Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition | To Reconnect Within Each Other's Radius 7
Introduction | The Two Forces of Empathy: The Struggle Between Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces 11

Part 1: Empathy Creates Hate Empathy Creates Hate
Chapter 1: Exclusion and Discrimination Beginning with Feelings 25
Chapter 2: Tribal Instinct: They Are Not Human, They Are Not Us 41
Chapter 3: The COVID-19 Pandemic, the Pandemic of Hate 62
Chapter 4 Algorithms, "There's No One Else on Our Side" 95

Empathy beyond the feeling of part 2
Chapter 5: The Belief That My Hatred Is Morally Justified 121
Chapter 6: First Impressions Are Wrong 142
Chapter 7: From a Community of Feelings to a Community of Thought 153
Chapter 8: How Punishment Becomes Empathy 167
Chapter 9: The Boundaries of the Mind Are Collapsed 177

Part 3: Expand Your Circle of Empathy
Chapter 10: Instincts Change: Imagine a New Education 195
Chapter 11: If Everyone Could Wear a Bikini 216
Chapter 12: The Birth of a Narrow-minded Korean 228
Chapter 13: Korean Uniqueness Becomes a Shackle 240
Chapter 14: Skills for Reaching Out to Others 260
Chapter 15: Contact, Interaction, and Wider Affection 269

Part 4: Empathy Education for a New Generation
Chapter 16: My Baby's Supreme Being, the Path to Destruction 281
Chapter 17: What Makes a Child Grow? 290
Chapter 18: Demanding a Massive Transformation of Universities 305

Part 5: Politics: Organizing a Community of Thought
Chapter 19: Beyond the Politics of Emotions 333
Chapter 20: The Margin of Safety That Embraces Us All 350
Chapter 21: How Is Reconciliation Possible? 361
The End | The Path to Destruction and the Path to Survival 370

