In a short video called Against Empathy Paul Bloom, a Psychologist and Yale professor, explains why he thinks that empathy can have a negative impact on our world. He explains, “It’s because of empathy that the world cares so much more about a baby being stuck in a well than we do about global warming.” His point isn’t that we shouldn’t care about babies who are stuck in wells--it's that because our empathy can only extend to problems that immediately appeal to our emotions, there are many other impactful problems which remain ignored.

There are two kinds of altruists: Warm glow altruists and effective altruists. Warm glow altruists do good because it makes them feel good, but the good that they do is more focused on their own feelings rather than helping someone else. Bloom provides the example of a person donating a small amount of money to multiple charities. Each time the person donates, it makes her feel good, but it doesn’t do much. In fact, sometimes the cost of processing small donations costs more than the donation itself. On the other hand, effective altruists look at the world and ask, “What does the world need?” According to Bloom, effective altruists remove their own emotions and understand what is good for the world objectively. Bloom says that “If you really want to make the world better, spend less time trying to maximize your own altruistic joy, and in a more cold-blooded way think, ‘How can I help other people?’”

In some ways, I would agree with Bloom. It is a problem that people have little concern for issues that they can find no empathy for, but I would argue that instead of removing empathy entirely, instead we must become more empathetic. In my last article, I talked about the importance of kindness. Kindness is seeing people. It is looking at the person in a humanizing way. It is recognizing her needs and it is being present with her in that moment. We must extend this way of being towards other humans and the rest of the world.

As the modern age continues, humans are becoming an ever more global community. We are simply no longer local. To greater degrees, the actions of one country are impacting the actions of another. And so there is a more pressing need to understand humanity as something that is bigger than the individual, and even a country. We are now very directly dealing with the rest of the world.

Last night, I watched the documentary The True Cost. It talks about the effects that the clothing industry has on people and the environment. Many of us are aware of the horrors of sweatshops. In Bangladesh, a garment factory collapsed killing over 1000 people. Another factory collapsed and killed more than 100. Furthermore, the clothing industry affects agriculture. In Texas, 3.6 million acres of cotton are grown. The pesticides sprayed across this vast amount of land are linked to tumors that many workers develop. In India, not unlike some stories in America, farmers can’t repay Monsanto for their seeds. In the past 16 years alone, there have been more than 250,000 recorded farmer suicides in India. That’s one suicide every 30 minutes. In America, the consumption of products gives the illusion of happiness, but people aren’t happier. We’ve all heard these sorts of facts. But what will it take for us to make something of them?

My favorite clip in the documentary is when a young lady named Shima went to her countryside village to drop off her daughter Nadia. Many workers are forced to leave their children in the countryside with their families in order to work. But sadly, the parents can only see their children once or twice a year. In the countryside, Shima introduces her parents to the camera with a huge grin. “This is my dad!” she beams. The camera next goes to an elderly woman. “This is my mom!” She gives the lady a huge hug.

Outside, the sun has just set and Shima is walking with her daughter and a couple of other young girls. The girls suddenly look up at the trees and point, “Ohhhhhhh!” Shima laughs and the girls point and talk in a language that I don’t understand. The four look at the world and smile as bugs sing softly for the dawn of a new night. That’s my favorite part in the whole documentary. When I see those people smiling, I wonder if we really need to show pictures of people dying and families crying in order to get the point across that the system that our world is dependent on is broken. Because people deserve to be happy, and when we see how beautiful it is to love the company of one another and enjoy this planet, this becomes clear. People ought to have a fair chance to be with the ones we love. People ought to have a fair chance at enjoying this strange planet that we have the privilege of living on.

When Shima was interviewed she said, “People have no idea how hard it is for us to make the clothing. They only buy it and wear it. I believe they are produced by our blood.” She went on to talk of a factory that had collapsed. “A lot of workers died there. It’s very hard for us. I don’t want anyone wearing anything which is produced by our own blood. We want better-working conditions… I don’t want the owner of Rana Plaza to take such a risk and make the workers work in such conditions. So that no more workers die like that. So that no more mothers lose their child like this. I never want this. I want the owners to be a little more aware and look after us.”

The system that our world is running on is broken in more ways than I’ll ever be able to understand. But I do know that people want to be happy, and I do know that people need love in order for this to happen. We as humans have a responsibility to one another and this planet; and though we’re failing horribly, we’re capable of doing a good job. Tansy Hoskins, the Author of Stitched Up says, “The customer needs to know that they’re in charge. Without them, we don’t have jobs. That is really important. So you don’t have to buy it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to buy into it.” We don’t have to live this way and we don’t have to make others live this way. “I don’t think that people want to live on a slowly dying planet, or be exploiting our neighbors. So I think we need a system change.”

Richard Wolf, an economist who graduated from Harvard, Stanford and Yale argues that it is the economic system itself that is broken and must be fixed. “If you don’t change the system, you’re leaving intact the decision making of these enterprises. Which means a small group of executives and shareholders are gonna be working on the same system, subject to the same pattern of rewards and punishments, which will sooner or later make them reimpose, there or elsewhere, the very conditions you’re fighting against. So stop this stuff abut improving conditions. Deal with the system or else you’re not serious.”

What can we do in order to have a better world? As Martin Luther King points out, we need a revolution of values. We need to understand what is worth valuing and value that. We need to learn how to love. We need to treat people as people. We need to acknowledge the problems that we face. We need to remove ourselves from those problems and create a better system for all humans and existence. Certainly, creating a new system would not be simple, but it’s needed. And right now we’re alive, and there’s not a whole lot that is simple about that. Our existence is miraculous. Whether you’re religious or not, our being here right now is against the odds. But we are here. After billions of years of the universe existing, we have this time right now. So let’s do our best. Let’s live the best life that we can for ourselves, for others and the rest of existence that we have the privilege of being with.