Moral Narcissism and the Literary Crowd

Storytelling is an essential part of the human condition and empathy; reading books isn't.

Last week, I stumbled across this Substack note by

Katie Jgln

:

As you can see, this note got thousands of “likes”, and over a hundred comments — almost all agreeing with Katie.

The argument she’s suggesting here is nothing new. If you Google “reading books and empathy”, you’ll get pages of results with articles about how reading, especially reading fiction, increases empathy and “makes you a better person”.

I realize some readers might have their hackles raised right about now, so I want to reassure you that I’m not anti-book or anti-fiction. In moderation, I do think reading is healthy and that certain books can have a positive effect on “empathy”, depending on the content of the book. Books give us access to the thoughts, knowledge, and imaginations of people who live far away and far different lives from us, and that’s a valuable thing. (Of course, books are also how people such as Adolf Hitler spread their ideas).

We’re a storytelling species, and sharing stories with each other — both fictional and true — may be the primary way we develop our sense of “empathy.”

But “reading”, as in the act of interpreting text from a book (or a screen), is not necessary for storytelling. For thousands of years, the primary way we shared stories with each other was through various oral traditions, songs, theatre, and in-person conversations. Today, there are many more mediums available to share stories, including television and movies, podcasts, and even something as static as photography.

Here’s a thought exercise:

Were the literate European colonizers more empathetic than the (mostly) illiterate Indigenous peoples they colonized?

Were literate slaveowners more empathetic than illiterate slaves?

Would reading the book of a play invoke greater empathy than seeing it on stage? What about watching a film adaptation? Would I have gotten more out of, for example, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, if I’d read the book instead of watching the filmed version of the stage production on Disney+?

Are bookish university students (and professors) more empathetic than the working classes today?

Are fiction writers — themselves almost always heavy readers of fiction, especially in childhood — more empathetic than the average person?

Recent scandals such as the allegations of sexual abuse by the popular writer Neil Gaiman, or the revelation that Canadian literary darling Alice Munro silenced her daughter when she came forward with allegations of sexual abuse and pedophilia by Munro’s husband, seem to suggest otherwise.

I’m not on Twitter/X and borrow this screenshot from

Andrew Gold

’s excellent Substack article about the Neil Gaiman case.

Allegations like this are hardly new in the literary scene. Only a decade ago, the science fiction community was shaken when Mists of Avalon (a book I loved as a kid!) author Marion Zimmer Bradley was posthumously accused of sexual abuse by her daughter.

Whatever one thinks of the “Me Too” movement, most of us can probably agree that it seemed to hit the literary community particularly hard.

I’ve published four essays so far on how excessive reading may actually be unhealthy for brain development, including the development of empathy. The first was about how excessive reading may wire the brain to become more “autistic” and increase the risk of some types of mental illness, the second about the dark history of parenting books in the West, the third about how reading to babies and toddlers is overrated, and the fourth about how “alphabet literacy” and excessive reading may have contributed to surges in violence, hatred, and oppression — especially against women — for thousands of years, and may result in the development of a more “androgynous” mind.

Trust me, your baby would prefer to look at your face, not these weird cartoons.

In Conversations with Great Thinkers (2017), LJ Hammond notes a connection between excessive reading and poor mental health. From Chapter 4:

“[David] Hume, for example, “suffered a nervous breakdown at eighteen, following a period of intense intellectual discovery and voracious reading.” The young Napoleon also had a ravenous appetite for knowledge; “on attaining the age of puberty, [Napoleon’s] passion for reading was carried to excess; and he eagerly devoured the contents of every book that fell in his way.””

It’s well-known that there are higher than average rates of mental illness and substance abuse among writers, who are typically voracious readers as children. A study on creative writing students from the University of Iowa found 80% had one or more diagnosed anxiety and mood disorders compared to 30% of control subjects, and 30% were alcoholics (compared to 7% of controls).¹

There also appears to be a connection between autobiographical writing and autistic traits. In the

Mars Review of Books

, autistic writer

Tao Lin

points out:

“In NeuroTribes, Silberman writes that many in Silicon Valley, in the tech industry, seem autistic. I’ve noticed that many autobiographical authors and graphic novelists do too. There’s a connection between autobiographical self-expression and autism, or auto-ism, from the Greek word auto, meaning “self” or “self-referential.” Pain and discomfort point inward, toward themselves, insisting that something be done.”

