I thought that was a very good & concrete explanation of a perspective on sympathy vs empathy. By that definition provided, most people, of course, would prefer the empathy over the sympathy. From that perspective, empathy is all unqualified & unconditional validation; which, admittedly, is sometimes exactly what we want & need from other people (whether we’re able or willing to articulate that to others when it is so, or not). But it’s also very one-way; in the sense that it’s very much all ‘take’ and no ‘give’, unlike our other everyday discourses or dialogues- Somebody once said people don’t… Read more »
I thought that was a very good & concrete explanation of a perspective on sympathy vs empathy. By that definition provided, most people, of course, would prefer the empathy over the sympathy. From that perspective, empathy is all unqualified & unconditional validation; which, admittedly, is sometimes exactly what we want & need from other people (whether we’re able or willing to articulate that to others when it is so, or not). But it’s also very one-way; in the sense that it’s very much all ‘take’ and no ‘give’, unlike our other everyday discourses or dialogues- Somebody once said people don’t… Read more »