Empathy vs Sympathy

I appreciate this is not an astrological post, but this is about topics that are dear to me, including community and the human nervous system, so I wanted to share this here today.

Charlie Kirk's quote on empathy versus sympathy has been making the rounds on social media and this is what he said:

"I can't stand the word empathy, I think the word empathy is a made up new age term and it does a lot of damage. Sympathy is a better word, because empathy means you are actually feeling what another person felt, and no one can feel what another person feels."

I would like to push back on what Charlie Kirk said about empathy and write about what I think he got wrong in this quote.

Empathy is about taking the time and making the effort to understand someone else's point of view. The idea that it's about "feeling someone else's feelings" is indeed hogwash as I think everyone agrees that is not possible.

But in the context of American culture, 'sympathy' is more along the lines of "thoughts and prayers"--the idea of virtue-signalling performative grief after a school-shooting or other mass-casualty event without taking the time to look at and discuss the root-causes of those deaths.

Empathy is when we take the time to create an emotional bond with someone else's experience. Sympathy is when we acknowledge grief but keep our distance from it.

And why keep distance? Because to emotionally connect to another's experience requires vulnerability--something not celebrated in our hyper-modern culture. And it requires strength--the ability to hold a container for my feelings AND your feelings.

Unfortunately, the hyper-individualized culture of America and the atomization of human relationships in favor of relationships with material goods and money is furthered by this distance that sympathy in its performative form generates.

If we truly want a return to communities of people who care for one another, then we must get over this culture of not sharing. And that is ultimately the difference between empathy and sympathy: the former is about sharing the load whilst the latter is about keeping burdens individual.

And that keeping of individual burdens cannot ever help build community. Distance does not build community. 

At the same time, it's worth noting that community isn't just a group of like-minded individuals. Community is the artform of diversity.

I hope what I've shared can give food for thought and engender thoughtful discussion as that is my intention here.

Addendum: I'm going to add here that the vulnerability and strength required for empathy is not easy. And above all else, it requires a certain amount of regulation in the human nervous-system.

But with conditions in the US being polarized as they are, most people are in an almost constant state of sympathetic arousal with more cortisol floating in their bodies than is sustainable.

When in the fight-flight-fawn-freeze mode, critical thinking as part of the executive brain function is switched off.

Why? Because the pre-frontal cortex requires energy and time--and the body requires energy and speed to be directed to the outer limbs in order to effectively execute fight-flight-fawn-freeze.

It's hard not to think that this is why the powers that be want people to be constantly stressed--it cuts out access to critical thinking and helps maintain power for a concentrated few. Again, I hope this provides food for thought!