"There’s a clinical name for what Apathetic Idealist and many of us are feeling: it’s called compassion fatigue."

"Psychologist Charles Figley defines compassion fatigue as 'a state of exhaustion and dysfunction, biologically, physiologically and emotionally, as a result of prolonged exposure to compassion stress.' Symptoms include behavioural changes (becoming easily startled, a reduced ability to remain objective), physical changes (exhaustion, anxiety and cardiac symptoms) and emotional changes (numbness, depression, 'decreased sense of purpose').... There are those who argue, following Kant, that a subjective experience of empathy should not be required for moral action, and those who go further, contending that empathy actually gets in the way of morality. But the more commonly held view today seems to be that empathy is vitally necessary, not just for direct human interaction, but as a spur to solve the world’s most pressing problems. Why would we come to the aid of people who are suffering, the thinking goes, if we don’t on some level feel their suffering, too?"

From "Is compassion fatigue inevitable in an age of 24-hour news?/We have never been more aware of the appalling events that occur around the world every day. But in the face of so much horror, is there a danger that we become numb to the headlines – and does it matter if we do?" by Elisa Gabbert in The Guardian.

I don't see why we should reject the Kantian idea just because it's a "more commonly held view today... that empathy is vitally necessary." In fact, the constant pressure to feel feel feel, coming at us all the time, is making this dependency on empathy more and more of a problem. People get tired. They get numb. Then what?

I'm thinking that some people will just turn away. I know, I only read the news (and look at photographs). I cannot tolerate the grinding music, the flashing, swirling graphics, and the human yelling and warning and worrying that is news television.

Other people will keep watching as if it's something like a movie — loaded with violence and conspiracies and endlessly unfolding anxiety. You're actually enjoying it. You're taking it. Consuming it. And who knows what effect this has on your soul? But why would it amount to any significant moral behavior from you? At best, you'll toddle over to the polls and check the box that seems to advance the plot.