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
-
-
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 -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
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
1 reply 2 retweets 14 likes -
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 -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
(This is not actually possible in any sense whatsoever When you feel better by seeing that your sadness has made another person sad, this is actually a very complicated process contingent on many different factors Which is why it often, despite people's best intentions, fails)
1 reply 2 retweets 10 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
There's a lot of really fraught shit all tied up in this kind of pat term "empathy" When we attack someone for "lack of empathy" making them a monster it's, by definition, policing another person's emotions, and that's a dangerous thing to do
1 reply 2 retweets 10 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
"Lack of empathy" is not a failure of one person to literally feel another person's emotions, because *that is impossible* It is saying that the emotional reaction they had to another person's expressed emotional communication was incorrect/inappropriate
2 replies 3 retweets 12 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
And that, well, is a can of worms It tends to happen a lot in life that the emotions other people have in reaction to our emotions aren't the reaction we *wanted* at all This can be very frustrating But that's the human condition, because we can't actually read minds
1 reply 1 retweet 12 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
And I think that *sometimes* when people are constantly frustrated by other people's "lack of empathy" it is because for whatever reason that communicating emotion isn't automatic psychic powers, it's a fallible human process that sometimes takes effort to accomplish
1 reply 1 retweet 12 likes
(Which takes us into "emotional labor" discourse, which is a whole other can of worms But I strongly believe when they say "women are more empathetic" they're not talking about magic powers or even "skill", just that women habitually do certain things that men don't do)
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect @SusieusMaximus and
I think the “women are more empathic” is both things that women are socialized to do that men aren’t, but also a lot of the time it’s also trauma-based hyper-vigilance. Trying to read others’ emotions to be able to take cover in time (metaphorically or otherwise).
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @TheWeaseKing @arthur_affect and
Happens to men too of course, but it’s pretty much expected of women a lot of the time.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
End of conversation
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.