According to Cody Delistraty in "Does Reading Make You a Better Person? How Fiction Relates to Our Morality," reading a lot can help you become a more empathetic person. Apparently the human brain can be 'tricked' into thinking it is the protagonist in the story, meaning that we aren't merely relating to the character on a surface level, but we can empathize as though his/her struggles are our own. So, if we can relate to a character whose life and circumstances, maybe even culture, are very different from our own, we develop a stronger morality for others. An important message, however, is that reading alone doesn't make us better -- we have to socialize and interact with others in order to find benefit in our new found knowledge and understanding.
I believe there is something to be said for this. As an avid reader myself, I tried to think of the different books I have read and the ways that they have influenced me. Prior to living in Turkey I chose to read a couple novels by Orhan Pamuk to get a sense of Turkish culture. I certainly had a wider outlook on the culture I was heading to after seeing life through the eyes of his character.
While I may not like every character in books I have read, good writer's can really help me understand those character's choices -- whether I agree or not. I suppose I agree that reading high level fiction, as Delistraty calls it, can remind us that everyone's priorities are not always our own. But I am not sure that this quality cannot be learned by means other than through reading alone. What do you think?
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