For Jon Atack and Chris Shelton

 I recently saw the conversation between Chris Shelton and Jon Atack on The Sensibly Speaking Podcast # 298.

I wanted to comment on several issues that were brought up. 

Like Chris and Jon I have researched much of the same material and examined many of the same questions. 

I want to at first address the division of society which they brought up. 

As Jon Atack pointed out the 60% of people in The Empathy Trap by Dr Jane McGregor and Tim McGregor who are called "apaths" and described as going with the people around them exist.

The same 60% have been as Stanley Milgram discovered in his experiments characterized as highly obedient to authority. 

Additionally, in his work Adam Grant in his book describes a  60%.

He described 20% as "givers" meaning people who are looking out for others foremost. He described 20% as "takers" meaning people who look to get the most possible for themselves and to give the absolute least necessary for others. 

Grant described the remaining 60% (our magic 60% again!) as "matchers" meaning people who are not entirely lacking compassion or empathy (the takers) BUT they are not purely altruistic, they want to be treated fairly and are especially sensitive to being taken advantage of, especially sensitive to getting less than others or doing more work or harder work than their peers. They don't want to work hard and support freeloaders, they don't want to ever get less than their fair share. 

The book Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences by John R. Alford, John R. Hibbing, and Kevin B. Smith described research that found that most human beings have a different reaction to interacting with people and objects. But interestingly enough they found our notorious 20% (once again the takers!) have a very interesting difference - they don't react to people any differently than they do objects! In the analysis of brain activity they described the researchers found that our 20% don't show any difference in brain activity compared to interaction with inanimate objects! 

We have many descriptions of human predators and Martha Stout in her book The Sociopath Next Door gave her version describing the defining trait of a sociopath as simply not caring about other people. She emphasized that some sociopaths are violent or cruel. But some don't have violent impulses. Some simply have profound indifference to everyone else. 

She described how a non violent sociopath could tear down people at a job or in a family by simply being uncaring, displaying no compassion or empathy. 

I want to make a couple other points. 

Adam Grant found that givers (we can also say are empathic) help the people around them the most. They help their co-workers, friends, and family the most. This is not opinion or ideology, he analyzed thousands of studies to determine which of our three work styles (givers, takers, matchers) was most productive, most helpful, least productive, least helpful, most disruptive, least disruptive and on and on, because organizations want the best results and they are not likely to listen unless he can show them evidence regarding metrics that effect their bottom line. Plainly, they don't care if you are kind, sensitive to being treated unfairly or profoundly selfish, they want to make profits, the most possible. 

He found that givers can be less productive in their own areas but this is countered because they are helping others to do better. They are by far the best employees overall. Matchers don't get taken advantage of because they don't let you do it to them, but they are especially vulnerable to lowering their quality and productivity to match low achievers who are allowed to get away with poor performance for high compensation, especially if it is obvious and long-standing in my opinion. You have to show them that everyone has high standards and they  will get with the program, show them that non productive people and shoddy work are acceptable and they will match it, because after all, "if the other people get away with not caring, why shouldn't I? I am no sucker!"

Takers? They may have high stats in some areas, as they may ruthlessly seek rewards when those rewards require actual target attainment, but they will lie, backstab, insult, humiliate, demoralize, and cheat to get their rewards!

The harm that takers do far outweighs any benefit the work they do creates. 

Adam Grant emphasized that in his analysis of the effects of the different working styles a taker can harm more than a matchers or giver can help, so your top priority in hiring in spotting takers and not hiring them. Now, given their inclination towards self promotion this is a challenge. Grant realized their Achilles heal. They only help others when it can benefit them. 

Ask them if they helped others at previous jobs and they will happily talk about helping bosses and people with connections. They have no record of helping people who have no possible way to return the favor, unless the aid got them positive attention, possibly through their social connections. But they don't have loads of stories that check out in which they helped people with no awareness how it was self serving. 

I highly recommend you check out the book Give and Take and the videos by Adam Grant.

I think the people you call empaths and he calls givers are a necessary part of society, the people who are trying the hardest to help others, despite possibly being wrong or mislead at times, often by the other 20% of takers aka human predators who specialize in using people with dishonest tactics. 

I believe that empathy and compassion are the best traits human beings can have. Yes, with our other vulnerabilities they leave us open to unethical persuasion, but if you think we might be better off without empathy let me compare and contrast the other 20%. Here we have Carl Panzram, Jim Jones, Charlie Manson, Brian Stewart, David Parker Ray, Leonard Lake, Charles NG, and of course Ronald Hubbard. 

I wrote a long series of blog posts on the book The Anatomy of Evil by Dr. Michael Stone called The Depths of Depravity. He described the acts of many depraved people including serial killers, serial rapists, spree killers and on and on.

These men include cult leaders, serial rapists, serial murderers, (Carl Panzram is said to have sodomized over a thousand victims who were boys and men, both out in society and in reform schools and prisons, for one noteworthy example) and other equally disturbing offenders. 

I would submit that the society is far, far better off with empathy than with the uncaring human predators. And the other people? The obedient matchers? I say that you need the empathy to make the case for basic human decency to them, without the empathy as a buffer the predators would exploit the matchers largely unopposed. The predators would set the standard the matchers would follow!

You may consider empathy a curse, but I consider it a blessing, for the whole of humanity.