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ilex  ·  1612 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Thoughts on sympathy and empathy

Something important to keep in mind is that when shit sucks, it's nice to hear "yeah wow that sounds hard, I'm sorry it's like that" (what I'd call sympathy?), but this should be just the first part of 'helping others'. Whether you want to call it empathy or compassion or whatever, we need to understand why shit sucks and what we can do about it. And, critically, we can't predicate that understanding on having been in the exact position someone else has been in! Whatever power we might have, we need to use it to make life better for those who lack that power, and the only way I see that happening is through empathy.