People can't look at each other in the eye anymore, so they forget what it is like to feel empathy. I hear a line of reasoning like this quite often and I have

People can't look at each other in the eye anymore, so they forget what it is like to feel empathy. I hear a line of reasoning like this quite often and I have yet to understand it. I simply don't accept that empathy is a necessary precondition to productive conversation. I can have a productive disagreement with someone that I don't empathize with. I can have a productive disagreement with someone I loathe and can barely force myself to maintain eye contact. It's called being an adult.