emotional-intelligence

Can empathy be overdone and detrimental?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Can a person be highly empathetic and think empathy can be overdone and in many cases detrimental to better outcomes? Can being conscious of empathy and in control of your emotions be called for to create more realistic circumstances?”

No. You’re conflating empathy with other unrelated characteristics such as sympathy or pity.

Empathy is a complex phenomenon, more adequately described as an additional sense, not entirely unlike intuition or your other five senses. It’s a blend of cognitive parsing, information gathering, and processing, adding a layer of intellectual stimulation to our understanding.

There are three types of empathy: “affective empathy” (or “emotional” — feeling what someone else feels), “compassionate empathy” (recalling one’s feelings from similar situations and re-experiencing the emotion), and “cognitive empathy,” (intellectually identifying the emotions and connecting them to stimuli to comprehend the context in which the feelings are expressed).

The people most prone to being overwhelmed by an empathetic response to stimuli, often referred to as “hyper-sensitive,” struggle to discern between original feelings generated within and feelings they pick up from external stimuli. Their empathetic natures are primarily derived from the emotional form of empathy, akin to a radio tuned into a station while the volume is set to maximum. It can be overwhelming to find oneself tuned into powerful signals.

It can take a lifetime to cope with one’s sensitivity, primarily because of a lack of social support for such sensitivity. More often than not, highly sensitive types tend to be targeted by bullies because they are perceived as easy victims who are also usually shunned by their peers. This lack of support can lead to feelings of isolation and exacerbate the challenges that sensitive individuals face in society.

These have been socially acceptable attitudes toward highly sensitive people, while many still doubt that empathy is genuine and is not a personality dysfunction. The first of these two questions is an example of misunderstanding empathy on that disparagement vector.

The second question, however, points toward a somewhat effective solution or means of coping with one’s sensitivity. Learning to discern between one’s natural feeling and those one receives from others on a subliminal level is crucial to maintaining one’s composure, if not sanity.

On the upside, once one learns to master the all-too-rare skill of self-awareness, they discover they possess a “superpower” and become “human lie detectors.” It can be frightening to learn that they are talking to a stranger who almost instantly knows their deepest secrets and more about them than they know about themselves.

Empaths who have mastered their emotional regulation and awareness skills also learn to conceal their awareness of others, as they generally don’t want to create enemies who are intimidated by them. Making matters more complicated is that one’s empathetic sensitivities are not infallible and can often be mistaken about other people. Much of this judgment error is due to unresolved personal growth issues. In essence, what I referred to as a “superpower” is more about “power over oneself” rather than over others.

Highly empathetic people tend to be the most honest because they must learn to be honest with themselves to maintain their internal equanimity. Living with the lies one tells oneself is much harder to do when one’s cognitive dissonance escalates rapidly, much more so than for those with diminished sensitivities to empathy.

The two other forms of empathy, “cognitive” and “compassionate,” generally complement affective empathy, but there may be cases where they don’t. I don’t know of such cases, nor see how that’s possible. Still, I’m not a professional who has spent a lifetime studying the manifestations of empathy in thousands of patients and volunteers.

Emotional regulation is otherwise a skill that anyone can benefit from, regardless of their sensitivities or empathetic capabilities.

Is Empathy a fundamental weakness of Western civilization?

This post is a “twofer.” It’s a response to a question posed in its complete format: “What do you think about Elon Musk saying “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-empathy-quote/“ — In this case, I’m setting up my answer with an answer to another question: “What role does empathy play in understanding and connecting with the thoughts of others?”

Empathy is a conduit to understanding and connecting with others.

Empathy is like an additional sense or language allowing more profound insights into people than a typical means of sharing information about oneself with others.

“How you say something is as important as what you say.”

I assume you’ve encountered this above phrase or similar ones to understand how meaning is conveyed in ways beyond the definitions of the words one uses.

Empathy is similar in that one identifies more closely with the emotions of others, which makes it easier to connect with people on much deeper levels much more quickly than most people are used to.

Empathy is otherwise the glue that keeps human civilization together.

“Evil is a lack of empathy.”

This sentence above is the simple answer that most have already presented, so I had intended to ignore this question. Tomaz Vargazon’s answer, however, has motivated me to provide my input by the inclusion of the full quote he provided from Musk’s interview with Joe Rogan:

Musk: Yeah, he’s [Gat Saad] awesome, and he talks about, you know, basically suicidal empathy. Like, there’s so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So, we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on. And it’s like, I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide.

Rogan: Also don’t let someone use your empathy against you so they can completely control your state and then do an insanely bad job of managing it and never get removed.

Musk: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.

  1. “Suicidal empathy”
  2. “Don’t let someone use your empathy against you.”
  3. The “empathy exploit.”

These three statements indicate that these sociopathic morons don’t understand empathy because they are conflating “ compassion” with “empathy.”

