I have been looking for a shortcut definition of empathy for use in popular discussion. I have settled on Empathy = identifying with someone. In the first place, it gets people off the idea that it equals compassion, or sympathy, or kindness, or just being a decent chap. Secondly, it includes the idea that is an impression or feeling, not a kind action. Identifying is often partial, and we don't always pick the good bits of who we are identifying with. And it also highlights that it might not always be a positive.
Do I repeat myself? Very well, I repeat myself. I don't always remember that half of
disagreements boils down to agreeing about the definition of terms. This is where my
contention that I may not know as much as recognized experts about a subject and not
be fit to comment on who is wrong and who's right, but I can be pretty good at who is
fighting fair and who isn't . Redefining terms is something that cults do.
1 comment:
I'm not sure I really distinguish among empathy, sympathy, compassion, and kindness. Throughout my life I've been an unusually aloof person, defined as something like the opposite of all those terms. In recent years, something happened to make the suffering of others break through, and to persuade me that a life without service and generosity is agonizingly without purpose. Is that empathy? Who knows. It's something like "no man is an island." I'm still unusually solitary, however, and sometimes find it necessary to help from a distance. Presumably a fairly ordinary attachment disorder.
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