The War For Kindness

When was the last time you truly felt someone else’s pain—or deliberately chose not to? In The War for Kindness, psychologist Jamil Zaki argues that empathy, far from being a fixed trait we’re born with, is a skill that can be strengthened. Against the backdrop of rising polarization, social isolation, and cruelty, Zaki makes a simple but radical claim: empathy is not dying—it’s under attack, and we can fight for it.

Zaki challenges centuries of thinking—from Plato’s view of emotions as uncontrollable forces to modern neuroscience that frames empathy as something hardwired into the brain. He calls this the Roddenberry Hypothesis (after Star Trek’s Deanna Troi, the telepathic empath), the belief that some people are born empathic while others are coldly rational. But Zaki dismantles this idea through decades of research, showing that empathy is a choice governed by context, motivation, and culture. We can turn it up or down like a volume dial.

Why Empathy Matters More Than Ever

Zaki starts from a painfully relevant observation: empathy levels have dropped dramatically over the past few decades, particularly among younger Americans. We are more connected online than ever—but less connected emotionally. Political divisions have hardened, and outrage has become currency. In this moral climate, indifference feels safe. Many people argue that empathy is biased or irrational (as Paul Bloom does in Against Empathy), but Zaki insists that the problem isn’t empathy itself—it’s how we practice it.

Empathy, Zaki explains, is not just one thing. It has three components:

• Cognitive empathy—understanding others’ thoughts and perspectives.
• Emotional empathy—sharing others’ feelings as if they were your own.
• Empathic concern—wanting to ease someone’s suffering or help them thrive.

Most of us naturally empathize with people like ourselves—our family, friends, or political tribe—but Zaki shows that empathy can stretch much further: to strangers, enemies, and even future generations. This capacity helped our species survive; cooperation and compassion were evolutionary assets, not liabilities. But in modern life, empathy has gotten harder. Urbanization, digital living, and tribalism have created an “empathy deficit.” We see suffering everywhere but are too overwhelmed or cynical to care.

Empathy as a Muscle, Not a Reflex

One of Zaki’s most important interventions is his argument that empathy is like physical fitness—a muscle that weakens with neglect but grows through deliberate practice. You can train it in the moment by choosing to imagine others’ feelings or by reframing emotional experiences. You can also strengthen it long-term through repeated habits, such as reading fiction, volunteering, or cultivating curiosity about others. This “psychological mobility” challenges the assumption that emotions are instinctive and uncontrollable.

Zaki introduces “mobilism” as the antidote to fixism—an idea drawn from Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindsets. Just as people who believe intelligence can grow actually become smarter, those who believe empathy can improve work harder to understand others. In experiments with students, teaching that empathy is a skill—not a fixed trait—made them more engaged, less biased, and more socially connected months later. This insight reframes empathy as a form of agency: you can decide the kind of person you want to be.

The War for Kindness

The “war” in Zaki’s title is both internal and societal. Our biology tells us to protect our tribe; our better selves urge us to widen the circle of care. His book explores this struggle through deeply human stories—a former neo-Nazi who found redemption, police departments that retrain officers as “guardians” instead of “warriors,” doctors who learn compassionate detachment, and virtual reality engineers who use technology to evoke empathy rather than erode it.

Across these cases, Zaki reveals a paradox: empathy thrives where it is hardest. It grows amid suffering, conflict, and division, not despite them. Survivors of trauma often become the most altruistic; people who learn to care for enemies or strangers become more whole. This insight turns empathy from sentimentality into courage. It means that choosing kindness is not naive—it’s revolutionary.

Why You Should Fight for Empathy

Zaki’s call to action is clear: don’t let empathy collapse under cultural pressure. In your own life, empathy determines whether you connect or withdraw, heal or harm. In politics, it defines whether nations fragment or reconcile. The world you create tomorrow depends on the empathy you practice today.

Key Message

Empathy isn’t a scarce resource—it’s a renewable one. When we learn to build it deliberately, we can reshape relationships, institutions, and even history. That’s how we fight—and win—the war for kindness.

