By framing an argument against semantics or social obedience, you're ignoring self-implicating behavior; you're intentionally ignoring people's needs.
Why not ask "What am I doing wrong?" instead of "Hmm ... what is the nature of empathy? How may a linguist view the word? What is it's function? Ah! Is there an interesting generalization I can find here? Wow, let us dig deeper, this is no time to consider how I treat other people."
>"Hmm ... what is the nature of empathy? How may a linguist view the word? What is it's function? Ah! Is there an interesting generalization I can find here? Wow, let us dig deeper"
The funny part is that if you care about a semantic argument I know you will care about how you treat other people, too.
It's the person who strongly insists to not discuss what words mean, who 9 times out of 10 turns out to be dangerous.
I think that's a good point. I think the author says a lot of good things about empathy in the article, the nature of which goes deeper than "how may a linguist view the word?", but if they're being prompted with "be more empathetic" often, perhaps their behaviour really should be modified.
Because that's the first step to getting your needs ignored. And in conversations where "empathy" is brought up you're usually exactly one step from getting your needs ignored.
If you're doing something wrong, and I decide to do something about it, minimum decency dictates I make sure you understand what it is. Bringing into it some vague abstract notion that everyone with half a critical mind turns out to have a whole personal exegesis about, but I only know about it from everyone else? Now there's a clear signal that nobody in the room actually cares how people are treated.
> Because that's the first step to getting your needs ignored. And in conversations where "empathy" is brought up you're usually exactly one step from getting your needs ignored.
When someone's being asked to have more empathy, they're probably in the middle of ignoring someone else's needs right then.
Please don't be like that. I don't condone you trying to stab anyone, but if you do anyway - I think it's quite obvious how that'll put you at a higher risk of getting stabbed yourself. Empathy!
