{"id":70,"date":"2010-01-27T10:50:25","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T10:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/01\/empathys-dark-side.html"},"modified":"2010-01-27T10:50:25","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T10:50:25","slug":"empathys-dark-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/01\/empathys-dark-side.html","title":{"rendered":"Empathy’s dark side"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just up on the Templeton Foundation’s YouTube channel is a nine-part conversation between the eminent primatologist and psychologist Frans de Waal and Discover magazine’s Carl Zimmer <\/a> about de Waal’s celebrated new book, “The Age of Empathy.”<\/a> Note especially the final segment<\/a>, in which de Waal talks about empathy’s “dark side.” He explains that a successful torturer has to have a certain capacity to understand what his victim is feeling in order to be good at his malign task. Similarly, says de Waal, Bernie Madoff, “who is probably a psychopath,” had to be exceptionally good at empathizing with his marks in order to swindle them so successfully. <\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just up on the Templeton Foundation’s YouTube channel is a nine-part conversation between the eminent primatologist and psychologist Frans de Waal and Discover magazine’s Carl Zimmer about de Waal’s celebrated new book, “The Age of Empathy.” Note especially the final segment, in which de Waal talks about empathy’s “dark side.” He explains that a successful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morals","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\nEmpathy's dark side - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/01\/empathys-dark-side.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Empathy's dark side - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just up on the Templeton Foundation’s YouTube channel is a nine-part conversation between the eminent primatologist and psychologist Frans de Waal and Discover magazine’s Carl Zimmer about de Waal’s celebrated new book, “The Age of Empathy.” Note especially the final segment, in which de Waal talks about empathy’s “dark side.” He explains that a successful…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/01\/empathys-dark-side.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-27T10:50:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Empathy's dark side - Rod Dreher","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/01\/empathys-dark-side.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Empathy's dark side - 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