Acknowledgements 374
Week 376
Image source 393
Search 395

The conflict and strife in Korean society are still not due to a "lack" of empathy, but rather an "excess" of it. The revised and expanded edition of "Radius of Empathy" begins with the tragic fact that in the three years since the first edition was published, conflict and division caused by an excess of empathy have not improved, but rather worsened.
Author Jang Dae-ik tells an episode that clearly demonstrates this.
“Professor Jang, I am reading “Radius of Empathy” with great interest.
It was a great help in understanding the recent political conflict in our country.
“Is this the book that came out this year?” “Oh… … No.
The book was published about three years ago.
If you felt that this book was published this year, it probably means that the conflicts in our society are repeating themselves in the same way now as they were then.
Haha.” Without going too far, the unprecedented martial law situation on December 3, 2024 was an incident where excessive empathy, favoring the in-group and hating the out-group, reached its extreme.
A leader who should be leading a country was so obsessed with conspiracy theories about election fraud that he silenced his opponents and resorted to violence.
YouTube channels fueled by hate spread fake news and gathered support.
Traditional media also abandoned fact-checking and neutral reporting, instead reproducing hatred along partisan lines.
Everyone was obsessed with figuring out whose side you were on.
Yet people still say that 'empathy is needed' to clear up this confusion.
Author Jang Dae-ik is uncomfortable with this solution.
He again bluntly states that the most excessive emotion in Korean society is empathy.
It's emotional empathy that only works with people who are in the same position as you.
What we lack is not empathy.
The problem lies in the fact that the 'radius' of empathy is narrow.
In other words, the question is how far can we expand our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, beyond the ability to feel.
Jang Dae-ik wrote this revised and expanded edition, realizing that we still don't know enough about how to expand the radius of empathy.
According to him, empathy is a cognitive attitude that is structured, selective, and designable.
If we fail to expand the radius of empathy, the future of not only the Republic of Korea but also of humanity is bleak.
Accordingly, author Jang Dae-ik meticulously explores what transformations must occur and what structures must be established in the two most important axes of human life, 'education' and 'politics,' to expand cognitive empathy by putting oneself in another's shoes, and how I can reach out to you.
The issues raised in “Radius of Empathy” are still relevant in 2025.
Breaking free from the "my child supremacy" and educating the new generation to empathize, novelist Kim Hoon pointed out that "my child supremacy" has become the zeitgeist of the Republic of Korea.
Parents' inability to tolerate any pain or discomfort in their children's lives and their inability to protect them deprives them of the opportunity to learn cognitive empathy, which allows them to understand the perspectives of others.
However, author Jang Dae-ik points out that humans were not originally like this.
Primates, including humans, originally had a cooperative child-rearing system in which 'the whole village came together' to raise children.
Co-parenting involves a surrogate parent caring for and supporting young children.
Surrogate parents include not only grandmothers, but also older siblings, aunts, great-aunts, fathers, uncles, and even visitors from neighboring communities, all of whom assist women in childbirth and the child's chances of survival.
According to evolutionary biologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, the evolution of cooperative breeding is the reason why Homo sapiens, who were almost impossible to find anywhere on Earth 100,000 years ago, were able to spread so dramatically to cover the globe.
However, as childbirth and childrearing became separate lives, I was unable to realize that my child was not the only one who was precious, and that I was not the only one raising the child.
This has brought about bad consequences for both parents and children, as it erases the existence of others.
Therefore, a “social shift that allows us to open our hearts to other people’s children as we cherish our own” is the foundation necessary for the future of children and the continuation of humanity.
The author uses various scientific evidence to convincingly demonstrate that controlling parenting does not determine a child's personality or future path.
Parents must clearly recognize the limits of their influence and the extent to which they can protect their children's lives.
"You can't give your children a home for their souls." The author also demonstrates, through numerous pieces of evidence, how respecting children's innate individuality, providing opportunities for active interaction with others through exercise and sports, and fostering an environment that fosters curiosity can dramatically expand their radius of empathy.
The most important argument in the revised and expanded edition discussing the scope of education and empathy is the call for a "great transformation of universities."
Our university, which is obsessed with ranking universities through the so-called 'admission' process, is shaking the very reason for the existence of universities due to these side effects surrounding evaluation.
Universities are failing to achieve their ultimate goals of “student growth and happiness, fostering creativity, empathy, entrepreneurship, and contributing to the community.”
In today's world, where selection is the sole focus, rather than individual student growth, there is no room for adventurous individuals who stand in others' shoes and seek to uncover and solve real-world problems.
The author calls the university's great transformation an "entrepreneurial transformation" that nurtures young people who challenge, fail, and rise again, and discusses institutionally how this can be possible.
Beyond the politics of emotions, politics is about organizing a community of thought. Humans are biased creatures, and these biases are immediately based on powerful emotions.
Therefore, in politics, where mutual interests must be coordinated, emotional conflict and in-group bias are more prevalent than the exercise of reason and cognitive empathy.
Our task is to go beyond the politics of emotions.
But aren't our leaders complacent with those emotions? Surrounded by supporters who fuel their own moral narrow-mindedness and stubbornness, who believe only they are right, and who further narrow their horizons, they display inappropriate anger. This is a serious situation that threatens the very existence of the community.
Perhaps this emotional stubbornness may have been one of the reasons that triggered the December 3 martial law incident.
To organize a community of thought, politics must, above all, utilize knowledge of human beings.
In human relationships and political issues, there can never be any conflict.
Human bias is a fundamental condition of our society.
A community of thought begins on this foundation.
For example, even if two organizations have similar capabilities, their long-term performance will differ depending on the psychological mechanisms they have.
One of those factors is something called ‘psychological safety.’
If there is confidence within the organization that mistakes will not result in criticism or repercussions, each member can fully realize his or her potential.
Korean society is one where this psychological safety has disappeared.
The author believes that an unprecedented situation like the December 3 martial law cannot be explained solely by the arrogance of the president.
The power brokers who should have put the brakes on such decisions may have had such a lack of psychological security that they could not say it was wrong.
Ultimately, it is an organization that has trust and dialogue, not authority and silence, that can expand the radius of empathy to others.
This attitude is the first step toward reconciliation and resolution of conflict.
The author argues that humans have an instinct for reconciliation as well as an instinct for conflict.
If we did not have the ability to reconcile after conflict, humanity would have gone extinct long ago.
To bridge the gap between groups, we need to meet often.
However, common goals must be created based on psychological safety.
The Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland is a prime example.
An agreement was signed to end the conflict in Northern Ireland, where 3,600 people were killed and over 50,000 were injured due to bloody clashes between Catholics and Protestants for 30 years (April 10, 1998).
After that, youth from both camps studied at the same school and regularly participated in cultural exchanges and volunteer activities together.
Then, they gradually began to perceive each other not as enemies but as 'people no different from us'.
Reconciliation is possible.