Empathy is often discussed as a recognition and a mirroring inside ourselves of another’s pain.

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Empathy is often discussed as a recognition and a mirroring inside ourselves of another’s pain. It is the first step toward perhaps caring and taking action.

However, many times people will recognise pain, and with that recognition seek to escape the presence of the person or animal that sparked it. This is how bullies can terrify people into doing their bidding: they don’t have to beat everyone up, just one person publicly so that everyone has a sense of what is waiting for them if they step out of line.

Also worth noting in a society that values hierarchy, empathy is a handicap. If a person wishes to use animals in an industrialised manner for personal gain, then they have to stop caring about the welfare of those animals. Thomas Huxley, one of Darwin’s earliest proponents, argued that animals do not have feelings and cannot suffer (Darwin himself did not believe this). Huxley believed anything we see that might indicate suffering is just a mechanical response to stimuli. This created a psychic distance which made it easy to switch off our empathy and do abominable things to our extended family.

We create this same psychic distance when we wish to dominate people and assert our status. We see others as lesser beings who are not worthy of our empathy, this makes it possible to shut down our empathy and do abominable things to people of different genders, ethnicities, classes, abilities, etc.

Rich white males are taught by their society to switch off their empathy, because to develop empathy would open them to treating others as equals. Treating others as equals means they lose the power of domination. They relinquish the role of bully. They also open up to the possibility of in depth communion with others, a rich inner life, and a genuinely meaningful existence.