Now, while I do think the act of writing, and wanting to be a writer, can exacerbate mental illness — writing is lonely, frustrating, and the vast majority of published authors do not earn a living from it — I suspect the causal arrow mostly goes the other way, and that people who are lonely, inclined to social isolation, neurotic, and/or suffer from depression or another form of mental illness are more likely to write. I worked in the Canadian literary world for about a decade, and from my observation, people who experienced significant childhood traumas are much more likely to become writers than those raised in comfortable, secure, and emotionally stable homes. “Broken Mirror Syndrome” — where the child, instead of imprinting onto their parents and other family members, imprints on to animals, objects, games, online friends, celebrities, and/or fictional characters in movies, television, and books — appears to be common among writers. This can lead to conditions such as “maladaptive daydreaming”² — the persistent escape into fantasy worlds to the point that it disrupts one’s ability to live in the real one — a trait which can be conducive to writing fiction.

Unfortunately, if writers — especially creative writers — are more likely to suffer from mental illness, then when we read in excess, we might be disproportionately pouring the thoughts and imaginations of one of the most mentally ill subsets of the population directly into our brains.

I don’t expect people to read (or reread) all the essays I mentioned above, so I’ll quickly summarize the relevant points:

• Reading and writing lateralize to the left hemisphere (LH) of the brain, whereas non-verbal communication (body language, tone of voice, facial expressions etc) is primarily processed by the right hemisphere (RH). This is especially true when reading and writing with an alphabet, as opposed to pictographs or cuneiform.

• The left hemisphere is more mechanistic and reductionist than the right, which attends to the world more holistically. The LH is more narcissistic, abstract, literal, categorical, emphasizes logic, order, rationality, and bureaucracy, and understands things in black-and-white terms. The RH is more relational, contextual, and intuitive, uses top-down processing, emphasizes change, empathy, and openness, and is the hemisphere of the brain responsible for meaning-making. Self-awareness, empathy, and identification with others is more RH-dependent. The LH is more active when we interact with objects and machines, and sees things, including our bodies, as an assemblage of parts, whereas the RH is more active when we interact with other living things. Spirituality also lateralizes to the right hemisphere.

• One of the reasons for the division between the hemispheres is to allow for simultaneous hunting / collecting / tool manipulation (LH) and threat-detection / surveillance as well as attending to other creatures for social purposes (RH).

• The RH is our BS detector, whereas the LH is more gullible. This suggests that we will more readily believe untrue things we read than untruths received through other mediums of communication. Readers also “tend to be more literal in their interpretation of what they read than do those who listen to speakers.”³

• Abnormalities and hypo-function of the RH, combined with LH dominance, is associated with several mental health and developmental conditions, including autism, schizophrenia, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, multiple personality disorder, and anxiety disorders.

• Reading and writing (especially using an alphabet) is an inherently more “autistic” form of communication, “to the extent that it not only mimics the autistic savant’s ready recall of words verbatim or facts with perfect precision, but allows private, personal access to another person’s thoughts without having to interact with that person in a social context.”⁴

• Historically, surges in violence and oppression have followed spikes in literacy. Leonard Shlain argues that misogyny increases as well, and I responded to his argument by claiming that misandry also increases, as sex differences appear to lateralize to the right hemisphere, whereas the LH is more “anti-sexist” and “androgynous” and also more misogynistic and misandristic.

• A significant number of famous and prolific writers throughout history have been (or at least suspected of being) homosexual, bisexual, asexual, and/or died without marrying and/or having children.

• While excessive book-reading has always been rare, it is now common, especially among younger people, to communicate with others disproportionately through writing via screens. This is one of the ways excess screen time contributes to the rising rates of autism diagnoses and autistic traits seen today.

