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Quote of the Day: Empathy
“People without emotions cannot make sensible decisions because they don’t know how much anything is worth. People without social emotions like empathy are not objective decision-makers. They are sociopaths who sometimes end up on death row.” — David Brooks
2 Responses to “Quote of the Day: Empathy”
“…how much anything is worth….”
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Worth to whom and for what reasons? You can have empathy, but you must definitely understand what you're having empathy for. To put it in religious terms [unfortunate but effective], the devil has a million masks and most of them are quite attractive. The best of them play on our natural inclination towards empathy. “Political-correctness” is the hallmark of this diabolical acheivement. Should we discard all causes that are “politically correct”? No, of course not. But we should examine each one with an objective eye to make sure it's everything it's advertised to be..
My favorite quip I've read on this was “Without empathy we don't need judges, just laws.”
My favorite point is that empathy is entirely different than sympathy or compassion. Empathy merely means expressing and understanding where someone is coming from, “putting yourself in their shoes.” I can be empathetic with a terrorist Palestinian that suicide bombs Israel while still thinking it's terribly wrong (watch Paradise Now for an example). A judge needs to be able to understand context of what drives an action and then determine whether it was reasonable, fit the parameters of the law and how individual and social impulses are balanced.
That's extremely important in a Supreme Court justice who is ruling on constitutionality, especially since so many times it's unclear.