3 ms·

This is argument about argumentation, but it's worth examining what's wrong with the overall picture: Empathy is obviously not empathy if you make a spectacle

This is argument about argumentation, but it's worth examining what's wrong with the overall picture: Empathy is obviously not empathy if you make a spectacle of bending over backwards to look empathetic. It's an insulting act of selfishness unless the other person feels they've earned it. I think Jesus said something like this, but I can't recall it directly, since I'm drunk. To be an honest person you have to admit you're essentially selfish at the core first. To be a decent person, you have to acknowledge your feelings of empathy toward others - well, hopefully you have them. Your feelings of selfishness and empathy will always be in tension with each other.[0] Acknowledging your selfishness means criticizing other people. Acknowledging your empathy means giving them the benefit of the doubt. Being authentic requires the ability to honestly do both in the same breath. But being authentic/brutally honest with yourself and others, in all cases, is more important than either your own selfishness or your feelings of empathy. It outweighs them by an order of magnitude. That's what's lacking from all this discourse. Because like my mom always said, honesty's the only story that comes out the same twice. Honesty==consistency, consistency==personality, personality==autonomy. Autonomy buys you the grace and latitude to be honest and authentic. That's the virtuous loop. This meta-discourse about whether it's more FTW to argue dishonestly with strawmen versus steel-manning just makes me go a big rubber one. It's like listening to a dickless academic argue about whether picking up women using PUA techniques should be countered as ineffectual or immoral. The answer is both, and you're a dickless academic who's missing the point. [0](This is a philosophy I devised when I was 14 years old and stoned as fuck, but now it seems like someone has to say it.)

em-bee 5y ago
Your feelings of selfishness and empathy will always be in tension with each other. uhm, no they won't, because my well-being depends on your well-being. showing empathy is in itself a selfish act, because i want you to show empathy for me too, but i can't expect that if i am not showing empathy myself. so there is no tension at all. the tension may be between prioritizing your needs over mine, but even if i prioritize my own needs i can and do still empathize with yours. i can't even properly evaluate what should be prioritized without emphasizing. it is necessary to understand the consequences of prioritizing my needs over yours. the end result is some kind of balance. how that balance looks like depends on our relationship and the nature of the conflict.
sdwr 5y ago
Was looking for someone who went for the moral heart, had to get past 50 comments hung up on definitions. This whole thing is missing a trick and inverting genuine empathy. Empathy is being someone else, and this whole deal is "what if someone else was actually me". If you "steelman" someone else's stated position, you're filtering it through your values to make it more palatable to you. It's marking with a red pen, emotionally hollow. I read a bit of the leaked supreme court roe v wade article yesterday, and had a moment of vertigo when it made sense for a second. There's a moral core there, something about consequence and family values and nosy neighbours and, yes, restricting women's freedom. Like, liberals try to make everything easy, but some things are supposed to be hard.

em-bee 5y ago

Your feelings of selfishness and empathy will always be in tension with each other. uhm, no they won't, because my well-being depends on your well-being. showing empathy is in itself a selfish act, because i want you to show empathy for me too, but i can't expect that if i am not showing empathy myself. so there is no tension at all. the tension may be between prioritizing your needs over mine, but even if i prioritize my own needs i can and do still empathize with yours. i can't even properly evaluate what should be prioritized without emphasizing. it is necessary to understand the consequences of prioritizing my needs over yours. the end result is some kind of balance. how that balance looks like depends on our relationship and the nature of the conflict.

sdwr 5y ago

Was looking for someone who went for the moral heart, had to get past 50 comments hung up on definitions. This whole thing is missing a trick and inverting genuine empathy. Empathy is being someone else, and this whole deal is "what if someone else was actually me". If you "steelman" someone else's stated position, you're filtering it through your values to make it more palatable to you. It's marking with a red pen, emotionally hollow. I read a bit of the leaked supreme court roe v wade article yesterday, and had a moment of vertigo when it made sense for a second. There's a moral core there, something about consequence and family values and nosy neighbours and, yes, restricting women's freedom. Like, liberals try to make everything easy, but some things are supposed to be hard.