I remember being baffled by the pseudo-controversy around empathy a few weeks ago. I did a bit of googling and found a more-conservative Christian willing to actually make an argument on the subject. Basically, his position was that sympathy was good, while empathy was bad. He took the latter to mean more than simply recognizing another's suffering. Under his definition, empathy involves actually abandoning one's principles in order to more fully identify with the other person.
But it seems to me that no one actually uses the word this way; even if we want to differentiate empathy from sympathy by saying that empathy is more radical in its identification with the other than sympathy, I still don't know anyone who would argue that you have to abandon your own values to empathize.
This is one of those cases where subtlety is required: on the one hand, I agree that if empathy required us to abandon our own values, that would be bad. But on the other hand, I don't think anyone actually uses the term this way. So this whole presentation of empathy as dangerous is built on a slippery bait-and-switch.
With respect, you're giving way, way too much benefit of doubt to a genuinely appalling position, even if you clearly don't abide it yourself. Or perhaps you're treating it with too much charity, conceding that if empathy were as they say it is, it would be bad or at least dangerous, but I would argue not to waste your time even with that as, at least in my opinion, it's very unlikely that these are good faith arguments.
Not only does no one use the term like that, it also requires no subtlety of analysis nor any great faculty for patience to uncover the intentional equivocity with which the so-called conservative side of this argument uses the term empathy. They mean it as something like apostasy, which is a different phenomenon entirely, and appear to be knowingly conflating the two as a sleight of hand apologetics for their unmitigated cruelty. What principles must one abandon in order to step into the very human shoes of your brother or sister so that you may know the truth of their heart, and so they may not be alone in their suffering? Kindness? Compassion? Love? Does anybody on this planet really think you have to apostasize or commit heresy in order to empathize with your neighbor? I want to meet these people because they seem possessed of a different kind of cognition, at least when you take their arguments at face value.
Recall in the comment I made about topic of escatological judgment on a different post on the substack; the kind of internal revelation to the heart of the hearts of others *in relationship to who you are and what you've done in this life,* or in other words, gnosis, can be described as empathy. Entering into a state of radical coincidence with others while ceasing to be yourself, which, as we know, is only possible because no person is a person in isolation, but in communion. Therefore, empathy is part and parcel to who and what we are as people, you cannot enter into moral and emotional and spiritual communion with other persons without that fundamental, if often gnomic, capacity to see others, fully, as persons.
This deeper metaphysical meditation on the interconnectedness of persons and the communal participation in the mind of God certainly extends beyond what most people know just due to common sense, but at the experiential level, it's just so obvious. Too obvious to take the asinine counter position seriously. I think it should be scrupulously condemned
I agree with your comment as I was always told sympathy was feeling sorry for another more or less pitying them whereas empathy was trying to put yourself in their shoes. So really tho if you were to be able to do that it might actually involve being able to set aside your own values and morals you were taught. What I mean is here’s an example from real life if I am driving along and see and old white standing by the side of the road in order for me to put my self in her shoes and have true empathy for her I would have to understand that very likely she doesn’t share my
Morals and she doesn’t view herself or like the way I do and wasn’t raised in the home I was. And when o think about it long enough I realize that there but for the grave of God am I because I had been born in her place given her distinct personality family situations life happenings I could be in the same or worse position. In the blink of an eye even with my whole life pretty much lived and my character pretty much set in all reality say a car accident or whatever my entire world and my own values could change crash flip flop. Extreme pain can change a person not just physically but mentally. There are just so many variables that are outside of our control. Look at Peter walking in water one minute perishing the next we never have any reason to glory in our goodness and we always have every reason to see ourselves as one with our brother
It seems to me that (when used in a polemic context) accusing someone of lacking empathy does often involve charging them with failing to set their values aside and simply act to end someone's suffering. Surely when American conservatives are charged with lack empathy towards undocumented immigrants, for example, they're being accused of allowing their values (nationalism, law and order, etc.) to keep them from simply being Good Samaritans and offering help to those who ask. The same goes for those who oppose gay marriage and female priests. That seems to be the point of what Noah says in the third paragraph: to decide that the impersonal or the external trumps the personal is to fail to be empathetic.
I'm not so sure. For one thing, presumably those conservatives genuinely believe that offering assistance to those in need is also a value they share. So what we are really saying in that case is that we think some values are of greater ethical relevance than others. There is nothing inconsistent in that.
And in any even, the question of empathy isn't even primarily one of action: we could empathize with someone, and then still decide for any set of reasons that we can't act on that empathy. So this idea that it somehow requires setting aside values is, as I suggested above, a red herring designed to interrupt an otherwise normal human practice (and one that I think Christian faith requires).
Riveting in its timeliness, this piece is undeniably poignant and expertly written. I shall be sharing it at once with others, and I suspect a great many people will be as scandalized by its content as by their inability to logically refute it.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life." Truth, it seems, to many people was spoken silently.
