
Is ‘Empathy’ Really What the Nation Needs? - dpflan
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/magazine/is-empathy-really-what-the-nation-needs.html
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tunesmith
What a bizarre article. I can't tell if the author has absolutely no concept
of what empathy actually is, or is just willfully redefining it because they
have column space to fill.

She has sympathy and empathy precisely backwards. Sympathy is the
dispassionate one, empathy has the emotional connection.

It's true that facebook is guilty of co-opting empathy into a feel-good
marketing phrase, but that's not exactly unprecedented. It doesn't mean
they've changed the definition of the word.

At any rate, add this to the list of the wrong lessons we can learn from the
election. Being empathetic to someone doesn't mean enabling them or being
complicit in their beliefs. It's an emotional connection that _can_ possibly
change their views, but just as well might change yours. The point of it is
the connection, not the intent to change minds - it's seeking to understand
for understanding's sake, not to use the knowledge to then manipulate them.

One of my fears is that people will use the election to learn the lesson that
facts and truth don't matter anymore, that we as well should also go right
ahead and turn into wannabe political rhetoric specialists, lying and
manipulating and abdicating our own roles in defending rational dialectic.

~~~
forgottenpass
_I can 't tell if the author has absolutely no concept of what empathy
actually is_

Does anyone publicly talking about empathy know what it means?

I've heard it used to mean "not being a sociopath" all the way to "agreeing
with the precursors to my political opinions," and many stops in between.

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ValleyOfTheMtns
>Empathy suggests something more technical — a dispassionate approach to
understanding the emotions of others. And these days, it often seems to mean
understanding their pain just enough to get something out of it — to
manipulate political, technological and consumerist outcomes in our own favor.

Suggestion for a new title: "How I Redefined the Meaning of Empathy and Wrote
an Article About It"

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hyperion2010
Yes we do. But good luck getting a poor white in Appalachia (who probably
didn't even vote) to realize that he has far more in common with a poor black
in Chicago than a Yankee carpetbagger from New York. While we are playing the
wishing game let's bump everyone's IQ up to the current equivalent of 140,
that might help a bit, oh, and throw in a good liberal education and solid
home life as well.

~~~
eevilspock
_> While we are playing the wishing game let's bump everyone's IQ up to the
current equivalent of 140, that might help a bit, oh, and throw in a good
liberal education and solid home life as well._

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure that IQ correlates to goodness in this world. A
lot of really smart people use those smarts for personal gain at the expense
of the greater good, and even truth. The "smart" and logical strategy in the
Prisoners Dilemma is the cynical one. So we all lose. What we need is a boost
in Courage Quotient and Empathy Quotient[1] and a drop in our Self-Interest
Quotient.

Or perhaps we should all take psychedelics:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13069097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13069097)

\--

[1] Hess's probable above average IQ did not prevent her from doing a
completely misguided hatchet job on "empathy".

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acconrad
Why wouldn't it? If you really want to be pessimistic about empathy, you can
rationalize it as information-gathering. Being empathetic and understanding as
to why your opponent feels the way they do only helps you frame a better
argument in future battles. I see no downside to empathy.

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droopybuns
That was a shocking article.

Treating empathy with so much cynical suspicion feels blasphemous.

I dont understand how anyone can have healthy relationships without some
effort towards being empathetic.

~~~
lambdasquirrel
While I agree with you, could I play devil's advocate for a moment? All ideals
are unbalanced and thus have to be periodically challenged.

All ideals can be corrupted.

It takes empathy to design, and the more people that you reach with a product,
the more that empathy matters, because the more people that that one product
has to accommodate, and also because people will demand more of the
product/service.

Maybe the article is right in treating empathy with suspicion because empathy
has been subsumed by other things. Among other things, there is the chase for
raw user numbers.

The homophobic and xenophobic rhetoric in the election was founded on
exploiting empathy for the white working class. Whoever said that empathy had
to be used for good?

~~~
droopybuns
I appreciate you taking the time to write this.

I disagree with the original author- but your position is intriguing. It
sounds like you place some kind of moral value on empathy. e.g. Empathy exists
somewhere on the good to not good continuum.

To me, empathy is like a telescope- neither good nor bad, it's just a way for
reducing assumptions and trying to consume information- in this case- trying
to understand another person's point of view without applying the filter of my
own prejudices & beliefs. It never would have occurred to me that empathy is
used for good or evil. I use it as a way of reducing assumptions.

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peterwwillis
The author seems to assert that empathy is being used as a cheap tool to
subvert differing opinion out of self-interest. And it is true, some people
sometimes act out of self-interest.

Like self-preservation. You know, like if you're muslim, black, mexican, a
woman, trans, gay, a member of the press, concerned about the environment, etc
you probably perceive all the threats Trump has been making at you for a year.
In order to prevent your new President from making good on all the threats
he's made against you, you might want to try to get through to his supporters.
Because maybe you don't want to be oppressed.

So the crazy idea is that maybe we should employ empathy as a tool to
understand the people who voted in favor of taking away our rights and setting
back the clock of social progress by 70 years. That maybe by understanding
their emotions and what drives them, we might be able to reach them, build
some kind of common bond, and keep them from hurting us. This is apparently
really shitty of us.

I have never read another article where someone comes so close to
understanding an idea and then zooms past it on rocket skates.

