Sunday, September 21, 2025

More Empathy

Ann Althouse has a post about UK police invading a woman's home in order to see her underage daughter's phone.  If you watch the video, you will empathise with the mother and be horrified at the police. But when you get the other side of the story, that the video has been edited, leaving out the part that the daughter is not suspected of merely viewing inappropriate material, but of committing an actionable crime against another girl. Your empathy might shift to the police, who have a victim out there to protect.

A third possibility is that you may still think the police acted wrongly, even if legitimately investigating a crime, and not empathise with either party very much. 

It shows how easily empathy can be manipulated, and why it is dangerous. 

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