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mk  ·  1642 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Thoughts on sympathy and empathy

    You are arguing that without perfect experience there cannot be understanding and that's a Ben Shapiro way of thinking.

This helps. I'm talking about the limits of empathy, not understanding. I can be very educated about the lesbian experience, and still not have it. This has a lot to do with what I am getting at. I can understand things that I cannot empathize with, and understanding doesn't require perfect experience.

    It requires no genius to argue that a cisgender white male will never perfectly understand the lesbian experience but it also requires a willful disregard of the human experience to argue that he shouldn't try.

Our empathy is limited. That's not to say that we cannot better understand, nor try to better understand. Of course, we should. But empathy and understanding are different things. We cannot understand our way to a place where we can speak on the behalf of someone that faces adversities we do not. We can speak in support of, but not for. My understanding can grow, but I am fooling myself if I think that my empathy will continue to expand along with my understanding. At some point, somewhere around the point it is to have been, to be, and continue to be that other person, my empathy cannot extend.

    You are arguing that humanity would be better off if we all retreated to our silos, whixh is the fundamental message of white nationalism.

I added the definitions before posting, because I knew this would likely be misinterpreted due to definitions. I'm not a silo kind of person, and we aren't better off limiting our interactions to similar folk. The converse is true. I felt the need to write this, because I've been trying to better understand why some behavior that ostensibly aligns with my ideals feels disingenuous to me.