All of these arguments are fleshed out in the original essays, which include dozens of citations and examples.

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What is “Empathy” Anyway?

There is a Jewish saying, originating from the Midrash of the Sages: “He who is compassionate to the cruel will be cruel to the compassionate.”

A recent essay by

Gurwinder

, “How Empathy Makes Us Cruel and Irrational”, illustrates this phenomenon well.

That “empathy” can sometimes lead to undesirable behaviours and outcomes is also the subject of Paul Bloom’s book, Against Empathy — which, unfortunately, I haven’t read, and therefore cannot discuss in any sort of meaningful way though it is no doubt relevant here. (My to-read list is already stupidly long and neglected as is). However, Gurwinder’s summary of one of Bloom’s arguments is relevant:

“Paul Bloom compares empathy to a spotlight; we only shine it on a few handpicked people at a time, and whenever we do, we lose sight of, and concern for, everyone else.

But empathy doesn’t just make us unconcerned for others, it can also make us actively spiteful toward them if we feel they’ve troubled the object of our empathy.”

According to researchers Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman, there are three types of empathy:

1. Cognitive Empathy: Understanding another person’s thoughts and feelings. This is also known as “theory of mind”, and is the type of “empathy” that is thought to be compromised in autism.

2. Emotional Empathy: Feeling what someone else is feeling; often a visceral reaction. This may be related to activity in the mirror neurons, and can often be counter-productive (see this compelling essay by Rachel Jansen in The Outline). This is the type of empathy that is deficient in psychopathy (which is why people high in psychopathic traits often make excellent surgeons).

3. Compassionate Empathy: Responding to someone else’s feelings with compassion. Also known as “empathic action”.

“Empathy” is largely a right hemisphere dominant trait; this is particularly true of cognitive empathy or theory of mind. (I don’t have a study to support this, but I suspect compassionate empathy or empathic action would be more LH dependent).

Someone can be high in one or two types of “empathy”, but low in the other(s). For example, a psychopath with strong theory of mind skills may use his or her cognitive empathy to abuse or manipulate others. As well, problems seem to arise when someone is low in cognitive empathy / theory of mind, but average-to-high in emotional and compassionate empathy (the “autistic” profile). This can lead to people projecting their own minds onto people they do not know (or do not know well) and acting on their behalf, while failing to recognize that the person in question thinks, feels, and behaves in very different ways than them. As the left hemisphere is less self-aware (anosognosia, or denial of deficits, is associated with RH damage), someone low in theory of mind skills may also be unaware that their sense of empathy is lopsided.

As Gurwinder writes:

“In 1977, the Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Norman Mailer was awestruck by the writing ability of the convicted killer Jack Henry Abbott, and, convinced he was reformed, called for his release. The wish was granted, and Abbott used his newfound freedom to stab a waiter to death.

A few years later, Nobel Prize-winning novelists Günter Grass and Elfriede Jelinek, touched by the writings of rapist and murderer Jack Unterweger, petitioned for his freedom, and when he was released he celebrated by raping and murdering nine more women.

The award-winning authors who misplaced their trust in murderers may have been deluded, but they can’t be accused of being particularly stupid. Instead, their delusions were born of a more surprising weakness: empathy, or the tendency to try to feel what others feel.”

These are excellent examples of writers who were high in emotional and compassionate empathy, but low enough in theory of mind that they failed to recognize that the murderers they were communicating with still posed a danger to others. This passage also demonstrates the gullibility inherent in the literate left hemisphere — it is possible that, had these authors met with these murderers in person instead of communicating via letters, they would not have made these mistakes.

Based on this, I would suggest a slight modification to Gurwinder’s argument (and possibly Bloom’s, but again, I haven’t read his book) — it’s not empathy, broadly speaking, that is dangerous, but lopsided empathy.

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“Autistic” Empathy and the Activist

From the above, a profile of left hemisphere-dominant (and right hemisphere dysfunctional) empathy can be formed:

• Below-average theory of mind skills (cognitive empathy).