Zaki argues that empathy isn’t something that happens to you—it’s something you decide to do. That claim overturns centuries of philosophical and psychological thinking. Most people see emotions as automatic: rage flares, grief floods, fear paralyzes. But empathy, he shows, follows its own tug-of-war between approach and avoidance motives. You weigh the costs and benefits every time you face another person’s suffering.

The Battle of Motives

Psychologist Kurt Lewin’s “field theory” provides the metaphor: imagine empathy as a rope pulled by opposing teams. One side—the approach motives—pulls you toward caring: curiosity about others, moral pride, social connection, and evolutionary reward. The other—the avoidance motives—tugs you back: fear, fatigue, cynicism, and the sense of helplessness that compassion can bring. Whichever side exerts greater force decides whether you lean in or turn away.

Empathy often loses this tug when caring seems costly. Therapists avoid their most depressed clients at day’s end, commuters walk in wide arcs around charity tables, and we scroll past war-zone photos that might break our hearts. In his famous Good Samaritan experiment, Dan Batson found that seminary students rushing to a talk on compassion ignored a man slumped in a doorway because they were late to give their speech about helping the suffering. Awareness alone didn’t matter; time pressure did.

Empathy Can Be Trained

The encouraging news is that empathy responds quickly to motivation. Zaki describes “nudges” that tilt the balance toward connection. When people are paid or socially rewarded for understanding others, their brain mirroring and emotional attunement increase. Even hardened subjects—like psychopaths in Dutch prisons—can activate empathic responses when asked to imagine others’ pain deliberately. Motivation activates capability.

Empathy can also be shifted over time. In long-term studies, meditation and perspective-taking increase both compassion and cortical growth in related brain regions. Neuroscientist Tania Singer found that trainees who practiced loving-kindness meditation reported more generosity and less distress—their brains switched from pain circuits to reward circuits when helping others. Empathy, like any other form of mastery, requires practice.

Choosing Empathy Changes Behavior

Zaki’s work with Carol Dweck confirms this power of belief. People who think empathy is a fixed trait (“I’m just not a very empathic person”) act accordingly—they avoid emotional closeness and stereotype outsiders. But those who believe empathy can grow engage more, listen longer, and even volunteer in harder situations. When Stanford freshmen were told that empathy improves with effort, they became better at reading emotions and made more genuine friendships.

Key Message

Empathy isn’t a reflex—it’s a skill under your conscious control. By noticing when you choose to care and when you choose to look away, you can start to retrain yourself. Each moment you lean toward understanding strengthens the muscle that makes compassion possible.

If empathy builds connection, hatred does the opposite—it silences our ability to see others as human. Yet Zaki’s story of Tony McAleer, a former neo-Nazi who found redemption, reveals something surprising: empathy can be reborn even in the coldest hearts.

The Roots of Hate

McAleer’s journey began in rage and loneliness. After a childhood marked by neglect and humiliation, he found belonging in violent white supremacist groups. Hatred gave him structure, identity, and excitement—“a civilized barbarism,” he said, one that traded emotion for acceptance. His story represents what Zaki calls an “empathy collapse.” Research shows that most hate-driven violence comes from young, abused, or displaced men who seek connection through cruelty.

Contact as Cure

The turning point came not from argument but from contact. As Gordon Allport predicted in his contact theory, meeting people across group divides humanizes even the enemy. McAleer’s relationship with his Jewish mentor, Dov, echoed classic psychological findings: when strangers share equal status, personal interaction, and mutual goals, prejudice gives way to understanding. Dov’s simple words—“That’s what you did, but not who you are”—offered McAleer the self-compassion he needed to reconnect with others.

Zaki connects this to Emile Bruneau’s studies of intergroup conflict. Bruneau found that empathy dissolves when groups compete, but thoughtful contact—especially where both sides can speak and be heard—restores it. For oppressed groups, being heard (not merely asked to empathize) creates dignity. In experiments with Israelis and Palestinians, empathy blossomed when Palestinians were allowed to share their perspective while Israelis listened.

