Real friends, and real empathy. On mandatory niceness and bullying policies.

I was curious to see how the New York Times article Gossip Girls and Boys Get Lessons in Empathy would be received. I should not have expected much I suppose, since the comments are in fact, moderated, and most responses are favorable of this scheme to the point of being promotional.

One writer argues that the students are likely to become resentful of authority, but this is the only direct attack on the whole scheme. Frankly I doubt that additional resentment is much of a serious concern in that some sort of expectation of "good behavior", however defined, is a universal element of society, and distinctive resentment is most likely when the social expectations are illogical. Empathy and kindness toward others are certainly not illogical. Research projects involving interviews with the elderly and a survey of wheelchair ramps might be resented as extra work, but it is difficult to see how they are more onerous than the other annoying projects that students are tasked with.

There are other very serious problems with the 'forced empathy' schemes however. Take the personalized party sweatshirts for example. At Scarsdale Middle School, the main school featured in the article, it is apparently common for students to give out commemorative sweatshirts at big and significant parties like bar or bat mitzvahs. Popular students are naturally more likely to receive plenty of such invitations, and so, with the goal of combating feelings of exclusion, the Parent Teacher Association, is trying to prevent students from wearing their personalized sweatshirts on the Monday after the big party weekend.

There are a couple of problems with this idea. The obvious one is that not going to the party is plenty of reason to feel excluded, and most students around the United States are able to exclude, or be excluded without the aid of embroidered cue sheets.

A more significant and subtle problem is that this proposal, and many other egalitarian and inclusive social engineering schemes can disrupt the formation of alternate social groups. I cannot comment on the rest of the globe, but in the US at least, most schools have the "popular kids" to be sure, but there are many other social cliques that purport to disdain the social butterflies and the jocks.

Since cliques who hate the popular kids are very often more numerous than the popular kids themselves, it is clear that the complete authenticity of their scorn is often in question. Without a doubt, many members of the less popular cliques would abandon their introverted, nerdy, or acne-spotted comrades for the athletic, the gossipy and the beautiful, but the fact remains that literally millions of students find durable and lasting friendships that are far better tuned to their own personalities and interests than would be the case if they were invited into the most social circles. Artificially linking the so-called unpopular with the popular might well do more to elevate the status of the popular, and lower the status of anyone who is not consumed by socializing, than it would eliminate socially inflicted pain. As students work their way through the high-school system they are forming their own interests, personalities, and identities, and it is crucial that these identities and interests are tailored to the individuals that bear them. Turning a 'band geek', 'chess nerd', or music fanatic into a sycophantic hanger-on, cackling and groveling at the behest of the popular is no improvement.

The superficiality of the PTA focus on sweatshirts also raises notable questions in my mind as to whether formal "empathy" programs and their ilk are going to be better at improving the social lot of less popular students, or whether they will rather, allow socially dominant bullies and snobs to anchor their elevated status with adults. At this point in social history, it is often the case that the 'popular' kids are at best, semi-popular with the society as a whole. Obvious obnoxiousness triggers memories of bullying and contempt endured decades before by adults. Such memories are not so powerful that a teenager may be assured of adult understanding however, and formalized kindness programs seem very likely to provide the socially skilled and popular with all the necessary tools to camouflage their scorn and contempt toward less popular students. Whatever the results, you are likely to see them if you live in an English speaking nation. Anti-bullying schemes have been spreading throughout the English language diaspora nearly as fast as anti-terrorism laws.