Perspective setting and empathy

I will discuss this topic further when I return home on Thursday, but for now, beginning with the wise words of James Fallows (Atlantic Wire):

As the years go by, I am more and more convinced that the immediate, fast-twitch talk-show responses on what we "have" to do about some development are almost always wrong, and the calm, day- or week-after reflections about proportion, response, and national interest are almost always wiser. If I could, I would put all cable-TV discussion of breaking-news crises on a 24-hour delay. Maybe there has been a case in which immediate reflex-response to big news has seemed wise in the long run. Right now I can't think of any.

Listening to a recent podcast this morning of Lynne Rosetto Casper's excellent Splendid Table, one of her guests was a Stanford professor working on a study involving empathy.  As I listened to the intriguing discussion (where among other things, a student suggested using a cow as an avatar), I wondered how much of business is based on the notion that empathy is dangerous because it would provide each employee with potential significance/relevance, and how this could cut into profits because being truly empathetic would call for a reasonable compensation instead of maximizing the return on an investment. 

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study showing the effect on sales and output when profits and employee compensation are reasonably balanced, instead of the former being emphasized to the detriment of the latter.

It's worth pondering: is empathy a human trait that is so instinctive that everyone can do it but many choose not to...is it something that gets in the way of efficient "business" because it's easier to view an employee as a replaceable part?  Certainly the notion of a minimum wage implies that people are entitled to a basic level of compensation...I wonder, would those who argue most strenuously against such a requirement be willing to voluntarily pay people more, or is the notion that most people "out there" are too lazy, unmotivated or don't deserve to be paid more just easier to accept?

When it comes to the nonstop coverage of the missing 777 with more than 230 souls onboard, one wonders if any of the news channels engaged in feverish speculation about their collective fate would be doing that if they knew anyone on that flight...of course they would, because the notion of "stuff" is more important than that of content.  It's sad when restraint and consideration are considered weaknesses.  But then too, empathy has very little place in the modern world, and it's sad that an argument has to be made in order to even justify its place in more of today's interactions.