Empathy means you realise that you are fundamentally the same as someone else, sympathy comes from a position of power. It’s a performance where you are pretending that you are feeling something so you don’t appear as a psychopath.
I think sympathy can be something you can try and understand but not fully grasp. I can TRY and understand why women are emotional during menstruation, but will I ever KNOW what that feels like? No I won’t.
Can you really not see what it’s like? When I see how someone is reacting, I can understand and almost feel what they are experiencing, even if I don’t experience it myself. Humans are pretty standard and come with common emotions and feelings.
Well, maybe it’s my education on the subject. A women’s hormonal cycle is completely different than a male’s. Males have a 24 hour cycle and women can fluctuate depending on their cycle. So just with that alone I know their emotional system is run on a different hardware. I am not sure how I can relate much.
I have two sisters and listened, but do I know what it’s like to feel like that? Nope.
Its about being able to empathize with your sister that are feeling, pain, anxious, flushed, anger, et .
If your sister gets upset, its as simple as being upset too. You know what upset looks like. If you are able to empathize you should be able to feel that same emotion despite not having the stimulus that is causing it.
It can be difficult, no one is saying its easy, but the first step is acknowledging the others humanity and relating it to your own.
I will never be an immigrant. One of my core memories is me bullying an immigrant because he was different than I am. It took his sister to point it out to me that I was being mean until I was able to empathize. Not that I was able to imagine what it was to be an immigrant but that I was able to feel what it was like to be bullied. It stays with me to this day because what this boy was feeling is exactly the same as I would feel/felt. Hurt.
You’re not getting not getting it. I can’t relate to sensations I cannot feel myself. My own sisters agree with me on this. The fact that you think I need to see it beyond that.
Empathy means you realise that you are fundamentally the same as someone else, sympathy comes from a position of power. It’s a performance where you are pretending that you are feeling something so you don’t appear as a psychopath.
Its not a performance… its a neurological function of your brain.
If you don’t have empathy, I don’t see how it’s possible to have genuine sympathy.
This would be news to those with Empathy Deficit Disorder.
It’s your brain performing that function
Performing a task is not the same as a performance but you know that.
This denies free will.
explain
Oops…I meant to respond to this comment… “Its not a performance… its a neurological function of your brain.”
I think sympathy can be something you can try and understand but not fully grasp. I can TRY and understand why women are emotional during menstruation, but will I ever KNOW what that feels like? No I won’t.
Can you really not see what it’s like? When I see how someone is reacting, I can understand and almost feel what they are experiencing, even if I don’t experience it myself. Humans are pretty standard and come with common emotions and feelings.
Well, maybe it’s my education on the subject. A women’s hormonal cycle is completely different than a male’s. Males have a 24 hour cycle and women can fluctuate depending on their cycle. So just with that alone I know their emotional system is run on a different hardware. I am not sure how I can relate much.
I have two sisters and listened, but do I know what it’s like to feel like that? Nope.
Youre not getting it.
No one is asking you emulate a menstrual cycle.
Its about being able to empathize with your sister that are feeling, pain, anxious, flushed, anger, et .
If your sister gets upset, its as simple as being upset too. You know what upset looks like. If you are able to empathize you should be able to feel that same emotion despite not having the stimulus that is causing it.
It can be difficult, no one is saying its easy, but the first step is acknowledging the others humanity and relating it to your own.
I will never be an immigrant. One of my core memories is me bullying an immigrant because he was different than I am. It took his sister to point it out to me that I was being mean until I was able to empathize. Not that I was able to imagine what it was to be an immigrant but that I was able to feel what it was like to be bullied. It stays with me to this day because what this boy was feeling is exactly the same as I would feel/felt. Hurt.
You’re not getting not getting it. I can’t relate to sensations I cannot feel myself. My own sisters agree with me on this. The fact that you think I need to see it beyond that.
The point of empathy is you don’t have the stimuli…
Can you relate to missing a finger or having a plate in your arm? No. You can understand the mechanism of pain but you can’t truly relate.
Regardless sympathy works too.
Just not true.
Its not that the arm is missing. Its how they feel. Loss, have you felt loss? Pain, have you felt pain? Despair?
Sympathy means you feel bad that they feel despair. Empathy is you feel despair as if it were your despair.
I don’t think that’s anyone’s serious definition of sympathy.