i think the term "man-child" has a lot to offer once you stop seeing it as automatically derogatory and start seeing it as a more neutral description, or even as - god forbid - a potential cause for empathy
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Empathy does not mean sympath in this case or any other. they are seperate terms
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can you clarify the difference between how you're using them? i don't have a clear division in my head and neither does google
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Empathy is usually compulsive, and involves feeling the other person’s emotions as if they were your own. Sympathy is understanding where another person’s emotions are coming from and being able to send loving kindness to them at least in that narrow respect
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oh. well i guess i can see why someone might use the word "empathy" that way but if i used it that way then i wouldn't have any word at all for the thing i want to express (it's definitely not sympathy)
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan and @Caroline30
what i mean is something like "do you understand how you could be capable of doing what this person did if you were in their shoes" (whatever that means) or like "do you understand how it feels to live in the world where what this person did makes sense"
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Oooh see what you’re describing is basically of what I see as sympathy, but I also see how it’s kinda between the two 🤔
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hmm i hate to be all "well the dictionary says" but the first meaning google returns for "sympathy" is "feelings of pity and sorrow for another's misfortune" which was my understanding and is not what i mean here
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I always think of sympathy as “being with a feeling” and empathy as “feeling within”, from their respective etymologies, but using a descriptive dictionary is probably more accurate lol
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ha i looked up the etymologies just now and they made me more confused than i was before
