Artifice Orisit
Guest
I’m just laying foundations here, this first point isn’t very important.
I consider sympathy different from empathy in that when someone is sympathizing they are feeling negative emotional stimuli without being able to directly relate to the other’s situation, where as empathy involves the capacity to direct relate and may even include sharing the situation. For example, if I wast talking to someone who has recently lost a sibling, I would sympathise, because lacking any siblings to lose I can’t really claim to understand what they’re going through, although I would still feel bad for their loss. But if I had lost a sibling recently (or not so recently) then I would be empathising since I would have the right to claim that I understand their situation, to a relevant degree at least (complete understanding is impossible).
Now the purpose of this thread is to argue a distinction between sympathy as we commonly understand it and what I call True Sympathy, which is a little different.
Sympathy
Reacting to the negative emotions of others by having a negative emotional reaction of one’s own, it’s an important stabilizing influence upon and is considered an almost universal cultural virtue.
Now this isn’t the main point I’m trying to make, but I consider the sympathy in the form of vicarious emotional gratification to be quite sick, an example being the worldwide morbid fascination with Michael Jackson’s death; I strongly believe sympathy should not be treated as a form of entertainment, and the media’s eagerness to televise events of private significance was frankly disgusting. A child shouldn’t be expected to “give comment” on their personal feelings regarding the loss of a parent, famous or not, everyone deserves the right to mourn in private.
True Sympathy
Now this is the point I’m trying to make, in the definition of sympathy above I alluded that general sympathy is a reaction to emotional stimuli, and it is this “reactionary nature” that is the main difference between general sympathy and true sympathy. By the former a person will only experience a negative emotional reaction if they’re given appropriate stimuli to trigger this instinctive behaviour, so obviously in the absence of such stimuli they experience no reaction. In the latter, true sympathy, the triggering of an negative emotional reaction is independent of sensory stimuli, and unlike general sympathy, it isn’t the result of an instinctive behaviour. True sympathy is when someone is cognizant (sorry) of how the subject being sympathized with is in a negative situation, i.e. it is sympathy independent of instinctive influence. An example that would help clarify the difference between general sympathy and true sympathy would be someone who goes to prison and feels sympathy for the inmates.
Most wouldn’t feel sympathetic for the inmates unless they experience so form of stimuli that convinces them that the inmates deserve sympathy. It’s like trying to convince people to donate money for the conservation of a rare bird-eating spider; most people would be quite happy to see the spider go extinct because cute little birds are much easier to sympathise with than the big scary spider. But someone who has true sympathy as part of their perspective would have great sympathy for the spider, because their cognizant not only the spider’s initial plight, but also how much worse off it is by being something that most people wouldn’t sympathise with.
Getting back to the prison inmates, by the perspective of true sympathy one would consider them people (not prisoners, people, just like any other) who are currently in an absolutely horrific situation. Now obviously that doesn’t change the fact that they’re in there for a reason, but it does ward off ideas like “good” or “evil”, because one has the perspective to see that most criminals aren't born, they’re made.
Lastly, one thing I particularly like about this "True Sympathy" is it means one can feel sorry for their enemies, that one need not (should not?) be blinded by tribalistic biases and forget that one's enemies are not unlike oneself, indeed there is a great capacity for empathy there, even though the conflict cannot be resolved by peaceful means.
I consider sympathy different from empathy in that when someone is sympathizing they are feeling negative emotional stimuli without being able to directly relate to the other’s situation, where as empathy involves the capacity to direct relate and may even include sharing the situation. For example, if I wast talking to someone who has recently lost a sibling, I would sympathise, because lacking any siblings to lose I can’t really claim to understand what they’re going through, although I would still feel bad for their loss. But if I had lost a sibling recently (or not so recently) then I would be empathising since I would have the right to claim that I understand their situation, to a relevant degree at least (complete understanding is impossible).
Now the purpose of this thread is to argue a distinction between sympathy as we commonly understand it and what I call True Sympathy, which is a little different.
Sympathy
Reacting to the negative emotions of others by having a negative emotional reaction of one’s own, it’s an important stabilizing influence upon and is considered an almost universal cultural virtue.
Now this isn’t the main point I’m trying to make, but I consider the sympathy in the form of vicarious emotional gratification to be quite sick, an example being the worldwide morbid fascination with Michael Jackson’s death; I strongly believe sympathy should not be treated as a form of entertainment, and the media’s eagerness to televise events of private significance was frankly disgusting. A child shouldn’t be expected to “give comment” on their personal feelings regarding the loss of a parent, famous or not, everyone deserves the right to mourn in private.
True Sympathy
Now this is the point I’m trying to make, in the definition of sympathy above I alluded that general sympathy is a reaction to emotional stimuli, and it is this “reactionary nature” that is the main difference between general sympathy and true sympathy. By the former a person will only experience a negative emotional reaction if they’re given appropriate stimuli to trigger this instinctive behaviour, so obviously in the absence of such stimuli they experience no reaction. In the latter, true sympathy, the triggering of an negative emotional reaction is independent of sensory stimuli, and unlike general sympathy, it isn’t the result of an instinctive behaviour. True sympathy is when someone is cognizant (sorry) of how the subject being sympathized with is in a negative situation, i.e. it is sympathy independent of instinctive influence. An example that would help clarify the difference between general sympathy and true sympathy would be someone who goes to prison and feels sympathy for the inmates.
Most wouldn’t feel sympathetic for the inmates unless they experience so form of stimuli that convinces them that the inmates deserve sympathy. It’s like trying to convince people to donate money for the conservation of a rare bird-eating spider; most people would be quite happy to see the spider go extinct because cute little birds are much easier to sympathise with than the big scary spider. But someone who has true sympathy as part of their perspective would have great sympathy for the spider, because their cognizant not only the spider’s initial plight, but also how much worse off it is by being something that most people wouldn’t sympathise with.
Getting back to the prison inmates, by the perspective of true sympathy one would consider them people (not prisoners, people, just like any other) who are currently in an absolutely horrific situation. Now obviously that doesn’t change the fact that they’re in there for a reason, but it does ward off ideas like “good” or “evil”, because one has the perspective to see that most criminals aren't born, they’re made.
Lastly, one thing I particularly like about this "True Sympathy" is it means one can feel sorry for their enemies, that one need not (should not?) be blinded by tribalistic biases and forget that one's enemies are not unlike oneself, indeed there is a great capacity for empathy there, even though the conflict cannot be resolved by peaceful means.
