Offendees

www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html

I like the final sentence - “If you agree with us and speak out, then you’re praised; if you don’t and speak out, then you’re a bigot.”

He could have added "If you are loud in expressing your empathy with the same people that I have empathy with, you are a good person. If you don't mention your feelings toward them, but argue against the demonisation of someone who has said something that I think was not empathetic, you are a bad person and hate them" No room for the least divergence.

(Empathy is more than understanding how another person is feeling. It is sharing those feelings and suffering with them. I really cannot believe that all these people living in a free country where they have safety, paid work, enough to eat and drink and somewhere to live and bring up their children are actually sharing the sensations and feelings of people who have fled persecution and are homeless and despairing. Understanding how they must feel, having sympathy for them and wishing to help them is one thing, sharing those feelings is quite another.

Lately, the word "sympathy" seems to be thought not enough, everyone must talk about their "empathy". So why are they not all weeping and having mental breakdowns with the stress of it all? )

Thank you for pointing that out, jane My fingers were typing without my brain.

I have long thought the same about the word 'empathy' Elegran, but was reluctant to say so on here as so many seem to think they feel it towards others they have absolutely nothing in common with. Thank you!

I do think that some people are simply unable to share some other peoples' feelings.

I have been out this afternoon, but now that I am back I shall answer STB's question about why I added the last sentences of my OP. I am not sure, but I suspect it was because I was annoyed at the way those who defended a helpless word against an onslaught of attacks from people who didn't like it were savaged as though they were the ones doing the attacking. Neither do I like that it that is assumed that anyone who has not rushed to defend the migrants from being "compared to insects" or "to animals" is raring to move on to crushing them like insects.

In words of one syllable (more or less) a swarm is a collective noun which can be applied to all kinds of living things, from ants to human beings, who are rushing in a crowd in one direction, with a common purpose and believing this does not turn anyone into a gas chamber operative.

Now, how many of those who professed empathy with the migrants have set aside their spare room for a migrant family? I thought not.

How can anyone ever truly 'share other people's feelings'?

adding on from my 19.11 post
in some circumstances. Probably not all circumstances.

Some people are unable to understand anyone else's thought processes either, STB.

They cant do it 100% I dont think.
It is a difficult thing to describe. Others will be able to describe it a lot better than I can.

It doesnt necessarily involve setting aside a spare room. There are 100s of things in between.
Would you like me to list them? Some of them?

True Elegran.

But if say someone on here has a bereavement, I have not lost anyone suddenly or early particularly.
But I can take some time to imagine. And at the very least, send a message.

But the point is that you are sympathising, not empathising, when you do that. It would be a pity for the distinction to be lost.

A linguistic pity.

Most people have suffered a bereavement in their lives.

It's probably safe to say that not many (if any!) on here have been forced to abandon their homes and travel thousands of miles to seek refuge in another part of the world.

The two words do not mean exactly the same, so using one word for both blurs what is being said. A bit like using a chisel as a screwdriver because it is near at hand, then finding that when you want to cut into your wood very accurately, your chisel is chipped and blunt and doesn't do what you want it to.

And it's probably safe to say that nearly everyone on GN feels sympathy for the migrants at Calais and annoyance about the political bottleneck there seems to be in Europe on the subject of migrants. And, last but not least, that none of us think of the migrants as anything less than human beings worthy of respect as individuals and as a swarming group of individuals.

If you were really empathising with that bereaved person, STB, you would be weeping as they did. Instead what you extend to them with your card or phone call is your sympathy. But recently the word "empathy" is used a lot the time when people mean "sympathy", and it does give the impression (to me at least) that they are exaggerating their fellow-feeling so as to "polish up their halo".

You do not have to have done the thing to feel empathy. Empathy is the capacity to understand and share in the feelings of another. Sympathy is feeling of sorrow for another person's misfortunes.
I imagine all those who are in Calais are not thinking about the other person's feelings. They just want to be over here before the people whose circumstances they are sharing.

You do not have to have done the thing to feel empathy. Empathy is the capacity to understand and share in the feelings of another. Sympathy is feeling of sorrow for another person's misfortunes

This.

I would also add imagine their feelings. My mum always used the phrase "put yourself in their shoes". And take a moment to think about them. And practically help within reason.

How can you understand and share in the feelings of another if you have never experienced what they're going through?

Yes, you can imagine their feelings, but it's not the same as 'understanding and sharing'.

dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/d23.html

I was going to say someone had missed a gap in the market for 'empathy cards' but it appears not...(I'm not posting a link!)

Elegran, as usual you put things very well.

You cant totally understand by a long way, true.
We can often be very far from understanding what someone else is feeling, and why, and the intensity, and the exact problems.
And the place they are coming from emotionally.

But when people put forward practical solutions to a problem, or logical disagreements with what has been said, some others berate them for "not understanding the feelings of others" or being hard and cold - as though they alone have "empathy" with those with the problems. and as though those posting more coolly cannot sense and share the emotional side as well.