I think this is one of the reasons that Buddhist traditions emphasize compassion over empathy. Empathy elevates and privileges the ego; compassion restricts it to being an observer
my wife's a Buddhist and was saying something like this. She was saying that empathy can be a path to compassion sometimes for some, but conflating empathy with compassion is a bad idea (was I believe her point.)
I would love a followon piece that could be nothing but an edited discussion between you folks on compassion vs empathy as a path to action. Empathy as, perhaps, training wheels for a compassionate mindset, as the statement from her you reported appears to imply.
Lots of food for thought. It’s always bugged me that people blandly said “all lives matter” which, while that SHOULD be true, is clearly untrue on multiple levels. But what structural racism is vs what many whites think racism (only) is, actual overt acts of violence, is something too many white people don’t understand and are indeed privileged to not recognize.
oh that's interesting. and yes, feeling with someone seems universal and has odd effects...but using it as a kind of basis for moral feeling/guidance is probably unwise...
I think it's important to distinguish between, "empathy has real problems and limitations and is often oversold as a virtue" and "empathy is bad." I am reading this article in the context of other conversations I've had on the topic, but if I were to summarize my own thinking it is:
In addition to the problems discussed in the article I'd add:
1) People will sometimes confuse the effort of empathizing with action and believe that they are making a difference without actually doing anything (heck, I'm guilty of that myself sometimes).
2) Empathy is a spotlight; usually focusing attention on one person or one problem and isn't very good at illuminating broader issues.
3) For that reason empathy can be exploited to manipulate people or steer them towards desired conclusions.
All that said, I think empathy is a useful tool in the toolkbox of "trying to be a good human in a complicated world." It can (and will) occasionally lead people astray, and it's important to use multiple strategies to try to understand the world and our role in it, but it's good for empathy and a broadly shared sense of common humanity to be part of that.
I look at the headline ("Empathy Doesn't Make You Less Racist") and I think, "what does make people less racist?" Some combination of hundreds of moments of either wanting to be less racist, or being nudged to be less racist and small changes that are sometimes improvements and sometimes missteps. Empathy doesn't prevent the missteps, but I'd hope that it can be a possible motivation to accept the nudges and attempt the changes.
Well, I think often being less racist is a collective process. Norms ir laws which make it harder to engage in public displays of racism tend to force people to act in a less racist manner; then motivated reasoning leads you to justify being less racist by telling yourself that being less racist is good. It’s a virtuous cycle.
I think empathy is probably a neutral thing, overall.? But I think it’s also something of a secular religion at this point; people build their sense of their own virtue on it in ways that I think are pretty counter productive.
"I think empathy is probably a neutral thing, overall.? "
My intuition is that it would be a positive on average. I haven't really thought about it, but I wonder how you'd measure that. Out of curiosity, what evidence would affect your opinion?
A quick google search suggests that measures of empathy correlate positively with openness to experience which correlates with liberal political positions, but that is a case where correlation absolutely doesn't mean causation.
So, I don't know, what sort of evidence would you look for?
Classifying empathy as condescension rejects the capacity for anyone to be an honest ally.
Most people do not need lofty thoughts to imagine the what it must be like to have to live with inherited bias any group of people are forced to bear, especially racism - or antisemitism which I’ve witnessed and called out. Not because I’m black or Jewish or Muslim - but because it’s demeaning, disgusting and offensive.
I hesitate to say I believe I understand her pov lest I insult anyone. But really, ffs.
I don't think empathy and the capacity to be an honest ally are the same thing. You don't need to imagine yourself as someone else to think mistreating people is cruel. And rather than imagining yourself into someone else's position you can...just listen to them.
Equating Hudson and Rankin is quite a stretch. Hudson was merely appropriating something that liberals abhor to link it to something liberals advocate. No attempt at empathy from him. Based on your representation here, it’s also hard to read Rankin’s statements and understand the criticism. He actively worked (at some personal risk I assume) to help people escape enslavement. I didn’t see how he used his thought experiment to serve his own goals at the expense of the people he’s empathising with.
Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote in a piece in the NYT today about the importance of using « moral imagination « to understand what life is like for trans people if you aren’t trans. I don’t see how that is different from Rankin. But, I only know of him what you wrote.
Agreed that making oneself the story rather than others is egregious, as is judging others based on what you think they should do. I don’t think the empathy label works to serve the points you make in conclusion.
Well, it's Hartman's reading, and her argument is that the move he makes is to put himself in the place of the people he's supposedly helping. That's the same move Hudson makes, and it can go really bad places. Abolitionists like Rankin had very specific, racist ideas about what freed people should do and be, and Hartman argues—quite persuasively I think—that their belief that they could speak for free people led them to harm them.
sure! but that's not the same thing as empathy, is my point. If someone says, "being marginalized means I am treated in this unjust way" you don't need to imagine yourself in their position. You can just say, "that sounds unjust and bad, even if it's not something I experience or can necessarily see myself experiencing."
