How our empathy collapses in front of the avalanche of tragic images – rts.ch

In a book published by Jean-Claude Lattès editions. However, “Empathy is political”, the neuroscientist and essayist Samah Karaki looked at the issue. Similarly, She explains there that by being exposed to repeated. Moreover, similar dramas, our brain gets used to it, it ends up no longer reacting. However, Thus, our empathy is gradually evaporating.

“This is called psychic numbness, a form of habitation,” she said Thursday in the program A whole world of RTS.

She takes for example regions of the world that make us governing less. In addition, because we have grown with the idea that these places are doomed to disasters. “When we say: ‘It looks like Baghdad’ or ‘Beirut’, it how our empathy collapses front is as if the suffering was expected, almost normal. And therefore, we are less moved,” she adds.

Empathy shaped by our cultural bearings – How our empathy collapses front

When an event happens far from us. it touches us less, because we are easier to identify with people who share our culture, our place of life. This is vulgarly called “the dead per kilometer”. But according to Samah Karaki, our empathy is also politically built.

She takes for example a patriarchal society. in which men can be less sensitive to the suffering of women, while they share the same home. According to her. “there is a link between the way in which we perceive the others – according to a form of classification of humans, their dignity – and attention, interest or empathy” that we grant them.

To deconstruct all of this. it is necessary to restore an identity to the victims, too often reduced to simple figures. Photos how our empathy collapses front of emaciated children in Gaza are a striking example. However, again, the images have their limits. If they repeat themselves without any name, no story accompanying them, our empathy ends up weakening.

When empathy becomes an exclusion tool

Empathy is not always universal or benevolent. It can focus on the people who look like us. to the point of excluding those that are external to our group. Samah Karaki illustrates this phenomenon with the example of Nazi sympathizers. who did not perceive themselves as devoid of empathy, but as unfairly threatened.

This psychological mechanism shows that “the stronger the empathy is strong towards its group. the more it can erode towards those excluded from it. By social categorization. the Nazis considered […] that they then defended themselves against Jewish hostility, […] By placing themselves in a posture of victims. It works very well psychologically: from the moment we see ourselves as victims. it how our empathy collapses front becomes difficult to admit that we inflict suffering, “she says.

Radio subject: Mathilde Salamin

Adaptation web: Miroslav Mares