• Average to above-average emotional empathy.

• Above-average compassionate empathy, resulting in high rates of empathic action.

• Denial of deficits — does not realize the full extent to which their theory of mind skills and overall sense of empathy are impaired, often leading to the belief that they are (considerably) more empathetic than the average person. This is especially true of people who are abnormally high in compassionate empathy and abnormally low in cognitive empathy.

• A tendency toward “moral narcissism”: “a narcissism that emanates from a supposed personal virtue augmented by a supposed intellectual clarity.”

This video by

Maral Salmassi

describes the concept of “moral narcissism” very well.

For the sake of this essay, I will refer to this as the “autistic” empathy profile. “Autistic” is in quotes because not everyone with this empathy profile will be diagnosed with autism (although they are far more likely to have been diagnosed with one of the mental health conditions associated with right hemisphere deficits and dysfunction and left hemisphere dominance).

Based on what I’ve outlined above, I believe that the “autistic” empathy style is common among writers — in particular autobiographical, academic, and/or philosophical writers — and among heavy readers and Internet / social media users, especially those who spend time reading / on the Internet at the expense of activities that require being in-person with other people.

Because the right hemisphere is primarily responsible for processing our connection to Spirit (God, Elohim etc), the “autistic” empathy style is likely far more common among atheists than theists.

This empathy style appears to be common among many activists. While most readers will recognize these traits as typifying “woke” left-wing activism (and this is the group that Salmassi discusses in the video I linked to above), I’ve also observed it among many “anti-woke” liberal activists, and I suspect it is common among the alt-right as well.⁵

Unfortunately, due to the cognitive empathy deficits associated with the “autistic” empathy profile, such activists tend to act on behalf of people and causes they do not really understand.

Greta Thunberg. Source: The Guardian.

People with this empathy profile are inclined toward “mind-reading” (the delusion of being able to read other people’s minds, in particular their thoughts about you) and projection (attributing one’s own behaviours, emotions, characteristics, or impulses to another person or group without realizing it).

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Is “Empathy” on the Decline? If So, Why?

Returning to the claim Katie Jgln made in her note, a relevant question is whether our collective “empathy” is really on the decline.

I’m honestly not sure — I’m inclined to think she’s probably right about that part, but again, I personally might modify the claim to suggest that cognitive empathy in particular seems to be declining (while narcissism has been increasing). Certainly, the prevalence of activism today suggests that, if anything, compassionate empathy has increased. (I’m not sure about emotional empathy, but I am not aware of any recent spike in psychopathy, which suggests that levels of emotional empathy have not been decreasing).

In other words, alongside the spike in autism diagnoses (and other diagnoses associated with right hemisphere dysfunction), there has been an increase in the number of people who have an “autistic” empathy profile.

I’m obviously speculating here — but this makes some sense to me.

So why is cognitive empathy collectively declining?

Well, it’s certainly multifactorial — and good creative writing will activate more of the right hemisphere than more academic works, as the RH processes metaphor — so I don’t rule out that people reading fewer novels could be a contributing factor. But I sincerely doubt it’s a major one.

People spend far less time hanging out in-person with friends and family than we used to. Parents are more likely to raise their children far away from extended family members, and we are all less likely to know our neighbours. Far more people live alone than ever before in recorded human history. People are dating less, getting married less, and are less likely to have children. And as I’ve discussed in my essays “The Lost Girls and Boys” and “The Dark History of Parenting Books”, there has been a widespread societal problem of early childhood emotional neglect in the Western world for hundreds of years — due to a combination of factors such as early daycare use, long work hours and lack of parental leave for parents, the use of strollers and cribs (instead of the more intimate baby-wearing and bed-sharing), the modern belief that it is ideal for each child in a family to have their own bedroom, and a fundamental misunderstanding of early brain development and how much and what kind of attention babies and toddlers need to thrive.

