Narrator: What if the kindest, most caring people you know were also the ones who struggled most to understand the great social problems of our time? For decades, social work professor Lynne M. Healy was puzzled by this very question in her own classroom. She saw students who were deeply compassionate on an individual level, yet they couldn't seem to grasp the lived reality of entire social groups facing poverty or discrimination. Why could some students see the systemic forces at play, while others could only see individual choices? This persistent question led her on a journey to redefine our very understanding of connection.

In her book, Social Empathy: The Art of Understanding Others, Healy argues that our traditional view of empathy is incomplete. She introduces a powerful new framework that distinguishes between feeling with an individual and truly understanding the historical, political, and social context that shapes the lives of entire communities. It’s a framework that explains not only why good people can be blind to injustice but also provides a roadmap for how we can learn to see the world more clearly.

Narrator: The book begins by drawing a critical line between two types of empathy. The first is interpersonal empathy, the one we’re most familiar with. It’s our ability to feel with another person, to mirror their emotions and take their perspective in a one-on-one interaction. But Healy argues this is only half the picture. The second, more demanding type is social empathy. This is the ability to understand the experiences of people from different social groups by grasping their life situations, including the historical context and structural inequalities that shape their world.

A stark example of a lack of social empathy can be seen in the 1996 U.S. welfare reform. The policy, designed to "end welfare as we know it," was created by a Congress that was predominantly male, wealthy, and white. The recipients of welfare, however, were mostly female, poor, and people of color. The policymakers, lacking a deep, contextual understanding of what it takes to survive on meager assistance, created legislation that assumed recipients simply weren't trying hard enough. They failed to empathize with the reality of a single mother trying to track rice prices or find childcare to attend a job training session. This disconnect between policy and reality demonstrates that without social empathy—the understanding of group experiences and structural barriers—even well-intentioned efforts can fail to address the root causes of suffering.

Narrator: If empathy is so vital, why is it often so difficult to practice? Healy explains that our brains are wired for survival, and this instinct can act as a powerful barrier. When we perceive a threat, our brains can shut down the complex neural pathways required for empathy and prioritize self-protection. This is compounded by our tendency to categorize people into "ingroups" and "outgroups." We naturally find it easier to empathize with those who are like us.

This creation of "otherness" is one of the most significant obstacles to empathy. However, the book offers a powerful story of how this barrier can be overcome. During World War II, the author’s father, a Jewish American soldier, was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Germany. Starving and exhausted on a forced march, he was put to work on a German farm. He smelled the farmer's wife making potato pancakes and, in broken German, mentioned that his own grandmother from Hamburg used to make them. In that moment, he was no longer just an enemy soldier; he was a grandson who missed his grandmother's cooking. The woman, seeing a flicker of shared humanity, risked her own safety to give him a pancake. That small act of connection, bridging the vast gap of "otherness," helped him survive. It’s a profound reminder that empathy is the antidote to otherness, capable of emerging even in the most hostile conditions.

Narrator: Healy argues that power and empathy have a complicated, often inverse, relationship. Those in positions of power tend to have a reduced need to pay attention to the perspectives and feelings of others. Their focus shifts to goals, efficiency, and the "big picture," which can inadvertently lead to a deficit in empathy.

The book illustrates this with the story of a university president overseeing a major campus relocation. The department’s staff, many of whom were lower-wage employees, were deeply anxious about the move. Their primary concern was the cost and safety of parking at the new downtown location. During an open forum, a staff member nervously asked about the parking situation. The president became visibly irritated, scolding the staff for being "small-minded" when he was focused on a grand vision of progress and expansion. While he may have been an effective administrator focused on high-level goals, his power blinded him to the legitimate, everyday fears of his employees. They felt unheard and alienated. This story reveals a core lesson: power can make leaders less likely to engage in perspective-taking, creating a disconnect that undermines trust and morale.

Narrator: The book explores how two of the most powerful forces in modern life—religion and technology—present a similar paradox for empathy. Religion has historically been a source of profound compassion, with teachings like the Golden Rule promoting kindness and understanding. Yet, it has also been used to justify "us versus them" tribalism, oppression, and violence, from the Puritan justification for taking Native American land to modern extremism. The key, Healy suggests, lies in whether religious belief fosters critical thinking and symbolic interpretation or demands blind obedience to an absolute truth.

Technology presents a similar duality. It can foster connection, as when the author’s cell phone allowed her to rush to her father’s side after a heart attack. It can also create distance and enable cruelty. The anonymity of the internet can fuel trolling and cyberbullying, behaviors rooted in a profound lack of empathy. For example, when Deedra Abboud, a Muslim attorney, ran for U.S. Senate, her social media was flooded with hateful, threatening, and dehumanizing comments from trolls who refused to see her as a fellow human being. Both religion and technology, the book concludes, are merely tools; their impact on empathy depends entirely on how we choose to use them.

Narrator: Perhaps the most hopeful message in Social Empathy is that empathy is not a fixed trait but a skill that can be taught and developed. The brain’s neuroplasticity means we can forge new neural pathways for understanding at any age. Healy provides a three-tiered framework for learning social empathy: Exposure (seeking out new people and situations), Explanation (learning about the historical and contextual factors that shape different lives), and Experience (immersing oneself in different cultures).

A key part of this learning process involves confronting uncomfortable truths about privilege. The book describes a classroom exercise called the "Privilege Ladder," where students privately move up or down a ladder based on answers to questions about their background—for instance, moving up if they grew up in a safe neighborhood or down if their ancestors were brought to the country by force. This exercise isn't about inducing guilt but about fostering a wider, more contextual understanding of the different starting places people have in life. It’s a first step toward building the mindset of social empathy, which is essential for addressing complex issues like poverty, inequality, and injustice.

Narrator: Ultimately, Social Empathy delivers a transformative message: genuine understanding requires more than just an open heart; it requires an open mind willing to engage with complexity, history, and context. The book’s single most important takeaway is that social empathy is a conscious choice. It is a decision to move beyond our tribal instincts and adopt a wide-angle view of the world, one that acknowledges the systems and structures that shape the lives of others.

We are all hardwired to share other people’s feelings. The challenge this book leaves us with is what we do next. Do we ignore those flickers of connection, or do we choose to think about what they mean on both a personal and a societal level? Healy’s work suggests that if we can learn to bridge the gap between interpersonal feeling and social understanding, we can begin to transform our world, one empathic connection at a time.