Self-Compassion Sparks Compassion for Others

Zaki discovered that self-compassion—the capacity to forgive your own flaws—might be the bridge between personal healing and moral regeneration. Many extremists, he writes, hate others because they hate themselves. Learning to see your own pain without shame allows empathy to return. Organizations like Life After Hate, led by McAleer and other “formers,” help extremists rebuild their humanity not by condemning them, but by modeling it.

Key Message

Hatred can’t be argued away—it must be replaced by connection. When empathy breaks, contact and self-compassion can restart it. Healing others begins by discovering the humanity within yourself.

Zaki calls narrative “the ancient technology of empathy.” From prehistoric firesides to Netflix, stories have always let people live inside other minds. Fiction, theater, and media don’t just entertain—they train us to feel for others we’ve never met.

Acting and Imagination

Actors practice empathy on stage. At the Young Performers Theatre in San Francisco, children learn to inhabit their characters’ emotions and motives—crying as Belle or wondering as Alice. Psychologist Thalia Goldstein studied these young performers and found that drama education sharpened their “theory of mind,” the ability to understand others’ perspectives. Performing emotions made their empathy more precise and flexible.

Reading as Emotional Training

Readers undergo a similar transformation. Studies by Raymond Mar show that frequent consumers of fiction—novels, plays, or short stories—score higher on empathy tests and develop richer emotional vocabulary. One story can open windows into vastly different worlds—from Uncle Tom’s Cabin awakening sympathy for slaves to The Jungle exposing labor injustices. Fiction is “contact lite”—safe rehearsal for connecting with outsiders.

Stories That Heal

Zaki highlights Rwanda’s radio soap New Dawn, a broadcast designed to rebuild empathy after genocide. Instead of political sermons, it told a Romeo-and-Juliet story about two lovers from enemy tribes. Villagers who listened became more tolerant, especially after hearing characters forgive and reconcile. Fiction provided what real dialogue could not—a psychological rehearsal for compassion.

Stories That Reform

Literature can even reform criminals. In Massachusetts, Judge Bob Kane and professor Bob Waxler founded “Changing Lives Through Literature,” a court program replacing jail time with book discussions. Offenders read novels of struggle and redemption—discovering themselves in the characters’ mistakes and transformations. Recidivism dropped, and empathy rose. Fiction, Zaki concludes, doesn’t just help us understand others—it helps us rewrite our own story.

Key Message

Every act of storytelling is an invitation to empathize. Whether we perform, read, or listen, imagination becomes rehearsal for compassion—and sometimes, redemption.

What happens when empathy hurts too much? In his chapter “Caring Too Much,” Zaki turns to doctors and caregivers—people whose compassion sustains lives but often destroys their own well-being. Empathy, he argues, is vital but must be balanced.

The Toll of Compassion

At UCSF’s neonatal intensive care unit, Zaki witnessed this firsthand after his daughter’s stroke. Physicians and nurses radiated warmth and courage amid heartbreaking losses. But they also suffered compassion fatigue, a form of emotional erosion common in helping professions. Empathizing with others’ pain every day leads to exhaustion, anxiety, and even depression.

Medical culture historically taught “detached concern”—a cold professionalism that prevents burnout but also dehumanizes patients. Zaki finds a middle path through research on mindful empathy. Doctors who practice emotional awareness manage distress instead of denying it. Programs like Johns Hopkins’ RISE offer peer support for healthcare staff after medical errors or losses, reducing burnout and fostering resilience.

The Difference Between Distress and Concern

Zaki cites neuroscientist Tania Singer’s finding that not all empathy is equal. Distress empathy makes us feel others’ pain so intensely we want to escape it. Concern empathy, in contrast, motivates help without emotional overload. Loving-kindness meditation turns anguish into action: brain scans show helpers shifting from pain circuits to reward centers, experiencing joy in service rather than suffering.

Nurses who practice mindfulness or self-awareness separate their feelings from patients’ experiences—they remember, “This is not my tragedy.” Eve Ekman’s workshops train caregivers to name and understand their emotions with “emotional granularity,” improving focus, empathy, and recovery from stress.

Key Message

Empathy doesn’t mean drowning in others’ pain. Sustainable compassion blends feeling with boundaries—turning empathy from a wound into a wellspring.

