Modern WisdomWhat Do BDSM & Meditation Have In Common? | Professor Paul Bloom | Modern Wisdom Podcast 120
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 1:15
Humans default to “us vs. them”: minimal group bias in action
Bloom explains that dividing the world into in-groups and out-groups is a deep, early-emerging human tendency. He uses the classic ‘heads vs. tails’ coin-flip study to show how even arbitrary group labels produce favoritism and contempt.
- •In-group love/out-group hate emerges naturally across cultures
- •Minimal group experiments: coin flips create instant group pride
- •Bias can form with no history, ideology, or real differences
- •Sets the stage for later discussion of empathy’s biases
- 1:15 – 3:16
What Paul Bloom studies: pleasure, morality, self, religion, and suffering
Chris introduces Bloom’s background, and Bloom outlines his broad research agenda at Yale. He frames his work as asking foundational questions about why we like what we like and how moral judgment actually works.
- •Research spans pleasure, morality, the self, and attitudes to non-humans (robots/animals)
- •His work blends psychology with philosophy
- •Recent focus includes suffering and why it can be sought out
- •“Dream job” of systematically investigating human nature
- 3:16 – 5:54
Why “obvious” questions matter: stepping back from taken-for-granted instincts
Bloom contrasts questions that feel intuitively puzzling (e.g., enjoying fear or pain) with questions people assume don’t need explanation (e.g., morality). He argues scholarship often begins by making the familiar strange and asking ‘why’ anyway.
- •Some behaviors are obviously paradoxical (sadomasochism, horror films, saunas)
- •Other topics (morality) feel self-evident, yet still demand explanation
- •William James: only a scholar asks why the obvious happens
- •Example: witnessing child abuse triggers moral shock—why does it?
- 5:54 – 9:40
Empathy vs. compassion: defining terms and why ‘feeling others’ pain can be harmful
Bloom clarifies that his critique targets empathy as emotional mirroring—feeling what others feel—rather than kindness. He argues high-empathy people may struggle in caregiving roles because absorbing others’ distress is exhausting and counterproductive.
- •Empathy (in his usage): emotional contagion/feeling others’ pain
- •Compassion: caring + motivation to help without sharing distress
- •Frontline helpers often function well with lower empathic distress
- •High empathy can reduce effectiveness and increase burnout
- 9:40 – 11:20
Empathy’s moral downside: bias, favoritism, and unfair decision-making
Bloom argues empathy is inherently selective—easier for people like us, near us, and familiar to us—so it’s unreliable as a moral compass. He describes experiments showing that inducing empathy can lead people to break fairness norms in resource allocation.
- •Empathy shuts down with difference (out-group, disgust, fear)
- •Batson study: ‘feel what it’s like’ makes people favor one child over fair lists
- •Stories disproportionately sway us toward the most vivid individual
- •Empathy can link to racism by amplifying in-group concern
- 11:20 – 12:47
What replaces empathy: rational compassion and Buddhist-inspired care
Chris asks for a less biased alternative, and Bloom proposes ‘rational compassion’: combine caring with deliberation. He points to Buddhist distinctions—radiating goodwill without being consumed by others’ suffering—as a model for sustainable helping.
- •Empathy can’t be ‘purified’ of bias; the solution is different guidance
- •Rationality: use evidence and reasoning to decide how to help
- •Compassion/love: warm concern without emotional takeover
- •Buddhist framing: avoid drowning in pain; cultivate benevolence
- 12:47 – 20:12
Where empathy is useful: relationships, shared experiences, and bonding
Bloom softens an overly strong anti-empathy stance by noting cases where empathy is socially valuable. Shared emotions—like enjoying a show together or matching a friend’s anger—can strengthen connection even if it isn’t ideal for moral policy decisions.
- •Empathy can deepen friendships and shared pleasure
- •Sometimes we want emotional alignment (e.g., anger solidarity)
- •Joint attention/emotion increases bonding even without words
- •Still not reliable for big moral decisions (war, policy, distributive justice)
- 20:12 – 22:43
Evolutionary roots: why compassion makes sense, and why empathy may relate to parenting
Bloom sketches evolutionary explanations for caring: kin selection and reciprocal altruism. For empathy specifically, he notes uncertainty but highlights a theory tying empathic bonding to infant care, hormones, and childbirth-related physiology.
- •Darwin’s puzzle: why would altruism evolve?
