Still, the cost of a politics of empathy is massive. Governments’ failures to enact prudent long-term policies are often attributed to the incentive system of democratic politics (which favors short-term fixes) and to the powerful influence of money. But the politics of empathy is also to blame. It is because of empathy that citizens of a country can be transfixed by a girl stuck in a well and largely indifferent to climate change. It is because of empathy that we often enact savage laws or enter into terrible wars; our feeling for the suffering of the few leads to disastrous consequences for
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