It might be various things? Hartman's point, in reading abolitionist texts closely, is that, when you aren't in a real dialogue with the person who is suffering, the feeling can sometimes be functionally described as self-pity. Whatever you describe it as though, it's not always politically valuable or progressive, and can sometimes be the opposite.
Think about the Kavanaugh trial. Republicans felt a lot of empathy for him, and he was suffering to some degree; he felt humiliated, publicly shamed, under attack, in danger of losing his life's work, etc. But, obviously, those emotions were heavily predicated on not thinking about certain other people, and on a sense of which people the empathizer could feel themselves into and which they weren't trying to feel themselves into.
Kate Manne talks about this using the term "himpathy"; ie, it's easier culturally to empathize with powerful (white) men than with women or less powerful people. Identifying suffering and feeling pain when you do—those are influenced by social and political factors, like anything else. And the right especially, as I say in this piece, manipulates empathy a lot.
I'm...no, I don't think I have any empathy at ALL for Straight White Men who behave like assholes. Brent Kavanaugh was humiliated by proof that he was a bigoted, fascistic DoucheBro in college, and other evidence showing that his opinion hasn't changed any since?
No. All I feel for Kavanaugh, or Mitch McConnell, or Rudy Giuliani—who, let's face it, is really TRULY suffering right now? Is nothing but *schadenfreude* (a word I've used twice today!), that quiet satisfaction that the Universe is starting to correct itself, along with a bit of glorious rage at seeing A Bad Person Finally Get What's Coming to Him!
Does this mean that I'm vindictive? You'd better believe it! I've watched too many good people get unjustly beat upon by the likes of Kavanaugh, McConnell and Giuliani...and Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and that babyraper Matt Gaetz, and Lauren Boebert, and every two-faced Clinton NeoLib, to feel anything but satisfaction at their downfall.
I think this is one of the reasons that Buddhist traditions emphasize compassion over empathy. Empathy elevates and privileges the ego; compassion restricts it to being an observer
my wife's a Buddhist and was saying something like this. She was saying that empathy can be a path to compassion sometimes for some, but conflating empathy with compassion is a bad idea (was I believe her point.)
I would love a followon piece that could be nothing but an edited discussion between you folks on compassion vs empathy as a path to action. Empathy as, perhaps, training wheels for a compassionate mindset, as the statement from her you reported appears to imply.
Lots of food for thought. It’s always bugged me that people blandly said “all lives matter” which, while that SHOULD be true, is clearly untrue on multiple levels. But what structural racism is vs what many whites think racism (only) is, actual overt acts of violence, is something too many white people don’t understand and are indeed privileged to not recognize.
Oooh, here’s an essay/video on feeling cringe and its relationship to empathy! https://skepchick.org/2023/09/the-science-of-cringe/
oh that's interesting. and yes, feeling with someone seems universal and has odd effects...but using it as a kind of basis for moral feeling/guidance is probably unwise...
I agree with you
I think it's important to distinguish between, "empathy has real problems and limitations and is often oversold as a virtue" and "empathy is bad." I am reading this article in the context of other conversations I've had on the topic, but if I were to summarize my own thinking it is:
In addition to the problems discussed in the article I'd add:
1) People will sometimes confuse the effort of empathizing with action and believe that they are making a difference without actually doing anything (heck, I'm guilty of that myself sometimes).
2) Empathy is a spotlight; usually focusing attention on one person or one problem and isn't very good at illuminating broader issues.
3) For that reason empathy can be exploited to manipulate people or steer them towards desired conclusions.
All that said, I think empathy is a useful tool in the toolkbox of "trying to be a good human in a complicated world." It can (and will) occasionally lead people astray, and it's important to use multiple strategies to try to understand the world and our role in it, but it's good for empathy and a broadly shared sense of common humanity to be part of that.
I look at the headline ("Empathy Doesn't Make You Less Racist") and I think, "what does make people less racist?" Some combination of hundreds of moments of either wanting to be less racist, or being nudged to be less racist and small changes that are sometimes improvements and sometimes missteps. Empathy doesn't prevent the missteps, but I'd hope that it can be a possible motivation to accept the nudges and attempt the changes.
Well, I think often being less racist is a collective process. Norms ir laws which make it harder to engage in public displays of racism tend to force people to act in a less racist manner; then motivated reasoning leads you to justify being less racist by telling yourself that being less racist is good. It’s a virtuous cycle.
