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In reply to the discussion: Empathy has to flow both ways [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)30. Agree empathy is an individual thing that occurs within a person.
If empathy was some kind of deal to be struck, it wouldn't be empathy.
Empathy has no costs and no conditions to be met, only our ability to imagine oneself as another person in order to think and feel as he does. It certainly does not require agreement or approval, only the ability and willingness to acquire this depth of understanding of other people.
Most of the time we don't try, of course. Plus, understanding people we want to abuse has a way of taking the fun out of indulging our own faults. And some leaps are just too big, like into Trump's mind.
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I am wrestling with something that has nothing to do with you or what you have said
Cary
May 2018
#19
Empathy doesn't require, nor should a truly empathetic person expect, reciprocation or
EffieBlack
May 2018
#28
Then why do you expect empathy to be returned and feel slighted that it didn't happen?
EffieBlack
May 2018
#39