We are often told that empathy is the highest of human virtues, the ability to feel another’s joy or sorrow as though it were our own. But empathy can be treacherous. It begins as resonance with another’s suffering, yet if we remain caught in that resonance without perspective, empathy can curdle into hatred. The more vividly we feel the victim’s pain, the more easily we project blame and hostility toward the supposed perpetrator. Psychologists call this parochial empathy—the narrowing of concern to one’s own group, often at the expense of those outside it. In this way, empathy, rather than dissolving boundaries, may deepen them.

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