I think empathy is probably a neutral thing, overall.? But I think it’s also something of a secular religion at this point; people build their sense of their own virtue on it in ways that I think are pretty counter productive.
"I think empathy is probably a neutral thing, overall.? "
My intuition is that it would be a positive on average. I haven't really thought about it, but I wonder how you'd measure that. Out of curiosity, what evidence would affect your opinion?
A quick google search suggests that measures of empathy correlate positively with openness to experience which correlates with liberal political positions, but that is a case where correlation absolutely doesn't mean causation.
So, I don't know, what sort of evidence would you look for?
Classifying empathy as condescension rejects the capacity for anyone to be an honest ally.
Most people do not need lofty thoughts to imagine the what it must be like to have to live with inherited bias any group of people are forced to bear, especially racism - or antisemitism which I’ve witnessed and called out. Not because I’m black or Jewish or Muslim - but because it’s demeaning, disgusting and offensive.
I hesitate to say I believe I understand her pov lest I insult anyone. But really, ffs.
I don't think empathy and the capacity to be an honest ally are the same thing. You don't need to imagine yourself as someone else to think mistreating people is cruel. And rather than imagining yourself into someone else's position you can...just listen to them.
It's a great deal simpler, or more complex, than all that.
The ability for humans to empathize is not merely questionable, but likely delusional, egotistical, an expression of hubris.
Many people barely know what it is to be themselves, let alone know what it feels like to be an other.
Equating Hudson and Rankin is quite a stretch. Hudson was merely appropriating something that liberals abhor to link it to something liberals advocate. No attempt at empathy from him. Based on your representation here, it’s also hard to read Rankin’s statements and understand the criticism. He actively worked (at some personal risk I assume) to help people escape enslavement. I didn’t see how he used his thought experiment to serve his own goals at the expense of the people he’s empathising with.
Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote in a piece in the NYT today about the importance of using « moral imagination « to understand what life is like for trans people if you aren’t trans. I don’t see how that is different from Rankin. But, I only know of him what you wrote.
Agreed that making oneself the story rather than others is egregious, as is judging others based on what you think they should do. I don’t think the empathy label works to serve the points you make in conclusion.
Well, it's Hartman's reading, and her argument is that the move he makes is to put himself in the place of the people he's supposedly helping. That's the same move Hudson makes, and it can go really bad places. Abolitionists like Rankin had very specific, racist ideas about what freed people should do and be, and Hartman argues—quite persuasively I think—that their belief that they could speak for free people led them to harm them.
I do.
sure! but that's not the same thing as empathy, is my point. If someone says, "being marginalized means I am treated in this unjust way" you don't need to imagine yourself in their position. You can just say, "that sounds unjust and bad, even if it's not something I experience or can necessarily see myself experiencing."
What do you call the heartbreaking feeling when you see another human suffering
It might be various things? Hartman's point, in reading abolitionist texts closely, is that, when you aren't in a real dialogue with the person who is suffering, the feeling can sometimes be functionally described as self-pity. Whatever you describe it as though, it's not always politically valuable or progressive, and can sometimes be the opposite.
Think about the Kavanaugh trial. Republicans felt a lot of empathy for him, and he was suffering to some degree; he felt humiliated, publicly shamed, under attack, in danger of losing his life's work, etc. But, obviously, those emotions were heavily predicated on not thinking about certain other people, and on a sense of which people the empathizer could feel themselves into and which they weren't trying to feel themselves into.
Kate Manne talks about this using the term "himpathy"; ie, it's easier culturally to empathize with powerful (white) men than with women or less powerful people. Identifying suffering and feeling pain when you do—those are influenced by social and political factors, like anything else. And the right especially, as I say in this piece, manipulates empathy a lot.
I'm...no, I don't think I have any empathy at ALL for Straight White Men who behave like assholes. Brent Kavanaugh was humiliated by proof that he was a bigoted, fascistic DoucheBro in college, and other evidence showing that his opinion hasn't changed any since?
No. All I feel for Kavanaugh, or Mitch McConnell, or Rudy Giuliani—who, let's face it, is really TRULY suffering right now? Is nothing but *schadenfreude* (a word I've used twice today!), that quiet satisfaction that the Universe is starting to correct itself, along with a bit of glorious rage at seeing A Bad Person Finally Get What's Coming to Him!
To put it in terms of a single picture...?
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/E934/production/_107000795_meme4.jpg
Does this mean that I'm vindictive? You'd better believe it! I've watched too many good people get unjustly beat upon by the likes of Kavanaugh, McConnell and Giuliani...and Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and that babyraper Matt Gaetz, and Lauren Boebert, and every two-faced Clinton NeoLib, to feel anything but satisfaction at their downfall.