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That was a shocking article. Treating empathy with so much cynical suspicion feels blasphemous. I dont understand how anyone can have healthy relationships w

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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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.
forgottenpass 10y ago
It's funny that you chose the word "blasphemous." The conspicuous fervor around "empty" in recent years does feel like it shares some traits with religious belief. When a religion promotes a virtue, they don't invalidate the virtue. It can still be a positive. But they just tie a lot of baggage to the virtue. The ways it can be held, and forms in which it can be practiced are constrained, prescribed, and sometimes even contradictory. It makes people on the outside raise a suspicious eyebrow. The meme around "empathy" is not religious in nature, but is tied to (broad) social groups. And "having empathy" often means more than simply being empathetic. It should be treated with cynical suspicion. Articles like this give me hope the meme is about to pop.
- droopybuns 10y ago
  My impression is that you are highlighting phoney empathy as a problem. If I'm wrong- I'd love to know it. I agree with that idea. But I'm coming to the realization that empathy is critical and most people do not practice it. This last election educated me about the number of people who espouse empathy and then follow it up with tantrums about how if you don't also hate $Candidate, then you are a racist sexist homophobe. It's phony empathy- or empathy when it's not inconvenient that is dangerous. It leads to moral self licensing- where terrible behavior or failure to do something meaningful is justified by the fact that a) people they disagree with are bad and b) they did that empathetic sounding tweet that one time memes should not pop by the way- they're a powerful indicator of the mental self-reliance and thoughtfulness of the speaker. I don't want them to die. I want them to live on so I know who to avoid.

lambdasquirrel 10y ago

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 10y ago
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.

forgottenpass 10y ago

It's funny that you chose the word "blasphemous." The conspicuous fervor around "empty" in recent years does feel like it shares some traits with religious belief. When a religion promotes a virtue, they don't invalidate the virtue. It can still be a positive. But they just tie a lot of baggage to the virtue. The ways it can be held, and forms in which it can be practiced are constrained, prescribed, and sometimes even contradictory. It makes people on the outside raise a suspicious eyebrow. The meme around "empathy" is not religious in nature, but is tied to (broad) social groups. And "having empathy" often means more than simply being empathetic. It should be treated with cynical suspicion. Articles like this give me hope the meme is about to pop.

droopybuns 10y ago
My impression is that you are highlighting phoney empathy as a problem. If I'm wrong- I'd love to know it. I agree with that idea. But I'm coming to the realization that empathy is critical and most people do not practice it. This last election educated me about the number of people who espouse empathy and then follow it up with tantrums about how if you don't also hate $Candidate, then you are a racist sexist homophobe. It's phony empathy- or empathy when it's not inconvenient that is dangerous. It leads to moral self licensing- where terrible behavior or failure to do something meaningful is justified by the fact that a) people they disagree with are bad and b) they did that empathetic sounding tweet that one time memes should not pop by the way- they're a powerful indicator of the mental self-reliance and thoughtfulness of the speaker. I don't want them to die. I want them to live on so I know who to avoid.