Voices: Our empathy is failing in a world of abstractions – but there is a solution

It is almost certainly not the case that Stalin said that “one death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic”. But that quotation nonetheless points to something essential: we struggle with abstraction.

We simply do not engage in the same way with concepts as we do with people. Facts and figures often leave us cold – so cold they fail to give us a real understanding of a situation, or move us to action even when action is necessary. We have trouble feeling what they represent, or – that vital thing – empathising with the individuals concerned.

This comes up whenever the national conversation turns to something like the value of a statue of a slaver, or of or , or when , and all we seem able to talk about is . These kinds of discussions are increasingly familiar to all of us. My point is that they are not about right or left; but about understanding where the other person is coming from and seeing the world through their eyes.