Empathy and the Art of Living

Krznaric writes about empathy as a civic virtue rather than a psychological faculty — as a practice that changes how societies treat strangers, how institutions design services, and how workplaces organise. This early essay (later developed into his books on empathy) is one of the cleanest arguments that empathy is something we cultivate, not something we either have or don't. For product direction it is a useful philosophical grounding: user research is one of the institutions through which modern organisations practise, or fail to practise, empathy with the people they serve. Read alongside Young's Practical Empathy for the operational complement. Krznaric's register is essayistic and deliberate.