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When you have empathy, do you take the viewpoint of the master or the slave?

deleted 7y ago
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dragonwriter 7y ago
If you have empathy, you do both. That doesn't mean that your sympathy for each is equal. EDIT: But, the measure in the article doesn't measure empathy, which is independent of position, it measures whether one frames virtue through victimization narratives. People who agree with that wouldn't empathize with both, they'd empathize with the one that they see as the slave, which would all too often be driven by confirmation bias and tribal victimization narratives within their in group. I mean, we live in a country where the racial, religious, gender, and political ideology groups (alone and in every combination) having measurably disproportionate social, economic, and political power have equally strong or stronger (within their own communities) victimization narratives to the groups that are objectively disadvantaged. It's very easy for people to answer yes to the question that supposedly measures empathic concern when they in reality have no empathy for those outside of their identity group, which they perceive as disadvantaged and their only “empathic” concern is for those within their in-group that they identify as even greater victims of the same injustice that they themselves are victimized by.
- kempbellt 7y ago
  Empathizing with the master is difficult for many people. Not realizing that a person, born into the lucky privilege of being the master, doesn't see what they do as victimizing to a slave. It's just how life works for them. Tim Minchin did an interesting bit on empathy a while back. Discussing the nature of empathizing with the shooter, as well as the shooter's victims, in incidents of mass shootings. The podcast is available here if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrPkI4xkWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrPkI4xkWA
  - sysbin 7y ago
    Listened to the podcast and its good. I've always been empathetic to shooters because I understand determinism and realize the shooter didn't have any free will in how his/her life turned out. The universe just happened to make it be. Anyway more food for thought to the topic.
    - mnm1 7y ago
      Based on what you're saying, it's immoral to send the shooter to prison or punish him in any way since he had no control over his actions and therefore was not guilty of assault or murder. Bet that theory goes right out the window when it's someone you know lying dead in a pool of blood. Does this apply to all actions? In that case mortality simply doesn't exist and there cannot be good or bad things. How far do you take this delusion is what I'm curious about?
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Based on what you're saying, it's immoral to send the shooter to prison or punish him in any way since he had no control over his actions and therefore was not guilty of assault or murder. No, it's not; determinism applies to the punisher as much as the punished, so if the fact of determinism negates any moral culpability for the act being punished, then it likewise does so for the punishment.
        sysbin 7y ago
        Moral & immoral are just words for sharing human expression from one to another. In a sense the words are nonsensical when understanding determinism. Now with the foregoing communicated, humans should strive for improving life and understanding the current system is deeply flawed.
      - sysbin 7y ago
        > How far do you take this delusion is what I'm curious about? The delusion is assuming people have control over their actions. Yes it's wrong that we punish people that didn't have control over the life they were born into and what happens without any control because the universe made it so. Yes of course it applies to all actions humans are forced to do in life.
harshreality 7y ago
#nondualism The master and slave are part of the same whole; one cannot exist without the other, and more generally, everyone is a flawed or incomplete person in one way or another. Having empathy for one without having empathy for the other is to misunderstand the universe.
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Would you seriously argue that in 1864?
  - fennecfoxen 7y ago
    Let's do an 1864 argument. Have empathy for the slave. He is endowed with dignity by the Divine. Jesus Christ paid a price in blood to set him free from the bonds of sin. What God has freed, let no man return into bondage. Have empathy for the master. Jesus died not only for the upright, not only for the oppressed, but for tax collecting thugs, prostitutes — even the murderer crucified beside him. He raised a saint from Saul of Tarsus. He died for the slave's master. Oh, yes, the master is undeserving, but none of us are deserving. If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities, how should I stand? But know what shape this empathy for the master takes. You must fear for his soul. If it is consumed by sin, he will be cast into perdition. He must well and truly repent, and his sin is grave.
  - larnmar 7y ago
    I certainly would. A little more empathy for slaveowners (that is, the ability to see things from their point of view) would have enabled the US to abolish slavery without the bloody civil war. Every country in the western henisphere abolished slavery around about the same time, but only in the US did it cause a civil war.
    - tehjoker 7y ago
      This is a misunderstanding of American history. I don't fully know why it was so easy to do away with slavery in other parts of the world (and it mostly happened all within about 100 years of each other), but in the US, slavery was core to the economic system of the south - a slavocracy headed by white slavocrats. The slavocrats would have been happy to have empathy, for the northerners to treat them softly and allow their system to persist. They were (not entirely happily) trading free state / slave state as new states were admitted to the union. It was only when a fever pitch of abolition put the new Republican party in with Lincoln as president did the south finally decide it would be impossible to continue their system in co-existance with the industrialized free north. The capitalist free north also had an interest in liberating the slaves so they could be put to use as highly productive industrial workers instead of agricultural workers. To this end, the south seceded from the union and fired the first blow against the north at Ft. Sumter. A brutal military campaign was necessary to break the power of the slavocracy and free the slaves. You can look at the historical material interests of the north and conclude it wasn't entirely selfless, but by god it was necessary to end the evil endemic to the southern economic system.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

