I think it’s easy to conflate empathy with forgiveness. Empathy is about understanding someone’s viewpoint to the degree that you feel a reflection of their emo

I think it’s easy to conflate empathy with forgiveness. Empathy is about understanding someone’s viewpoint to the degree that you feel a reflection of their emotions. This requires a mixture of reason and emotionality: reason to bridge the gap in world views. It does not preclude truth or judgement. One can empathize with a murderer by understanding their background and motivations, but still want them to be locked up. I think it is important to empathize with criminals for the express reason that you want to find out how to prevent further criminal acts. I quite agree with the article. I am quite unabashedly liberal, but I understand why conservatives exist (here I’m using the United States polarity) and even why they need to. The idea that one side or the other is an inherently destructive force is repellent. I’m using your comment as a springboard for these thoughts btw, I’m not disagreeing with you.