Agnostic.com

10 4

LINK Does Empathy Have A Dark Side?

An interesting perspective on how empathy can be a form of selfishness and contribute to violence.

VictoriaNotes 9 Apr 14
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

10 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Have you seen Misery?

@VictoriaNotes I don't think you understood my joke. That question was not meant to be taken literally.

@VictoriaNotes as long as I made you laugh I am happy.

0

I agreed with the article. Thank you for sharing.

0

I found the generalization that "helicopter" parents "use their children as pawns" highly offensive, being that due to circumstance fell into that role because I felt too many in charge of my girl's well being were careless with her when she was young. Helicoptering in my case is a reaction to damaging situations and the protective nature that stems from those incidents. I do not try to live through my kid through her enrichments, which was also cited as an example of "dark empathy". Disgusting. Not everyone who is a helicopter parent is a "stage mom" FCS.

With that the terrorism example made sense to me, something that was never on my radar before.

@VictoriaNotes It's ok. I'm well aware of the ire some of us "helicopters" inspire, btdt too.
My girl was born "soft". None of my attempts to put "teeth" on her worked until she was much much older, and she's still soft, except now she knows enough pikiti to mess someone up.

0

It seems to me that he is not speaking of empathy as a process but more on the actions that are taken when in an empathetic position. This can only be determined by the individual. The process here can also be applied to trust, love, affinity and so on.

0

This seems to me to me nothing more than semantics, empathy is, by definition:
Definition of empathy
1
: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner
also : the capacity for this
2
: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

What the author appears to be doing, at least as I see it, is claiming that:
empathy = empathy + X

Granted, it is doable, but I think that it is an attempt to take away the whole gist of the word empathy. That is just my take on it though.

THHA Level 7 Apr 14, 2019
2

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. There are many definitions for empathy that encompass a broad range of emotional states. Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and somatic empathy.

Above is the Wikipedia definition of empathy. Surely if you use empathy to further your own ends then it becomes something else

@VictoriaNotes what I meant was having empathy or being able to understand how another feels is not in itself harmful but if that ability is used to harm the person then it becomes immoral or unethical or something like that. I would like to think that I am an empethatic person but I have known as I am sure we all have people who appear to be totally lacking empathy.

I'm not sure if altruism could be used in the same way as it is the selfless concern for another.person which is probably an evolutionary trait. As social animals it must be beneficial to aid others in the group

@VictoriaNotes Very interesting. I would not for a minute try to argue with those learned psychologists and maybe I have misunderstood the meaning of empathy but I understood that it meant purely to be able to understand how a person felt whether in an unhappy situation or a happy situation. I'm sure we have all said "I feel for you" or "I am happy for you" but I cannot see how it could be compared to a drug.

I suppose if you are close to a person and they are feeling bad then having empathy means you can share that pain and even make the person feel slightly better. but that is all. Surely to take it further is compassion not empathy

Again it the person is happy and you share in that happiness it may give you a slight lift but that is all.

I see what they are saying but personally I think they are exaggerating or does that mean that I don't have empathy after all.?

I suppose anything that bonds people in a group could have evolutionary benefits so empathy probably comes in to that category

0

Another complicated subject often looked at with simplistic eyes. What is the difference between empathy and pity? How about loyalty? How about a person using another's sense of empathy to take advantage of the other? What about empathy for one at the expense of another or toward a group against something that, that groups needs to survive? "People assume that empathy is good because it is good for the recipient of empathy — I'm actually skeptical about this." Being a parent often means (and it should) doing something you don't like and the child doesn't like but is necessary for their growth.

1

Anything that evolution gave us in the Pleistocene might work to our disadvantage after the Agricultural Revolution. That's what we use Culture to correct.

skado Level 9 Apr 14, 2019
0

My opinion. The ability to empathize/ understand other people, in any way, just increases the ability to manipulate them/ their outcomes. Some humans are more Machiavellian about it, some are more alteusitic, then others, but that's not because of empathy or lack of. Empathy is just a tool in the tool kit, and how the tools are used is an independent trait.

2

If Hitler only had less empathy...

1of5 Level 8 Apr 14, 2019
Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:330861
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.