2026-09-19 09:22 UTC
Replies (5)
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@Furthering@convo.casa 2026-09-19 09:35
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to Thank you for this discussion of empathy. In my experience, many people who tell me they don't "feel" empathy (perhaps like they understand that others feel it) then go on to show what seems to be great compassion. Your thread has helped to clarify what may be happening here! I have been thinking about empathy as a lack of imagination, but lack of deep thinking may broaden that thought or be another way to describe it. And thank you for the references! I've found the first book in my digital library.
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@thisislieven@c.im 2026-09-19 09:50
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to What I appreciate about your threads is how it's not so much about revealing new things but placing them in new contexts. It's a neurodivergent mind at its best. 😀 It helps the rest of us process our own stories and our collective story in a different way and, frankly, I think there's even a healing aspect to it. In my own story work I have always tried to tie the personal to the systemic. Often my own story but also those of others. I've found it to be a very effective way to help people understand just how society is stacked against some people. What I find remarkable is that you can get people to admit this but then it still comes down to personal responsibility and the work of the individual to make life work for them. It is so entrenched in people's minds that it's 'you' and not 'us' that is the problem. I have more to say about the actual content of your thread but it's too early on my end to really come to anything coherent. Hopefully later today.
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@rhelune@todon.eu 2026-09-19 09:31
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to That is quite a surprise for me to read. I feel the suffering of the entire universe 😞
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@stekopf@mstdn.social 2026-09-20 08:27
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to Reminds me of the #MBTI, where you have to choose how you decide (+ other topics): "Do you like to put more weight on objective principles and impersonal facts (Thinking) or do you put more weight on personal concerns and the people involved (Feeling)?" "I believe telling the truth is more important than being tactful" 🆚 "I believe being tactful is more important than telling the 'cold' truth" While I feel too, I think decisions should be thought out. https://web.archive.org/web/20211030053422/https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/thinking-or-feeling.htm
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@punishmenthurts@autistics.life 2026-09-20 19:24
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to . Sorry, a bit of a rant. . empathy is automatic when you understand the situation, when your life is similar enough to theirs that you know the problem, so there’s a lot of empathy locally, for your people, people in your neighborhood, in your sort of work, etc., . That’s good among our own group, our own people, but it’s not as good as conscious, directed sympathy for others. One could say that an isolationist, xenophobic group has too much empathy for one another, that Nazis are far too understanding of each other, this is how the automatic, “natural,” felt empathy goes wrong. . It’s less automatic with less familiar people, and then there’s “group dynamics,” the fact that (spanked) people want and need an out group - and then keeping unfamiliar people away, making a point of not learning and not understanding them is way to disable their own natural empathy. . This is what’s so maddening to me, the projection that Autistics lack empathy when everything about how they raise children and punish everyone is designed to destroy their own empathy, I mean, it does destroy empathy whether it’s by design or not. . Punishment turns everything upside down. Really, it’s the lack of empathy we can’t learn - EDIT TO ADD: for the out group, because we think big picture, as others are saying here, we want the everybody empathy, not the group dynamics empathy, END EDIT: that’s what is frustrating them. . @autistics@fedigroups.social #ActuallyAutistic