Thank you Noah! Just read this and very thought provoking I will try to collect my responses and answer in a longer comment. For now let me say that this is a good article to start Great Lent off with. Tomorrow is Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox Church and it is a whole separate Liturgy that I remember by the end of last year I was weeping with remorse yet at the same time filled with joy that I am forgiven and I am loved. Orthodoxy seems to always strive to hold a balance to be able to Mai gain the tension between contradictory or opposing ideas. Just as Christ himself walked this earth as a living paradox so to speak being 100% God and %100. He showed us that it is possible to be in the world but not of it. His example of empathy and compassion for tax collectors, halts and adultresses, Roman centurions etc show us how we can also do the same. We do not categorize or label people for a follower of Christ there is never and us vs a them. All love involves sacrifice. We humans are all addicted to our pride, self love, the lusts and desires of our flesh and our fickle hearts. This is the “not” the dark side that you speak of the ability that we have to choose between loving as God loves regardless of the benefit to ourselves in fact loving so much as to sacrifice ourselves for the other and choosing to use the gifts God has given us to bring pleasure to ourselves and take from others. Everything we do is an offering to God it is not for us to benefit from physically or emotionally etc our benefit comes from pleading God and this is done by secreting as Christ did , our earthly comforts and taking up our cross. Our cross being the situation we were born into rich or poor, male or female, white of black etc etc. We were called from
Non - existence into being and put into time and space with precision and care and thought by our Father who is the lover of all mankind as well as each of us individually. I believe He has a plan and a purpose for all of us that fits perfectly into His plan for mankind and we have the free will the freedom to accept that mission or reject it. His plan will be accomplished either thru us or someone else for all of mankind. And from personal experience and faith I also believe that His long suffering with all of mankind is also applied to each of us in that we are given moment by moment grace to repent and to turn form our sins, the addiction to life, self love that manifests itself in so many ways. Lord have mercy! Grant this O Lord
Sorry so many errors I did not read over sun in my eyes but I think you get the just we have the freedom to live as Christ did or not. The not is also not life so goes nowhere is nothing. We must be able to see Everyone as Christ and treat them as Christ. Do into all even the least of these as if we were doing on to Christ. Whatever lusts we have we need to deny and rise above and whatever our personal struggles we need to see that as our cross to bear and offer it to God.
I remember being baffled by the pseudo-controversy around empathy a few weeks ago. I did a bit of googling and found a more-conservative Christian willing to actually make an argument on the subject. Basically, his position was that sympathy was good, while empathy was bad. He took the latter to mean more than simply recognizing another's suffering. Under his definition, empathy involves actually abandoning one's principles in order to more fully identify with the other person.
But it seems to me that no one actually uses the word this way; even if we want to differentiate empathy from sympathy by saying that empathy is more radical in its identification with the other than sympathy, I still don't know anyone who would argue that you have to abandon your own values to empathize.
This is one of those cases where subtlety is required: on the one hand, I agree that if empathy required us to abandon our own values, that would be bad. But on the other hand, I don't think anyone actually uses the term this way. So this whole presentation of empathy as dangerous is built on a slippery bait-and-switch.
With respect, you're giving way, way too much benefit of doubt to a genuinely appalling position, even if you clearly don't abide it yourself. Or perhaps you're treating it with too much charity, conceding that if empathy were as they say it is, it would be bad or at least dangerous, but I would argue not to waste your time even with that as, at least in my opinion, it's very unlikely that these are good faith arguments.
Not only does no one use the term like that, it also requires no subtlety of analysis nor any great faculty for patience to uncover the intentional equivocity with which the so-called conservative side of this argument uses the term empathy. They mean it as something like apostasy, which is a different phenomenon entirely, and appear to be knowingly conflating the two as a sleight of hand apologetics for their unmitigated cruelty. What principles must one abandon in order to step into the very human shoes of your brother or sister so that you may know the truth of their heart, and so they may not be alone in their suffering? Kindness? Compassion? Love? Does anybody on this planet really think you have to apostasize or commit heresy in order to empathize with your neighbor? I want to meet these people because they seem possessed of a different kind of cognition, at least when you take their arguments at face value.
Recall in the comment I made about topic of escatological judgment on a different post on the substack; the kind of internal revelation to the heart of the hearts of others *in relationship to who you are and what you've done in this life,* or in other words, gnosis, can be described as empathy. Entering into a state of radical coincidence with others while ceasing to be yourself, which, as we know, is only possible because no person is a person in isolation, but in communion. Therefore, empathy is part and parcel to who and what we are as people, you cannot enter into moral and emotional and spiritual communion with other persons without that fundamental, if often gnomic, capacity to see others, fully, as persons.
