One missing part of the post is causing the largest degree of disconnect, the lack of explaining their internal reasons/beliefs/way-they-were-shaped that made them like this, and of understanding that. Regardless of whether John in actuality has an issue in empathizing, or whether a short post just left out the obvious, I do think the core argument still importantly holds.
You can understand and feel people’s emotions without their own opinion on their mental state and emotions becoming a dominant factor, which is a core confusion repeated in the other comments.
Someone comes to me with a nail in their head? I can understand that they feel stressed, tired out, are used to the pain and have stopped considering it as something to fix.… while still having my primary emotion be a strong disquiet that they’re faltering. That means my empathy might be unkind, because how they are shaped and how they handle their life is shaped by my empathy and my own values.
I can construct a slightly more idealized version of themselves in my head, knowing that a decent chunk of their problems would be solved without the nail, that they’d be happier, while knowing that their current way of thinking about things poisons the idea of removing the nail itself.
I can also construct a version that is elaborated upon by my own values, because I never just consider their mind, I also consider how I think of them, how I interact with them, how they make me feel. And my values importantly intercede in here, and deliberately having empathy, considering what they feel in-depth and focused, can make me dislike them more.
Like in John’s examples, they’ve failed to live up to his ideals, and also very likely failed to live up to any of their own ideals. Most people want more, desire more, but short-sighted near-term optimization has ground away the parts of them that reach for more. It is not a strange or exotic observation that people fail to reach their ideals.
That is, I think a lot of the responses to John’s post are making the same understanding mistake he’s objecting to, that it must be a kindness or it is fake empathy. I can understand and empathize with the reasons that they can barely consider removing the nail, while still then the final result of all my empathy is that I know they’ve failed.
I’m saddened for them yet disgusted by their failures, of the knowledge of what they could have been, of knowing that they’re constrained in such ways like a nail in their skull they “just” need to break free.
An intuition pump here that is more dramatic than college students slacking is that of a government official who became corrupt due to needing money. If I considered detailed knowledge of their life I would empathize, see how they got put into unfavorable positions while trying to pay medical bills, how they desperately tried to convince themselves, how it grew worse over time, how they failed to report on themselves in moments of awareness… and then I very likely would still be disgusted by what they’ve become, how they’ve failed to meet my own standards and likely their own. Even harsher potentially, knowing the ways they’ve faltered and considered and then faltered again and again (even though I understand why, that I may have even made similar choices in such a scenario).
I don’t hold this as strong as John seemingly does. I have noticed this in myself too, that I emotionally understand and know why they do not adjust themselves to do better- because I fail at fully applying that myself- but that does not make me more kind precisely. Some mix of not believing in my heart that kindness is the right response, because people often connect kindness to their emotions of ‘this is fine’, and also a general belief that it simply is a lacking, that understanding and feeling it myself does not mean I hold a positive emotion towards it.
To be eloquent: A god’s eye view where all flaws are drawn clear at hand, each of them hard to justify even if understandable, drawn into a tapestry of regrets. Seeing the whole tapestry just makes the pattern clearer.
One missing part of the post is causing the largest degree of disconnect, the lack of explaining their internal reasons/beliefs/way-they-were-shaped that made them like this, and of understanding that. Regardless of whether John in actuality has an issue in empathizing, or whether a short post just left out the obvious, I do think the core argument still importantly holds.
You can understand and feel people’s emotions without their own opinion on their mental state and emotions becoming a dominant factor, which is a core confusion repeated in the other comments.
Someone comes to me with a nail in their head? I can understand that they feel stressed, tired out, are used to the pain and have stopped considering it as something to fix.… while still having my primary emotion be a strong disquiet that they’re faltering. That means my empathy might be unkind, because how they are shaped and how they handle their life is shaped by my empathy and my own values.
I can construct a slightly more idealized version of themselves in my head, knowing that a decent chunk of their problems would be solved without the nail, that they’d be happier, while knowing that their current way of thinking about things poisons the idea of removing the nail itself. I can also construct a version that is elaborated upon by my own values, because I never just consider their mind, I also consider how I think of them, how I interact with them, how they make me feel. And my values importantly intercede in here, and deliberately having empathy, considering what they feel in-depth and focused, can make me dislike them more.
Like in John’s examples, they’ve failed to live up to his ideals, and also very likely failed to live up to any of their own ideals. Most people want more, desire more, but short-sighted near-term optimization has ground away the parts of them that reach for more. It is not a strange or exotic observation that people fail to reach their ideals.
That is, I think a lot of the responses to John’s post are making the same understanding mistake he’s objecting to, that it must be a kindness or it is fake empathy. I can understand and empathize with the reasons that they can barely consider removing the nail, while still then the final result of all my empathy is that I know they’ve failed. I’m saddened for them yet disgusted by their failures, of the knowledge of what they could have been, of knowing that they’re constrained in such ways like a nail in their skull they “just” need to break free.
An intuition pump here that is more dramatic than college students slacking is that of a government official who became corrupt due to needing money. If I considered detailed knowledge of their life I would empathize, see how they got put into unfavorable positions while trying to pay medical bills, how they desperately tried to convince themselves, how it grew worse over time, how they failed to report on themselves in moments of awareness… and then I very likely would still be disgusted by what they’ve become, how they’ve failed to meet my own standards and likely their own. Even harsher potentially, knowing the ways they’ve faltered and considered and then faltered again and again (even though I understand why, that I may have even made similar choices in such a scenario).
I don’t hold this as strong as John seemingly does. I have noticed this in myself too, that I emotionally understand and know why they do not adjust themselves to do better- because I fail at fully applying that myself- but that does not make me more kind precisely. Some mix of not believing in my heart that kindness is the right response, because people often connect kindness to their emotions of ‘this is fine’, and also a general belief that it simply is a lacking, that understanding and feeling it myself does not mean I hold a positive emotion towards it.
To be eloquent: A god’s eye view where all flaws are drawn clear at hand, each of them hard to justify even if understandable, drawn into a tapestry of regrets. Seeing the whole tapestry just makes the pattern clearer.