-bankrupt tomfoolery.
Once you decide on your argument or claim, you must consider finding compelling reasons to support your claim.
Support Your Claim
Without support consisting of data, statistics, reasoning, logic, and refutations to counterarguments, your opinion exists in an abyss or a vacuum. You must develop a considered or educated opinion, which is the result of fearlessly studying the pros and cons of your subject in which you try to minimize your prejudices, biases, and other emotional baggage that might blind you from the truth.
Understand Opposing Claims and Points of View
You don't have an educated or considered opinion until you have been tested by your opponents' strongest arguments. If you can refute those arguments, then you can continue with your claim.
You will also gain credibility with your readers for showing your understanding of your opponents' views.
You will gain even more credibility when you can refute your opponents with assured insouciance rather than infantile hostility. Also choose polite insouciance over hostility as the former is a sign of intellectual superiority; the latter is a sign of juvenile fear and inexperience.
Give Appropriate Sartorial (Clothing Style) Splendor (Writing Style) to Your Arguments
Your argument is the "body" of the essay. Your writing style is the fashion or sartorial choice you make in order to "dress up" your argument and give it power, moxie, and elan (passion).
Here is the same claim dressed up differently in the following two thesis statements:
Plain
Civil War reenactments are racist gibberish that need to go once and for all.
More Dressed Up
Our moral offense to civil war reenactments rests on our understanding that the participants are engaging in nostalgia for the days when the toxic religion of white supremacy ruled the day, that the participants gleefully and childishly erase black history to the detriment of truth, and that on a larger scale, they engage in the mythical revisionism of the Confederacy narratives, hiding its barbaric practices by esteeming racist thugs as if they were innocent and venerable Disney heroes. Their sham is so morally egregious and spiritually bankrupt that to examine its folly in all its shameless variations compels us to abolish the sordid practice without equivocation.
Plain
We need to stop blaming the poor for their poverty.
More Dressed Up
The idea that the rich are wealthy because of their superior moral character and that the poor live in poverty because of their inferior moral character is a glaring absurdity rooted in willful ignorance, the blind worship of money, and an irrational fear of poverty as if it were some kind of contagious disease.
Qualify Your Thesis to Make It More Persuasive and Reasonable
Qualifiers such as the following will make your thesis more bullet-proof from your opponents:
some
most
a few
often
under certain conditions
when necessary
occasionally
Example:
Under most conditions, narcotics should be legalized in order to decrease crime, increase rehabilitation, and decrease unnecessary incarceration.
Examine Your Core Assumptions
Assumptions are the principles and values upon which we base our beliefs and actions.
Claim
Under most conditions, narcotics should be legalized in order to decrease crime, increase rehabilitation, and decrease unnecessary incarceration.
Assumption
Treating drug use as a medical problem that requires rehabilitation is morally superior to relying on incarceration. Some may disagree with this assumption, so the writer will have to defend her assumption at some point in her essay.
Here's a link (with grammar errors) for writing counterarguments and refutations in your essay.
Notice the link, which is from a community college, is riddled with grammar errors. We all make mistakes from time to time, especially on the Internet, but a pattern of errors is disturbing indeed.
Writing Your Annotated Bibliography
Your annotated bibliography is your MLA Works Cited page with additional information beneath each entry.
This information is written in paragraph form and addresses the following:
One. How does the cited material support my thesis?
Two. What are the credentials of the author? Do they meet the specs for credibility and thoroughness?
Three. What are the credentials of the publisher or sponsor? Are they legitimate or biased?
Four. What is the date of publication? Is it recent enough to be credible?
Five. What is the source's point of view or stance?
Six. Is the source credible among its peers?
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