The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapter 7-Appendices

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Sociocultural Context: Empathy’s Battlefields

The War for Kindness was published in 2019, amid increasing tribalism and growing cynicism both within the US and around the world. Over the last decade, there has been a series of divisive events. A civil war in Syria broke out in 2011 and continues today, resulting in millions of Syrians fleeing the country. The Syrian Refugee Crisis has created cultural tension in countries throughout the Middle East and Europe, with countries arguing whether or not to accept refugees. In 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union, a nationalist decision which has resulted in the rise of racist hate crimes. Tens of thousands of people have died around the world due to attacks driven by hate and terror, such as the mass shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida and the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada as well as terrorist attacks in France, England, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Fatal police shootings and use of unnecessary force in the US impact Black men the most, despite them only making up around six percent of the total population—highlighting structural racism. The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 exposed deep divisions in the US.

These various forces are tearing people apart. Rather than embrace empathy, people are rejecting it in favor of rage and violence. However, people do not need to live in a proverbial battlefield. Jamil Zaki argues that rebuilding empathy will lead to a more peaceful and less fractured world. To illustrate this point, Zaki tours “empathy’s battlefields” to show “the forces that push us toward hatred and indifference” as well as the people that “push back against them” (168-69).

Zaki begins his tour with a war that sparked his interest in empathy research: the divorce of his parents. The divorce was complicated, and both parents tried to sway Zaki to their side. Zaki notes how he made a conscious decision to attempt to understand their differing perspectives rather than pick a side. By doing so, he saw how both perspectives could be true.

Zaki then shares examples of intergroup conflict. A typical way of dealing with such conflict is to bring people together to discuss their perspectives to find common ground. The intervention technique assumes people will care more about outsiders once they get to know them. As Zaki illustrates, this is only true in some cases. The group Life After Hate (Chapter 4), which is made up of ex-hate group members who are trying to extract others from the very same groups they once participated in, showed Zaki and other psychology researchers how such hatred often stems from internalized shame, loss, and disgust rather than outright hatred of people not in one’s ingroup (“others”). Life After Hate members found that the best way to reach a hate group member is to first accept them. From here, they can help such individuals build more tolerant perspectives.

Throughout the book, Zaki shows how empathy is not dead. There is no universal approach to building empathy. Instead, by tailoring strategies to build empathy to meet various situations (hate groups, social media, etc.), which includes listening to people who are in these situations, one can curb tribalism and cynicism. Empathy is “an act of defiance” (263).

Philosophical Context: Empathy Evolves and Changes with Humans

The evolutionary context of empathy is key to understanding why it has eroded over the last several decades. Empathy evolved with humans. The earliest human ancestors lived in small communities where “almost all of the people we interacted with looked like us (and might have been related)” (263). These close ties meant individuals were accountable to their fellow community members.

Zaki underscores that “modern society breaks these rules” (263). Humans are increasingly living alone in urban areas. While people encounter hundreds of people throughout their lives, they only truly know a small number. People also have fewer in-person interactions, such as playing sports, grocery shopping, or going to a place of worship, largely due to the rise of the internet and cell phones. Text messages, cyberbullying, and performative outrage are replacing in-person interactions. While these impede empathy, Zaki disagrees with the idea that technology represents the greatest challenge to empathy. Technology, especially the internet, is powerful because it can instantly connect people all over the world. Zaki provides examples of people who use this unprecedented opportunity to bring people together rather than tear them apart.

Zaki also refutes the notion that empathy is something people either have or don’t have; empathy is not a fixed trait. People are born with genetic predispositions toward weaker or stronger empathy—however, Zaki firmly believes that all people have the capability to grow (or suppress their empathy). To him, empathy is a skill. He documents various strategies that people can use to develop empathy throughout his book.

Academic Context: The Scientific Process is Alive

Over the last 15 years, scandals have affected the social sciences, especially psychology. Psychology researchers have been unable to replicate numerous published studies, resulting in the retraction of dozens of journal articles. Replication attempts revealed that some researchers were biasing their studies to get positive findings by excluding certain subjects or changing their experiments in hindsight. These biases mean that conclusions and effects found in published literature might not always be completely accurate. To prevent this problem from continuing, psychology researchers have created new initiatives to increase transparency around experiments and studies, improve detailed plans of study (research protocols), and encourage replication studies.

Zaki firmly believes in being transparent with his readers. He uses old and new research to support many of the empathy and kindness claims found in his book. He provides readers with tools to evaluate the included evidence on their own, particularly in Appendix B. In this appendix, Zaki and a colleague summarize the book’s key claims and rate the strength of each claim. For claims that appear less sound, Zaki provides a brief explanation.

Zaki understands that the scientific process is dynamic and refers to it as “alive.” Scientists are constantly testing and retesting ideas to refine or reject them. He wants his readers to take part in the process to build champions of his book and science.