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Empathy and compassion: Difference between revisions
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===Empathy is impulsive. Compassion is deliberate.=== | ===Empathy is impulsive. Compassion is deliberate.=== | ||
Empathy is the impulse that makes you cry at ''Love Actually'', even | Empathy is the impulse that makes you cry at ''Love Actually'', even while you see how cynically your emotions are being manipulated and how empty the film is.<ref>Purely hypothetical example. Totally.</ref> It doesn’t come from a rational place: it is not the output of a deliberative function. | ||
Now, we can all have have doubts about homo sapiens’ capacity for logic at the best of times, but when you act based on empathy you are not even ''trying'' to be rational. | Now, we can all have have doubts about homo sapiens’ capacity for logic at the best of times, but when you act based on ''empathy'' you are not even ''trying'' to be rational. | ||
We like to think our leaders should be logical: slow, rather than fast to react, considerate of all positions and constituencies. | We like to think our leaders should be logical: slow, rather than fast to react, considerate of all positions and constituencies. | ||
Being ''instinctively'' empathetic is not | Being ''instinctively'' empathetic is not necessarily fair, equitable or just. It comes from the monkey brain. It favours kin, familiarity, self-image and reinforces our prevailing values and worldview. It shoots without asking questions. | ||
===Empathy is divisive. Compassion is unifying.=== | ===Empathy is divisive. Compassion is unifying.=== | ||