There’s a widely held belief that empathy is a virtue and I’m not sure that’s accurate.
Compassion is a virtue, but empathy seems to be pathologically corrosive.
Haven’t totally made up my mind on this, but I’m leaning towards the idea that empathy in general is actually destructive.
But why is empathy destructive?
I think a little bit of empathy is good, but too much empathy leads to the dereliction of self in favor of the other. There’s almost a suicidal impulse to extreme empathy.
To be compassionate do you need a certain level of empathy IMO. But I agree as you say if too much can be corrosive in long term, or if too much.
I think it's in soft war where Jason talks about how we became such efficient hunters that we empathize with our prey, to the point where we domesticate them. Essentially domesticating threats.
Maybe its a super power.
It leads to abandoning your own morals in many cases in pursuit of “the greater good”
The poors need bitcoin too. The distribution method of bitcoin was unfair. How were normies supposed to know about bitcoin in 2010? They definitely would have bought if they knew about. Where is your empathy?
Thinking of a shame+empathy cocktail.
Nasty bender.
Yep thats why I continue to call you a shitcoining Saylor sell out. Its for your own good
I'm going to push back on this little-And at the same time be a hypocrite. I think it's important to be able to look at someone's view point and have some "empathy" on why they think a certain way. Figuring out their specific situation, what experiences caused them to think this way, essentially looking into their window of perspective. That is empathy to me and isn't a crutch. That's a super power in how we can have a conversation when we don't agree.
I think a little bit of empathy is constructive, but too much is corrosive.
How much empathy one can and should have I think is a personal thing. If it is so much that it’s unhealthy then that is a shortcoming of the individual doing the empathizing, and they should look at themselves for the reasons for it and grow from that introspection so they can empathize in a healthy manner.
Think more
And come to what conclusion? Help me out here.
If we are all part of a larger system, call it humanity or consciousness, helping each other out is helping ourselves. If we can better put see and feel the world through another persons eyes- that means our ability to help us that person(s) is much better because we understand the issues with more info, and more info is almost always better. It does not mean we need to make the feelings felt through empathy our own or have to do anything about the them, if they come in direct conflict of our own singular needs. The feelings of empathy may move you to act in a different way but your agency is still your own.
Empathy is neutral. It’s just the ability to infer a mental state from outward signs by feel rather than by deduction.
In the correct amount it’s neutral, but too much of it is destructive.
In my field, animal behavior, empathy has a definition. Colloquially, the word can mean something different depending on context. For example, it gets conflated with sympathy or with compassion. In my field, these are different things and I believe precision helps us communicate and understand the world more effectively.
Empathy is a tool, not a virtue. Having the skill of understanding the emotional POV of others lets you tell apart the merely confused from the dangerous sociopaths.
I agree compassion is a virtue, but can you have compassion without empathy?
It seems to me that compassion is the action response to empathy. And while I could see empathy being destructive, I don’t think it is inherently destructive. Consider the following definitions
Empathy
“the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another”
Compassion
“sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it”
Personally I think there's something else people mistake for empathy. An emotionless chain of logic, usually compounded with a wrong assumption or two, about the other person and their situation - often with artificial amounts of inferred emotion injected at the end of the process. Ever come across the type who are extremely angry on someone else's behalf, while having no skin in the game? I suspect it can be a form of virtue signal, conscious or otherwise; though I'm not sure how I'd be confident enough in that assessment to ever know for sure
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Being force fed that we had white privilege was the turning point... that we must have empathy for a bunch of people who can't get their act together made the difference.
I feel similarly… shamans, being the most concentrated population with this attribute, are often aged by the interactions with those around them. taking in the energy of others and transmuting it seems to be extremely taxing.
compassion is definitely a virtue, but empathy seems more like an extreme expression of that virtue. like others have said, a tool.
It is important to understand other people's emotions and be able to empathize, but not to fall into excessive sentimentality. Excessive sentimentality is destructive and ineffective. 🫂
You might be on to something. Empathy is literally feeling what another feels. Is that healthy? Compassion is kind but is given from within oneself. Compassion seems to protect sovereignty.
I think you might enjoy this! https://youtu.be/yDRUmhjqJCQ?feature=shared
What is empathy? Dr. Joe Rigney talks about how empathy is often weaponized in communities to hold people hostage, manipulate others, and wreak havoc in churches and organizations. In this talk at the 2024 New Christendom Press Conference, Rigney shares about how to empathy-proof your borough, lead with clarity and vision, and how not to be steered by emotional manipulators.
For men more likely. For women less likely.
I think a combination of sympathy and self awareness is the correct place to be.
Empathy has spectrums so is too dangerous to be allowed to linger freely in a man's mind.
Empathy is a capacity. When moralized as a virtue it becomes something else.
Wait, you’re saying that verbally showing empathy on social media doesn’t earn me brownie points?
I have to re-think my entire identity now . . .
Maybe because true empathy is impossible. We conjur up a false sense of what it's like to go through another person's hardships, and then assume it's true.
“Gratitude is the Father of all virtues” - Cicero
Mmmhh, Friedrich Nietzsche undertook similar musings ... and it didn't go so well for him.
He thought of pity/empathy as profound human weaknesses, expressed in Christianity.
It's well put in this documentary overall, particularly from minutes 43-45.
Letting your actions spring from love and empathy for all beings is the power of the enlightened. The path towards it is a constant act of awareness (not intellectual philosophy).
Feeling for someone close to you is healthy. Virtuous in that you need to see the other beyond your own ego.
But, empathizing for something abstract is madness. Having empathy for "blacks", or "the planet" is crazy, and leads to evil.
How do you come up with this stuff? Pretty good as always.
Hmmm. I never thought about the distinction, but you may be right. I prefer compassion.
I think Empathy is a thought experiment.
Can I follow the line of reasoning that gets me to a place where I can understand the situation?
Sympathy seems more or less given to another on faith. “I can’t understand this, but I grant you some sympathy”
Could be wrong on this though
