Is there such a thing as too much empathy? 

Back in the 1970s, a less politically correct age, there was a standby formula for television advertising known as 2Cs in a K, which would feature two women by a washing machine engaged in unlikely conversation about some wondrous new detergent. Since The Spectator is a family publication, I shall pretend that 2Cs in a K stood for two ‘consumers’ in a kitchen, although it did not. If you are still trying to puzzle this out, the male equivalent is two dicks near a fence, a routine in which one man implausibly explains to his neighbour the many virtues of a particular woodstain, say, or one of those natty electric pressure washers which allow you to jetwash your patio while pretending you are wielding a flamethrower during the Tet Offensive.

Eventually this formula became tired, and it is now in decline. However, like all formulae, there were reasons for its use. The ads were cheap to make and allowed you to say more or less anything you wanted without having much of a creative idea. The same applies to television news, where the equivalent fallback formula might be called ‘Two stats and a sob-story’. This involves cherry-picking a few topical statistics to give a veneer of newsworthiness, followed by an interview with someone who is sad about what the statistics say. Like 2Cs in a K, you can apply this anywhere: one minute someone is sad about climate change, the next someone is sad because their gas bill has gone up. Yes, these two issues are kind of contradictory, but that doesn’t matter.

Achingly sad events happen every day. But this same tedious hand-wringing formula is applied to everything from massacres to train delays. Shortly before she died, Fay Weldon told a friend of mine: ‘The trouble with your generation is you have too much empathy.’