Maggie's Farm

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Tuesday, October 25. 2016

Against Empathy


I am all in favor of tuning into the feelings of another person when it makes sense to do so. It is an act of intimacy, and builds connection with others. However, I believe that most expressions of empathy are phony. We all want to appear virtuous and caring.


Anyway, tuning in to another person's experience is no substitute for thought:  Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 16:34 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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"I feel your pain."
#1 Jim on 2016-10-25 19:06 (Reply)
I always tell my girlfriend that we don't need empathy, we need manpathy.

Empathy is when you pick one person's feelings to relate to and feel like that's the only thing that matters.

Manpathy is when you say, "it really would feel terrible to be shot, but you know, it would also be pretty bad to be the guy he was strangling at the time it happened".

Or "this girl is clearly in some kind of real pain, but since her story about being gang raped on broken glass by Nazis is so preposterous, maybe we should do some minimal reporting here. Just in case she's as crazy as she seems."

I kind of like the idea.
#2 Wilbur Hassenfus on 2016-10-25 20:34 (Reply)
empathology?
The age of umbrage?
umbrage uber alles?
#3 jaybird on 2016-10-25 21:26 (Reply)

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