Lynn Hunt's lecture argues that the introduction of novels inspired and built on empathy and thus created cultural and social movements. I personally am not convinced that novels build empathy, but rather empathy is something that is nurtured and built over periods of time. However, rather than building empathy, I believe, and I guess agree, that novels direct empathy. Through these novels and other forms of media, problems and injustices are presented to us as viewers and, because of our previously built empathy, we are able to finally see something to be empathetic about.Through this, we translate the problems presented to us into action. Unfortunately, I do believe this only applies to those of us who are simply ordinary, everyday people. The ruling elite do not live as ordinary people do, especially today, and because of this will not gain empathy from reading novels and other forms of media. During their time consuming novels and other forms of media, they will instead gain a sense of sympathy. Because they gain a sense of sympathy rather than empathy, they do not take part in creating cultural and social movements like the ordinary person would.
I think that you're making some really unique points, especially in drawing the distinction between empathy that may exist for everyday people versus the sympathy of the ruling class. I agree with your analysis, but I'm also not sure if it's backed by evidence. The idea of the ruling elite has changed over time, and now the ruling elite can easily have started from a lower class and only gained power well into adulthood. If the ruling elite, as presidents, prime ministers, and other politicians now do, began life as everyday people (even wealthy ones), would they not originally be able to empathize as well as others? If so, why is it that upon becoming the rulers, they lose that ability to empathize? Do you think that this applies to all politicians or people in power?
Hi Katherine! I, personally, don't agree that the ruling elite come from ordinary, everyday people and that lower class citizens can easily come into power. If we are defining the "ruling elite" as "presidents, prime ministers and other politicians" simply for clearness, and we take a look at our governments we see that Trump comes from money (small loan of a million dollars as he says), Trudeau's father was prime minister, he grew up playing in parliament and traveling the world with Pierre Trudeau. If we look at The Honourable Chrystia Freeland we can see that her father was a farmer, but also a lawyer. He ran as a member of the liberal party, and her mother, also a lawyer, ran as part of the NDP. And their wealth was generational in that her grandfather was also a lawyer. The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc grew up knowing the Trudeau's and, in fact, babysat Justin when he was a child. His father was Governor General. If we look at Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron, he also comes from a childhood of wealth with his father being a physician and his mother being a Professor of Neurology. The commonality we see with these people is their wealth, and particularly in our own government, a connection to everyone who is in power. This circle of people never had to grow up worrying if the next bill was going to be paid, if they could afford rent or food, they never had to face any sort of discrimination. Furthermore, because they are not ordinary, I do not believe they can empathize on injustices as well as someone who came from a more humble upbringing. Does this apply to all politicians? Absolutely not, we have a few politicians such as AOC who in fact did come from humble beginnings. She still fights for citizens in NYC to get affordable housing, jobs, etc. Is it possible to lose that ability to empathize? Absolutely. The power and wealth the ruling elite get can go right to someone's head. They get use to a cozy lifestyle and forget where they came from. But more often than not, our ruling elite already had their wealth and cozy lifestyles.
I like your statement about empathy needing to be nurtured. I think real-life experiences are important for gaining empathy, whereas I see novel reading as a tool for influencing emotions. I think the examples you provided definitely showcase the 'norm' but I wanted to give some more examples of the ruling elite in which have experiences of the ordinary person. The first politician that came to mind for me was Jagmeet Singh. His parents were immigrants from India and while living in Canada he faced issues such as bullying and racism as a child and even still today despite his position in politics. His family was not rich by any means and he had to work hard to support his family financially. I also look at Bernie Sanders as a civil rights activist prior to his experience in politics, he was also not born into money and he lost his mother as a young adult. I think that for the most part the ruling elite cannot relate to ordinary people and I do agree that there tends to be a cycle of the rich getting richer through generations but I think it really is a case by case situation as you state at the end of your reply.
This is an excellent discussion. Now I wish I had included a novel about power elites and struggle for wealth. I did originally plan on including The Jungle by Upton Sinclair which would have allowed us to dive into these issues, but then took it out of consideration because it is very long and I thought I would have a revolt on my hands.
I'm sure the novel revolt wouldn't have been too big, haha! I will have to check out this novel, along with our others!
Jagmeet was someone who came to mind when I spoke of AOC! I'm not sure why I didn't mention him, I absolutely should have though! Bernie is someone I'm not particularly familiar with, I only know what I see on twitter, I do thank you for letting me know more, however! Thank you for adding to the examples of those who did not come from the "elites"!