Suzanne Keen

While I don't accept her premise, the execution and defense are solid, and helpful to show the shortcomings of the contrary view. Showing the widely accepted relationship between reading narrative fiction and the generation of an empathic response in the reader, Keen goes on to argue that this supposed relationship is at best unproven, and likely wrong. The real weakness of her position is that assumes that any empathic experience from reading about dissimilar others, if it were true, would show more reliably lead to some kind of altruistic behavior in keeping with that new insight. That, of course, is silly. Reading about a person in a situation you have no familiarity with (like extreme poverty) need not lead you to give away all your worldly good to make your experience valid. That moment can be but one chip in the wall of separation; if one is looking for changed behaviors, it more credibly would take reading more than one book. show less