I really like this description of empathy vs sympathy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBTYViDPlQ
It was the first time I "got it".
What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
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Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#32I've come across several articles and discussions that suggests empathy is a bit of a trap. You may feel what someone else is feeling, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're helping them. I'm currently reading Rutget Bregman's Humankind: A Hopeful History (Dutch: De Meeste Mensen Deugen) about how people in emergency situations or when society breaks down, tend to be far more altruistic than we usually tell ourselves. The exact opposite of Lord of the Flies turns out to be true. But then where does xenophobia come from? One of the culprits, he suggests, might be empathy. As we feel and identify more strongly with one person who have something in common with, we tend to see other people as more different. So xenophobia might be the other side of the same coin as empathy.
Not sure if it's true, and I haven't finished the book yet, but Bregman tends to be pretty thorough in his research, and he does base this idea on experiments.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#33Empathy is knowing the mental feelings of someone because you’ve known them. Sympathy is knowing the physical symptoms of someone because you’ve felt them. Compassion is a way of acting when knowing empathy and sympathy.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#34I just finished teaching a class this morning and this came up during a design thinking segment. It's a male-heavy class and when these terms come up, they tend to laugh it off as some kind of esotherical side-quest. When I ask if anyone feels comfortable explaining the difference, it always ends in a beautiful disaster because that one person feeling brave enough to go for it, usually completely derails, only to be…
That’s an interesting story.
I think the key thing missing here is the notion of “well-being”. When designing with well-being in mind (of end-user, community, society, ecology), then sympathy, empathy, and compassion all makes more sense. (Though I disagree with how Chopra distinguishes among those terms).
I don’t think males are incapable of it. We’re socialized to reject it, but we all need it in some way or another.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#35This might be a great article, but it is important to note that this comes from a company founded by Deepak Chopra, who is a famous figure and undoubtedly has done some good work but is a deeply flawed person, perhaps a charlatan really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra
> Chopra has metaphorically described the AIDS virus as emitting "a sound that lures the DNA to its destruction". The condition can be treated, according to Chopra, with "Ayurveda's primordial sound".[18] Taking issue with this view, medical professor Lawrence Schneiderman has said that ethical issues are raised when alternative medicine is not based on empirical evidence and that, "to put it mildly, Dr. Chopra proposes a treatment and prevention program for AIDS that has no supporting empirical data".
> Chopra has been criticized for his frequent references to the relationship of quantum mechanics to healing processes, a connection that has drawn skepticism from physicists who say it can be considered as contributing to the general confusion in the popular press regarding quantum measurement, decoherence and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.[136] In 1998, Chopra was awarded the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in physics for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness"
> In May 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article by Chopra and two others on Ayurvedic medicine and TM.[144] JAMA subsequently published an erratum stating that the lead author, Hari M. Sharma, had undisclosed financial interests, followed by an article by JAMA associate editor Andrew A. Skolnick which was highly critical of Chopra and the other authors for failing to disclose their financial connections to the article subject.[145] Several experts on meditation and traditional Indian medicine criticized JAMA for accepting the "shoddy science" of the original article.[146] Chopra and two TM groups sued Skolnick and JAMA for defamation, asking for $194 million in damages, but the case was dismissed in March 1993.
Not someone with a great track record.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#36This has no place on HN.
Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist.
Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U
I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#37This has no place on HN. Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist. Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.
You can flag a post as inappropriate by clicking the "flag" link under the headline. If a post gets flagged enough, it disappears from the home page.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#38This has no place on HN. Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist. Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.
I completely agree with this comment
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#39This has no place on HN. Deepak Chopra is a charlatan on par with some edgy teenager running his own blog but professing to be the equivalent of a respected doctor or scientist. Here he is getting his "beliefs" exposed to some pretty basic questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka--VV-_t_U I'm going to flag this so dang can investigate further.
The conversation on HN will be interesting and valuable though. I vote 'keep'
Edit: it already is, as you can see. Baby/bathwater etc.
Re: What's the Difference Between Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion?
#40I've come across several articles and discussions that suggests empathy is a bit of a trap. You may feel what someone else is feeling, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're helping them. I'm currently reading Rutget Bregman's Humankind: A Hopeful History (Dutch: De Meeste Mensen Deugen ) about how people in emergency situations or when society breaks down, tend to be far more altruistic than we usually tell o…
I am not sure I buy that (empathy leads to xenophobia), so I’d have to think about that some more.
I learned this from a particular Buddhist teaching — what someone want is not necessarily the same as what someone needs. It takes wisdom to know what the deeper needs are.
So the way I learned that empathy is a trap the same way sympathy and compassion is a trap. Someone unable able distinguish surface wants for deeper needs, or why and how the suffering happens will seek out things that will not really help.