Empathy
Entry updated 21 April 2025. Tagged: Theme.
A variant form of Telepathy, the detection or sympathetic experience of feelings and emotions as distinct from thoughts; this occasionally appears in sf as an individual Psi Power or aspect of ESP, as distinct from nonfantastic understanding or fellow-feeling. The term seems first to have been used in fiction in this sf sense in Poul Anderson's No World of Their Own (April-July 1955 Astounding as "The Long Way Home"; 1955 dos). Even the ESP enthusiast Theodore Sturgeon recognizes in "Need" (in Beyond, coll 1960) that an ability to sense other people's pain might constitute an appalling burden. Other works in which the talent of psychic empathy has a scarring, alienating effect include Leigh Kennedy's fine The Journal of Nicholas the American (1986) and Richard Paul Russo's Inner Eclipse (1988). A memorable series character with this talent is the insectile Alien Doctor Prilicla who senses and often recoils from patients' and colleagues' "emotional radiation" throughout James White's Sector General books, and as a direct result is notorious for diplomatic prevarication when unwelcome truths need to be conveyed. Flinx in Alan Dean FosterHumanx Commonwealth sequence opening with The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972) is an empath.
Brian W Aldiss's The Primal Urge (1961) partly mechanizes empathy with forehead-mounted "Emotional Registers" that report the wearer's state of sexual arousal. Universal empathy is forced on humanity by an airborne Drug in Damon Knight's "Rule Golden" (May 1954 Science Fiction Adventures), where the resulting inability to ignore others' (and animals') pain effects a revolution in social mores. However, the revolution is a bloody and unpleasant one in Stanisław Lem's contrarian treatment of this theme, "Altruizine" (in Cyberiada, coll 1965; trans as The Cyberiad 1974), where the oppressive Perception of others' pain – as facilitated by the titular drug – generates an urge to shut it down by any convenient means including physical violence. Natural development of the empathic faculty leads to Gaia-like world unity in several novels by Philip E High, such as Butterfly Planet (1971) and Sold – For a Spaceship (1973); in the same author's Come, Hunt an Earthman (1973) it is the serendipitous consequence of a laboratory accident. Empathy is misused as an exploitable psychic resource in The Empathy Experiment (1977) by David Foster and D K Lyall. Greg Egan's "TAP" (November 1985 Asimov's) features a brain implant that allows absolute empathy, with characteristically (for this author) complex ramifications.
Cinema productions that make some play with empathy include Blade Runner (1982) directed by Ridley Scott, where an empathy test is famously used to detect Androids; Code 46 (2003) directed by Michael Winterbottom; and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) directed by James Gunn. In Television, Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) is an empath. [DRL]
see also: Hoa Pham; Ansen Dibell, Allen W Eckert; Dan Jacobson; Chana Porter; Prehistoric SF; Joelle Taylor; Walter Tevis, Neon Yang; George Zebrowski.
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