- •Kin selection: shared genes make caring adaptive
- •Reciprocal altruism: cooperation pays off over repeated interactions
- •Empathy hypothesis: adaptation linked to parent–infant bonding and hormones
- 22:43 – 25:22
Empathy and compassion in the body: hormones, brain circuitry, and surprising effects
They discuss physiological and neural distinctions between empathy and compassion. Bloom notes findings where increasing empathy can increase racism because it strengthens in-group attachment rather than generalized goodwill.
- •Hormonal and neural profiles differ for empathy vs compassion
- •Boosting empathy doesn’t boost ‘goodness’—it boosts partiality
- •Raising empathy can increase out-group hostility in some studies
- •Separation matters: reducing empathy needn’t reduce caring
- 25:22 – 30:55
Natural isn’t moral: tribalism, revenge, and building social rules to curb instincts
Bloom and Chris broaden the theme: many harmful impulses are natural, but societies improve by constraining them. They discuss vengeance, stealing, violence, punishment systems, and evidence that humans even punish those who refuse to punish wrongdoers.
- •‘Natural = good’ is a fallacy; progress often means resisting instincts
- •Examples: revenge impulses vs legal systems; jealousy-driven stealing
- •No-hitting rule as a practical/utilitarian social solution
- •Second-order punishment: punishing those who don’t punish offenders
- 30:55 – 33:20
Moral progress over time: consent, bullying, rights, and Pinker-style optimism
Bloom endorses the view that many aspects of society have improved significantly, especially for historically marginalized groups. He cites changing attitudes toward bullying, harassment, and consent as examples of moral learning and institutional refinement.
- •Claim: recent decades are among the best historically for many vulnerable groups
- •Growing respect for rights, autonomy, and consent norms
- •Bullying once dismissed is now treated as serious harm
- •Optimism grounded in deliberate reasoning and reform
- 33:20 – 43:18
Identity, in-groups, and today’s discourse: Twitter, purity spirals, and the limits of nuance
Chris raises concerns about intellectual energy being consumed by polarized culture-war fights; Bloom agrees social media incentivizes extreme signaling. They explore why identity-linked topics (sex, gender, race) are uniquely combustible and why nuance reads as weakness online.
- •Online environments reward ideological purity and outrage
- •Identity-linked issues feel personal and high-stakes, not academic
- •Some in-group favoritism (family/friends) may be intrinsically valuable
- •Nuance is hard to ‘perform’ before hostile audiences; ‘I don’t know’ is risky
- 43:18 – 46:41
New book theme: ‘The Pleasures of Suffering’—spice, fear, BDSM, and meaningful difficulty
Bloom previews a forthcoming book exploring why people seek aversive experiences and how suffering relates to meaning. He connects everyday ‘benign masochism’ (spicy food, saunas, horror) to deeper life purpose, where difficult projects feel valuable partly because they hurt.
- •Two levels: paradoxical pleasures (pain/fear/heat) and meaning-making suffering
- •Examples: spicy food, roller coasters, haunted houses, consensual pain in sex
- •Meaning requires effort, risk, conflict, and possibility of failure
- •Comfort can trigger existential unease; challenge reduces it
- 46:41 – 53:41
BDSM, meditation, and flow: escaping self-consciousness through intensity
They connect Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ to experiences that narrow attention and quiet self-talk. Bloom explains Baumeister’s idea that BDSM (like extreme sports or martial arts) can produce mental clarity by overwhelming consciousness—an ‘opposite route’ to meditation.
- •Flow needs a Goldilocks challenge: not too easy, not too hard
- •Intensity can clear the mind: fear, pain, physical struggle focus attention
- •Baumeister theory: BDSM as escape from self via attentional capture
- •Parallels with jiu-jitsu, rock climbing, extreme sports, intense exercise
- 53:41 – 1:05:35
Suffering as signaling, personas, and why podcasts allow real thinking
Bloom discusses how suffering often serves social functions—signaling toughness, piety, dedication—and how ‘anti-signaling’ also signals status. The episode closes on how podcasts enable nuance and context compared to social media snippets, followed by outro details.
- •Pain/effort can signal endurance, courage, devotion, or group loyalty
- •Hustle culture and puritan work ethic as modern suffering-signals
- •‘No such thing as not giving a shit—only signaling you don’t’
- •Podcasts provide context that reduces gotcha dynamics; outro and contact info
