Sympathy vs Empathy
- January 26th, 2012
- Posted in For Discussion
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First, thanks for the comments. I insist on persisting whether I like it or not…
On to a new topic.
Had a little scuffle with my spouse the other day. She has some chronic health problems (both physical & mental). I tend to get very prickly when she’s not feeling well. This has been a source of much discord between us over the years so I have tried to figure out why I am so impatient about it. As we were discussing my weaknesses as a spouse it occurred to me that my sympathy for her was inversely proportional to my empathy. Her unwellness makes me feel unwell, and that kind of makes me mad. OK, so maybe that’s not what you usually consider empathy. I’m stretching it a bit. But I do think there’s a negative correlation here.
When we are emotionally affected by another’s emotional or physical state, that can interfere with our rational response to another person’s suffering. Sympathy for another’s situation is based upon one’s moral or ethical framework. Where one’s sympathies lie is determined by what one believes is fair, right or just. Empathy can occlude this rational response because now we are in some sense sharing the suffering of the other.
So what good is empathy? What benefit is there in”sharing suffering”?
First, you have my empathies without the comment. But I simply don’t what to say without feeling like it sounds false.
Her unwellness makes me feel unwell, and that kind of makes me mad.
I believe emotional responses come after a feeling of anxiety or energy. One trick I have found to diffuse an emotional response I do not like is to consider whether the emotion I am beginning to feel is appropriate or not. If it is, I allow myself to feel it. If it is not, I concentrate on the feeling of anxiety behind it alone and try to relax it by feeling my body for signs of tension, breathing, muscle tension, and so on, and I try to relax them. When I do that, the emotional response diminishes. Nothing makes you angry, you make you angry, whether you take responsibility and assume control for it or not.
I have no idea if my way is applicable for you, its just a thought from me.
I don’t know if there’s any good in empathy. I think the good, if I can use a word I don’t really like, is in realizing that it has waned, or was never there at the start.
Jack,
There is no good in empathy alone.
There is even less good in control disguised as empathy.
To say there is no good in empathy at all is like saying there is no good in trust. Yeah, misplaced or misused trust does one no good, but with the right application, trust can be a powerful tool.
Justin,
That was a sideways rejection of the notion of good, on my part. I’ll have none of that tripe on my tongue.
Jack,
Did you ever read “Semantic Analysis” by Paul Ziff? It’s a lengthy tome on the English word “Good” from a first-rate philosopher.
I haven’t, Abonilox. FWIW, I simply reject good and evil as useful terms.
I get where you’re coming from. It’s interesting though that the word “good” has a much broader usage in the language than its supposed opposite “evil”. For example, it makes sense to say that a meal was “good” but not that it was “evil”. It’s just an interesting feature of the language, I suppose. “Evil” is a term that has a very limited scope, whereas “good” is used much more broadly.
I think perhaps, at least in English, that’s because “Evils” are usually visited upon, whereas “Goods” can be obtained.