Unfortunately the first article is behind a paywall. As for the second article? Nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said here on Elsewhere.
Thank you!
I was actually expecting a literal fistfight being reported, such is the time we are in.
the “sin of empathy” is making real end roads into popular evangelicalism
I guess it’s good that some are becoming more empathetic (even if their whole evangelical point is to convert others to their cult).
“The Sin of Empathy.” Wow. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy” is dead, huh. That JC guy was just too woke for the modern Christian. I want to be there when He meets these asshats. Sooner would be better.
from the comments on that “Sin of Empathy” post:
“Kill God first, and then go to work on kings”
i can work with that.
I really hate the claim that “evil is … a lack of empathy,” because empathy sometimes seems to mean “whatever neurotypicals have and neurodivergents lack.”
So I also hate the claim that “evil is … an excess of empathy.”
I would say that “evil is a lack of empathy” implies that evil is only passive; it’s not. I would say that evil is more like the enjoyment of cruelty and suffering
In terms of lack of empathy, I think that a passive acceptance of cruelty and suffering is evil, but I think it goes somewhat beyond lack of empathy, in that it treats sapient beings as things, whether they are humans, dogs, whales, whatever.
There are passive evils, just as there are active ones. Sometimes, the worst sins are those of omission.
Oh yeah, I don’t want to disregard the “banality of evil”, which is why I said that a passive acceptance of cruelty is evil. Is it a difference in degree, or kind? Is passive evil just part of the “evil spectrum”, or a slightly different animal? I don’t know.
I think it’s a spectrum, like almost any other behavior or characteristic in nature.
I think you are probably right, although we are still left with the original problem that MarjaE raised that; "I really hate the claim that “evil is … a lack of empathy,” because empathy sometimes seems to mean “whatever neurotypicals have and neurodivergents lack.”
I think the fundamental problem is empathy gets used to both mean the ability to read people’s feelings and to care about them. Those often go together, but neurodivergent people often have trouble with the first without lacking the second, and then of course there are psychopaths who are great at the first but wholly devoid of the second.
And people have choices, regardless.
So much evil begins by identifying and othering an out-group.
If someone relies on feelings for their in-group, they can be manipulated against an othered out-group. If they either consciously resist the othering of out-groups, or they have their own moral compass(es), they cannot so easily be manipulated.
If someone has no feelings for anyone else, well, I’m not sure how that would affect things.
Yes! Excellent point; we use the same word for 2 related, but not identical things. One is a sense, and the other is an emotion.
Cognitive empathy (knowing what another person is feeling), vs
Affective empathy (feeling for another person).
There’s also the performance: Expressive empathy. Where an NT is the more-or-less standard, and an autist is marked by flat affect, no matter how they feel (until the dam bursts, and there’s no regulation at all), and a psychopath is marked by flat affect unless there’s someone around to perform to.
There’s a Louis Theroux piece about Jimmy Saville, where there was footage they didn’t realise what they had until afterwards: Jim in a room, with the camera unknowingly left on. When people were in the room, he was chatty, affable, friendly; but when everyone else was outside the room, he was a dead-eyed shark, just waiting. Then when someone came in again, the switch flipped and he was back to happy chatty Jim.
Thanks! Now I have words for those. I tend to have an animated affect; no idea what that means. I should have been a stage performer, because I play for those at the very back of the theatre.