If you have empathy, you do both. That doesn't mean that your sympathy for each is equal. EDIT: But, the measure in the article doesn't measure empathy, which is independent of position, it measures whether one frames virtue through victimization narratives. People who agree with that wouldn't empathize with both, they'd empathize with the one that they see as the slave, which would all too often be driven by confirmation bias and tribal victimization narratives within their in group. I mean, we live in a country where the racial, religious, gender, and political ideology groups (alone and in every combination) having measurably disproportionate social, economic, and political power have equally strong or stronger (within their own communities) victimization narratives to the groups that are objectively disadvantaged. It's very easy for people to answer yes to the question that supposedly measures empathic concern when they in reality have no empathy for those outside of their identity group, which they perceive as disadvantaged and their only “empathic” concern is for those within their in-group that they identify as even greater victims of the same injustice that they themselves are victimized by.

kempbellt 7y ago
Empathizing with the master is difficult for many people. Not realizing that a person, born into the lucky privilege of being the master, doesn't see what they do as victimizing to a slave. It's just how life works for them. Tim Minchin did an interesting bit on empathy a while back. Discussing the nature of empathizing with the shooter, as well as the shooter's victims, in incidents of mass shootings. The podcast is available here if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrPkI4xkWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrPkI4xkWA
- sysbin 7y ago
  Listened to the podcast and its good. I've always been empathetic to shooters because I understand determinism and realize the shooter didn't have any free will in how his/her life turned out. The universe just happened to make it be. Anyway more food for thought to the topic.
  - mnm1 7y ago
    Based on what you're saying, it's immoral to send the shooter to prison or punish him in any way since he had no control over his actions and therefore was not guilty of assault or murder. Bet that theory goes right out the window when it's someone you know lying dead in a pool of blood. Does this apply to all actions? In that case mortality simply doesn't exist and there cannot be good or bad things. How far do you take this delusion is what I'm curious about?
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Based on what you're saying, it's immoral to send the shooter to prison or punish him in any way since he had no control over his actions and therefore was not guilty of assault or murder. No, it's not; determinism applies to the punisher as much as the punished, so if the fact of determinism negates any moral culpability for the act being punished, then it likewise does so for the punishment.
      - sysbin 7y ago
        Moral & immoral are just words for sharing human expression from one to another. In a sense the words are nonsensical when understanding determinism. Now with the foregoing communicated, humans should strive for improving life and understanding the current system is deeply flawed.
    - sysbin 7y ago
      > How far do you take this delusion is what I'm curious about? The delusion is assuming people have control over their actions. Yes it's wrong that we punish people that didn't have control over the life they were born into and what happens without any control because the universe made it so. Yes of course it applies to all actions humans are forced to do in life.

harshreality 7y ago

#nondualism The master and slave are part of the same whole; one cannot exist without the other, and more generally, everyone is a flawed or incomplete person in one way or another. Having empathy for one without having empathy for the other is to misunderstand the universe.

tehjoker 7y ago
Would you seriously argue that in 1864?
- fennecfoxen 7y ago
  Let's do an 1864 argument. Have empathy for the slave. He is endowed with dignity by the Divine. Jesus Christ paid a price in blood to set him free from the bonds of sin. What God has freed, let no man return into bondage. Have empathy for the master. Jesus died not only for the upright, not only for the oppressed, but for tax collecting thugs, prostitutes — even the murderer crucified beside him. He raised a saint from Saul of Tarsus. He died for the slave's master. Oh, yes, the master is undeserving, but none of us are deserving. If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities, how should I stand? But know what shape this empathy for the master takes. You must fear for his soul. If it is consumed by sin, he will be cast into perdition. He must well and truly repent, and his sin is grave.
- larnmar 7y ago
  I certainly would. A little more empathy for slaveowners (that is, the ability to see things from their point of view) would have enabled the US to abolish slavery without the bloody civil war. Every country in the western henisphere abolished slavery around about the same time, but only in the US did it cause a civil war.
  - tehjoker 7y ago
    This is a misunderstanding of American history. I don't fully know why it was so easy to do away with slavery in other parts of the world (and it mostly happened all within about 100 years of each other), but in the US, slavery was core to the economic system of the south - a slavocracy headed by white slavocrats. The slavocrats would have been happy to have empathy, for the northerners to treat them softly and allow their system to persist. They were (not entirely happily) trading free state / slave state as new states were admitted to the union. It was only when a fever pitch of abolition put the new Republican party in with Lincoln as president did the south finally decide it would be impossible to continue their system in co-existance with the industrialized free north. The capitalist free north also had an interest in liberating the slaves so they could be put to use as highly productive industrial workers instead of agricultural workers. To this end, the south seceded from the union and fired the first blow against the north at Ft. Sumter. A brutal military campaign was necessary to break the power of the slavocracy and free the slaves. You can look at the historical material interests of the north and conclude it wasn't entirely selfless, but by god it was necessary to end the evil endemic to the southern economic system.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]