Empathy isn’t just personal—it’s cultural. Zaki argues that societies can design systems that make kindness the norm, from policing to schools. Because humans conform to social expectations, we can build environments where empathy is contagious.

Norms Drive Behavior

People imitate what they think others believe. When college students overestimate how much peers enjoy binge drinking, they drink more; when they learn the truth, they moderate. Zaki’s own lab showed that reading empathic comments triggers readers to feel and act more kindly. In other words, empathy spreads through perception.

Empathy in Policing

Washington State’s police chief Sue Rahr replaced the “warrior” training mentality with a “guardian” model emphasizing dignity and listening. Officers learned procedural justice—how fairness and compassion improve safety. Results were striking: fewer force incidents and stronger community trust. It worked because recruits absorbed a new norm: empathy is professionalism.

Empathy in Education

In schools, psychologist Jason Okonofua reimagined discipline. Teachers trained to see misbehavior as a sign of stress, not evil, suspended fewer students—especially minorities. The simple act of imagining students’ humanity halved suspension rates. Like Rahr’s police initiative, this program succeeded not by punishing wrongdoing but by realigning empathy as a system value.

Key Message

Cultures shape care. When teams, institutions, and governments embed kindness into their rules and role models, they turn empathy from a personal virtue into a collective force.

Technology can destroy empathy—or reboot it. Zaki examines the paradox of the digital age: the same tools that fuel trolling and division can also expand our capacity to understand others if used wisely.

The Digital Distance

Artist Wafaa Bilal’s experiment “Domestic Tension” revealed how screens numb empathy. Over thirty days, online users shot paintballs at him remotely, proving how anonymity silences compassion. Zaki connects this to research showing that Internet outrage and echo chambers amplify hate, while algorithms reward moral fury for clicks.

Empathy Machines

Yet some technologies heal instead of harm. Virtual reality experiences like “Clouds Over Sidra” immerse viewers in a refugee girl’s daily life, allowing donors and policymakers to feel her world. Zaki and Stanford’s Jeremy Bailenson found that VR simulations of homelessness increased support for real housing policies weeks later. Immersion nurtures lasting concern when paired with perspective-taking.

Augmented Empathy

Other inventions literally read emotions. Catalin Voss’s “Autism Glass” project uses Google Glass to help children with autism decode facial cues, turning real-time feedback into social learning. Technology here acts as empathy’s prosthesis—helping those once thought incapable of connection to engage meaningfully with others.

AI and Collective Kindness

Rob Morris’s Koko app shows how artificial intelligence can crowdsource empathy. Users anonymously share their feelings, and trained volunteers respond with compassionate reframings. Helpers feel better too—the act of comforting strengthens their own emotional resilience. Technology, Zaki writes, isn’t the enemy; it’s an amplifier of whatever we ask it to serve.

Key Message

Digital tools can fracture our empathy or scale it worldwide. The choice lies not in the code but in our intention—whether we design systems that reward cruelty or compassion.

How do you care for people who don’t exist yet? Zaki closes by pushing empathy beyond space and time. Caring for future generations, he argues, may be humanity’s next moral frontier.

Longpath Thinking

Consultant Ari Wallach teaches “Longpath” workshops to help leaders imagine their descendants’ lives. Participants write about their great-great-grandchild’s world, career, and struggles. This imaginative exercise turns empathy into foresight: when we picture our progeny’s future, we make wiser choices today.

Gratitude and Awe

Research by David DeSteno and Jennifer Stellar shows that gratitude and awe create long-term orientation. Feeling thankful for ancestors’ sacrifices or marveling at the vastness of time expands compassion beyond the self. Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” captures this cosmic empathy—the realization that everyone who ever lived shares one fragile home.

Legacy and Mortality

Even mortality can motivate kindness. When people consider their legacy or write their own eulogies, they act more sustainably and altruistically. Zaki tells the story of Alfred Nobel, who founded the Nobel Prize after reading his premature obituary calling him “The Merchant of Death.” Empathy for the future begins with the humility to see beyond our lifetime.

Key Message

To win the war for kindness, we must extend empathy through generations. Gratitude for the past, awe for the cosmos, and imagination for the future turn compassion into legacy.