Alice Miller, in her various books, described several traits associated with early childhood neglect. These include:

• Overachievement and “giftedness”

• Intellectualization and obsession with language and bureaucracy

• Perfectionism and validation-seeking

• Conformity of thought and reliance on groupthink

• Gullibility

• Inability or limited ability to love and authentically connect to other people

• Obsession with power

• Impaired theory of mind / cognitive empathy

• Alexithymia (inability to identify and describe emotions)

• Masking and the creation of a “false self”

• Anger issues and outbursts / “meltdowns”

• A tendency toward exploitative relationships

For the full list, see “The Dark History of Parenting Books”.

All of these traits are associated with right hemisphere dysfunction and an overactive left hemisphere.

For further reading on this, I highly recommend Erica Komisar’s “Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters”. I’d also like to give a shout-out to

Mary Harrington

for pointing out back in 2022 that early childhood neglect might be contributing to the behaviour of campus activists — and that neglected children are more likely to become “woke”.

The right hemisphere is dominant and rapidly growing during the first three (or so) years of life. This is a critical time for developing a healthy attachment to family members, and for developing emotional intelligence and social skills.

In some cultures, babies are rarely put down — they are constantly being held by different family members and other people in these close-knit communities.

I was a heavy reader as a kid, especially of fiction. One of my cousins never really took to books — she just found reading to be kind of boring. However, I spent far more time alone as a child than she did (for various reasons, including that she had older siblings and I didn’t) and I think pretty much everyone who knows both of us would agree that she is the more “empathetic” person and has significantly better people skills than me. She is one of the most wonderful people I know, despite rarely cracking open a book.

The best way to learn “empathy” — in particular cognitive empathy, which, more so than the other two types, is a skill that is trained instead of born — is by spending time with other people. Sharing stories with each other. Learning how to live together and/or navigate some sort of long-term relationship.

For most of (known) human history, the vast majority of people have been illiterate. But we have always shared stories with each other — through oral traditions, songs, dance, theatre, and by spending time together.

Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human — and to the development of empathy. Book-reading isn’t.

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Final Thoughts

Ironically, the belief that people who read a lot of books are more “empathetic” and “better people” than people who do not read a lot of books is not particularly kind or empathetic — it is, however, an example of moral narcissism.

Literary and bookish communities are notoriously toxic. If reading were one of the best ways to improve “empathy”, it seems very odd that this would be the case.

Reading good books in moderation is healthy for the mind and soul. Don’t get me wrong. I still read a lot (have you seen how many book citations there are on my Substack?!). I have several tall shelves of books in my house, and books strewn all over the living room. In addition to essays, I’m a published author of fiction and poetry. I’m very excited to introduce my children to some of my favourite books from when I was young — just as I’ve enjoyed introducing them to music and movies that I love.

But I’m not going to freak out if it turns out my kids aren’t all that into reading. I think there are far more important things in life.

I want my children to dance, to sing, to stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking to their friends. I want them to learn how to cook healthy and delicious food — as I believe that cooking for your family and friends is an incredible act of love. I want them to have close friends who stay with them for decades; I want them to fall in love. I want them to enjoy nature, to play sports, and to appreciate a good story — regardless of the medium. Frankly, as I’m a huge musical theatre nerd, I’d be more devastated if one of my kids didn’t like musicals than if they weren’t all that into novels.

So by all means, curl up with a good book if that’s what you enjoy doing — just don’t tell yourself that doing so makes you a kinder, more empathetic, or “better” person than anyone else.

I’ve added a brief follow-up to this essay clarifying a few points; if you’ve made it to the end, I ask that you read my follow-up as well.

1. Discussed in The Matter With Things (2021) by Iain McGilchrist, page 290.

2. This is further discussed in my essay “The Lost Girls and Boys ”.

3. Christopher Badcock, The Diametric Mind, page 290.

4. Christopher Badcock, The Diametric Mind, page 290.

5. I hope to address anti-woke liberal activists in a future essay. However, I am too unfamiliar with the alt-right to write coherently about this group. Personally, I’d be interested in a take on this from someone like

Walt Bismarck

or

Deep Left Analysis

— regardless of whether they think I’m on to something or completely off-base.