Yellow = addition, Blue = contrast, Purple = comparison, Orange = elaboration, Green = cause and effect

When Bloom talks of empathy, he describes it as a weakness of humanity. He argues that empathy is too narrow, because it focuses most on people who we feel a connection with, and ignores people who are different from us. This is made clear when he writes, “it’s far easier to empathize with those who are close to us, those who are similar to us, and those we see as more attractive or vulnerable and less scary” (Bloom 2). Here, Bloom is making the point that empathy is biased because we have a harder time empathizing with people who we can’t relate to. While I understand the point that Bloom is trying to make against caring more about issues affecting a group you relate to, I believe that this can be largely attributed to individual prejudice, not empathy. Rather than empathy being a cause for prejudice, as Bloom suggests, an individual’s own biases may impact how they implement empathy. Bloom also argues that empathy is flawed because we can only have empathy for individuals, or relatively small groups. He conveys this argument by writing about his general apathy towards the large numbers of murders that happen in a year in Chicago versus his empathy towards school shooting victims in Newtown (Bloom 2). He uses this example to connect his opinions about empathy to real world examples and help the reader visualize the negative impact of empathy when directed at only small groups. Bloom suggests that we ought to utilize “self-control, intelligence, and a more diffuse compassion” instead of empathy (3). His argument here is that it is more beneficial to combat large-scale issues with logic so that the most informed decision can be made to favor the greatest number of people, rather than only helping those with the most sympathetic stories. 

Bloom makes some good points about the human tendency to focus on the most unusual events over everyday terrible occurrences, as well as our often illogical approach towards matters that affect a wide group of people. However, I disagree that excess empathy is truly the cause of this. Rather, I think Bloom is describing the basic human social instincts which amount to simple self-preservation. Some key elements of these survival instincts are the need to be accepted in a group, the fear or avoidance of those who have a different, unknown appearance, and the stereotyping of others in order to adapt more quickly and avoid people we perceive to be threats. All of these can be attributed to survival instincts which simply fail to translate to our modern-day lives. Empathy does play a role here, because it is necessary to truly connect with someone on a human level. However, I don’t think Bloom’s interpretation of empathy is entirely correct. In fact, I think it misses the point of empathy in many ways. Empathy isn’t a catchall term for wanting to help others. It’s a mindset that requires surpassing our initial reactions to things in favor of a more thoughtful consideration of others. 

Reflection: When I examine how I tend to use transition words in these paragraphs, I notice that I tend to use addition and contrast the most out of the different transition categories. In this specific example, I am often contrasting my beliefs about empathy with Bloom’s, or adding on to a previous assertion that I made. I think I could benefit from a connective phrase towards the start of the first paragraph, where I wrote, “When Bloom talks of empathy, he describes it as a weakness of humanity. He argues that empathy is too narrow, because it focuses most on people who we feel a connection with, and ignores people who are different from us.” If I were to combine those sentences with a transition, like: ”When Bloom talks of empathy, he describes it as a weakness of humanity. For Instance, he argues that empathy is too narrow, because it focuses most on people who we feel a connection with, and ignores people who are different from us”, it makes the sentences flow better and relates the concept of empathy as a weakness to a specific argument that Bloom makes.