Did Trump or somebody pay you to write this tweet? Because this has the same kind of energy as those chuds that spew nonsense about cancer culture or that "TERF is a slur". There are just some bad people out there that can't change and never will, because they choose not to.
-
-
Replying to @Zulnahdwiin @jdr____llc
If you believe the problem is indeed that they "choose not to" change then that's a reason to avoid medicalized terminology, especially because there are people who very much use it in this eugenic sense of identifying people diseased from birth
2 replies 2 retweets 53 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @jdr____llc
I'm beginning to understand why the right thinks us lefties want to police all thought. All this pedantic nonsense and needless ethical agonizing is completely ridiculous on it's face. I see no advantage to pointing out how a word is used by worse people in a different context.
3 replies 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Zulnahdwiin @jdr____llc
It's not "pedantic nonsense", the word "narcissist" isn't just a random word people throw around, the "narcisphere" is a whole detailed pop-psychological theory that people on the Internet are really into that generates a lot of what I think of as very harmful ideas
1 reply 2 retweets 34 likes -
There are a lot of people -- often people who present themselves as authorities on the concept of abuse -- who outright say shit about how "The human population is divided in a 1:10 ratio between 'narcissists' and 'empaths' the way animals are divided between predators and prey"
2 replies 3 retweets 33 likes -
I have a lot of ambivalent feelings about the word 'empathy' and the way it's used Because the more someone valorises it, the more likely they are to demand it for themselves and/or use it as a stick to beat dissidents and neurodivergents with But it's also an important skill
2 replies 0 retweets 10 likes -
Replying to @Hi_Mike_Gorrie @arthur_affect and
I'm always leery of people who are convinced of their tremendous empathy because in my experience they're often so certain they know how others feel that they dispense with the unnecessary bother of actually listening to them.
1 reply 1 retweet 19 likes -
Replying to @SusieusMaximus @Hi_Mike_Gorrie and
If you believe that "empathy" is a quality rather than an action you're already on very dangerous ground I mean that's true of any word for a positive quality -- saying that you ARE honest or you ARE smart or you ARE humble or whatever
2 replies 5 retweets 32 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
But "empathy" in particular because people think it's actually a magical superpower of some kind -- the "empathy" so many people on the Internet talk about is clearly something that simply does not exist
3 replies 2 retweets 20 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
There is no amount of emotion someone can feel, however intense, however justified, that will *actually cause someone else to feel that same emotion* I cannot feel sad *because* you are sad I can see that you are making a sad face, and I can react to that in my own way
1 reply 3 retweets 21 likes
But how specifically I react to that is a result of the combination of all the circumstances of your reaction -- the face you were making, the mood I was in when I saw it, the relationship between you and me
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
And it's not an actual magical thing where the sadness I'm feeling is *your sadness* It's *my sadness*, caused by your face (or your voice, or your posture, or the poem you wrote on your LiveJournal)
1 reply 2 retweets 18 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
The way people talk about "empathy" is collapsing something that's actually very complicated into something magical and simplistic, because it's comforting All these physical metaphors -- by feeling your sadness I draw it out of you and take it into myself, I lighten your burden
1 reply 3 retweets 16 likes - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.