This deeper metaphysical meditation on the interconnectedness of persons and the communal participation in the mind of God certainly extends beyond what most people know just due to common sense, but at the experiential level, it's just so obvious. Too obvious to take the asinine counter position seriously. I think it should be scrupulously condemned
I agree with your comment as I was always told sympathy was feeling sorry for another more or less pitying them whereas empathy was trying to put yourself in their shoes. So really tho if you were to be able to do that it might actually involve being able to set aside your own values and morals you were taught. What I mean is here’s an example from real life if I am driving along and see and old white standing by the side of the road in order for me to put my self in her shoes and have true empathy for her I would have to understand that very likely she doesn’t share my
Morals and she doesn’t view herself or like the way I do and wasn’t raised in the home I was. And when o think about it long enough I realize that there but for the grave of God am I because I had been born in her place given her distinct personality family situations life happenings I could be in the same or worse position. In the blink of an eye even with my whole life pretty much lived and my character pretty much set in all reality say a car accident or whatever my entire world and my own values could change crash flip flop. Extreme pain can change a person not just physically but mentally. There are just so many variables that are outside of our control. Look at Peter walking in water one minute perishing the next we never have any reason to glory in our goodness and we always have every reason to see ourselves as one with our brother
It seems to me that (when used in a polemic context) accusing someone of lacking empathy does often involve charging them with failing to set their values aside and simply act to end someone's suffering. Surely when American conservatives are charged with lack empathy towards undocumented immigrants, for example, they're being accused of allowing their values (nationalism, law and order, etc.) to keep them from simply being Good Samaritans and offering help to those who ask. The same goes for those who oppose gay marriage and female priests. That seems to be the point of what Noah says in the third paragraph: to decide that the impersonal or the external trumps the personal is to fail to be empathetic.
I'm not so sure. For one thing, presumably those conservatives genuinely believe that offering assistance to those in need is also a value they share. So what we are really saying in that case is that we think some values are of greater ethical relevance than others. There is nothing inconsistent in that.
And in any even, the question of empathy isn't even primarily one of action: we could empathize with someone, and then still decide for any set of reasons that we can't act on that empathy. So this idea that it somehow requires setting aside values is, as I suggested above, a red herring designed to interrupt an otherwise normal human practice (and one that I think Christian faith requires).
Riveting in its timeliness, this piece is undeniably poignant and expertly written. I shall be sharing it at once with others, and I suspect a great many people will be as scandalized by its content as by their inability to logically refute it.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life." Truth, it seems, to many people was spoken silently.
Love you brother. Godspeed.
So happy to see a new post!
Thank you Noah! Just read this and very thought provoking I will try to collect my responses and answer in a longer comment. For now let me say that this is a good article to start Great Lent off with. Tomorrow is Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox Church and it is a whole separate Liturgy that I remember by the end of last year I was weeping with remorse yet at the same time filled with joy that I am forgiven and I am loved. Orthodoxy seems to always strive to hold a balance to be able to Mai gain the tension between contradictory or opposing ideas. Just as Christ himself walked this earth as a living paradox so to speak being 100% God and %100. He showed us that it is possible to be in the world but not of it. His example of empathy and compassion for tax collectors, halts and adultresses, Roman centurions etc show us how we can also do the same. We do not categorize or label people for a follower of Christ there is never and us vs a them. All love involves sacrifice. We humans are all addicted to our pride, self love, the lusts and desires of our flesh and our fickle hearts. This is the “not” the dark side that you speak of the ability that we have to choose between loving as God loves regardless of the benefit to ourselves in fact loving so much as to sacrifice ourselves for the other and choosing to use the gifts God has given us to bring pleasure to ourselves and take from others. Everything we do is an offering to God it is not for us to benefit from physically or emotionally etc our benefit comes from pleading God and this is done by secreting as Christ did , our earthly comforts and taking up our cross. Our cross being the situation we were born into rich or poor, male or female, white of black etc etc. We were called from
Non - existence into being and put into time and space with precision and care and thought by our Father who is the lover of all mankind as well as each of us individually. I believe He has a plan and a purpose for all of us that fits perfectly into His plan for mankind and we have the free will the freedom to accept that mission or reject it. His plan will be accomplished either thru us or someone else for all of mankind. And from personal experience and faith I also believe that His long suffering with all of mankind is also applied to each of us in that we are given moment by moment grace to repent and to turn form our sins, the addiction to life, self love that manifests itself in so many ways. Lord have mercy! Grant this O Lord
Sorry so many errors I did not read over sun in my eyes but I think you get the just we have the freedom to live as Christ did or not. The not is also not life so goes nowhere is nothing. We must be able to see Everyone as Christ and treat them as Christ. Do into all even the least of these as if we were doing on to Christ. Whatever lusts we have we need to deny and rise above and whatever our personal struggles we need to see that as our cross to bear and offer it to God.