This doesn’t seem any more outlandish or problematic to me than sensory issues such as colorblindness, synesthesia, or aversion to certain textures. It’s just a pattern of thought involving simulating another person and a strong disgust reaction to it. That’s interesting on a human level and basically seems like a personality quirk. People can feel threatened by others who proclaim they do not share the same emotional reactions to stimuli and activities, whether it’s empathy, comedy, a band, a cuisine, travel, sports, or whatever. In some domains, we’ve normalized disagreement. In others, like empathy, we haven’t. It seems to me like it would be good to at least appreciate the spectrum of experiences of empathy.
This doesn’t seem any more outlandish or problematic to me than sensory issues such as colorblindness, synesthesia, or aversion to certain textures. It’s just a pattern of thought involving simulating another person and a strong disgust reaction to it. That’s interesting on a human level and basically seems like a personality quirk. People can feel threatened by others who proclaim they do not share the same emotional reactions to stimuli and activities, whether it’s empathy, comedy, a band, a cuisine, travel, sports, or whatever. In some domains, we’ve normalized disagreement. In others, like empathy, we haven’t. It seems to me like it would be good to at least appreciate the spectrum of experiences of empathy.