These are not the same thing. Not by a long shot.

Empathy operates like a sensory receiver, while compassion is a cognitive process of identifying with another life.

Empathy cannot be “used against someone” any more than one’s eyes can be used against them.

The ability to experience another’s emotions is not a weakness but a strength.

Another issue is how we process our understanding of the emotions we detect.

The only vulnerability to exploit is the trust connection between individuals, and that exploit exists regardless of either party’s empathetic capabilities.

Their arguments are the equivalent of claiming one can be susceptible to being robbed because they know more about the criminal attempting to rob them.

It’s a bloody ludicrous argument forwarded only by sociopaths who have no clue what empathy is.

The harsh reality in today’s world is that empathetic people are victimized precisely because they’re walking, talking, living, and breathing lie detectors.

Anyone with advanced empathetic sensitivities understands precisely what I’ve just said. Every sociopath on the planet would otherwise vehemently deny this is the case while using this statement to vilify anyone who reveals this truth to the public.

Only sociopaths would ever dare to consider empathy a weakness because they recognize empathy as a superpower wielded by people who always default to showing compassion toward others, especially toward those like them, who comprise the most broken humans among us.

The lesson of today’s age and of this garbage pronouncement by the most destructive sociopaths we have seen emerge in society has pushed the tolerances and compassions that empathetic people experience toward humanity past the brink of decency and forces us to realize how our species is in a severe struggle for survival.

If we allow these sociopathic monsters to continue defining humanity for us, civilized society as we know it will crumble.

Now is the time for empathy to assert itself as humanity’s superpower and end the scourge of sociopathy before it’s too late.

Now is the time for the meek to inherit the Earth because these monsters have no respect for life beyond their fleeting whims.

These are expressions from people who have no reverence for anything outside their navels.

The more we allow them to assert dominion over humanity’s character, the more they teach us they will relent only when we break and repeat history.

Should we care about others’ feelings when being honest?

To be completely honest within this context, one must also be honest with one’s motivations for “being honest” in the first place.

“Being honest” does not necessitate conveying any messages to anyone else. There is always a motivation for the information one shares. To “be honest,” one must be aware of why they are compelled to share that information and what they seek to accomplish by sharing that information.

For example, to “be honest” about telling someone they’re fat and ugly isn’t actually “being honest” beyond informing the other person of what one’s personal biases are. Delivering information in a callously insensitive manner implies that the honesty of their intent is emotional manipulation.

To be completely and transparently honest within such a context, one should qualify their opinion by being honest about their biases. “I’m very biased toward a person’s aesthetics and react viscerally to the condition someone of being overweight due to unresolved personal issues, and because I’ve been conditioned to define beauty within a shallow, commercialized, sanitized, and two-dimensional context, therefore I interpret your physicality as fat and ugly.”

No one ever goes to such lengths to explain their biases. Most people who indulge in the “honest” expressions of their biases just cut to the conclusion, and that’s much more hurtful to the feelings of others. The consequence of “failing to care” about the emotions of others in such a context demonstrates one does care about the other person’s feelings, not in a productive or supportive way but rather in a destructive way. They intend to create harm deliberately, which implies “caring” about other’s feelings.

They are not sharing their honest opinion in such a context but conveying information to hurt the feelings of others. Within such a context, “being honest” necessitates being forthcoming about the nature of their opinion and why they share it. In either case, one does not escape “caring” about other’s feelings while implying they care more about escaping the consequences of their impact on that person’s feelings.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone declare, “I’ve got personal issues to resolve; therefore, I’m going to use you as my vessel for working them out to make myself feel better by making you feel worse about yourself.”

That would be an example of a bully “being honest” (for a change).

Cases outside the context of an abuser/victim dynamic can have a significant impact on the feelings of others, such as informing someone of the passing of a loved one. No matter how one delivers that information, the other person’s feelings will be impacted.

One’s intentions are just as crucial to sharing information within this context as in the previous example.

To be honest with one’s intentions, in this case, means understanding how one’s information is delivered impacts the receiver’s ability to parse that information fully and accurately. Ensuring the other party successfully understands the message conveyed within its complete context, some level of awareness and sensitivity to their emotions is crucial to the success of their information delivery efforts.

Failing to consider the emotional impact of the information conveyed implies that one’s intentions are less focused on knowledge transfer than on impacting the recipient’s emotional state.

In both cases, these are examples in which one does not escape the consequences of their regard toward the feelings of others in the information-sharing process.

Emotion is a component within an information-sharing context, even in benign situations such as small talk. “It’s a beautiful day today.” This may superficially seem like an unemotional example of innocuous small talk, but the reactions it can engender carry an emotional component within it. The emotions are not as pronounced as in the previous examples, but they exist. One feels better by being reminded of a pleasant experience, just as they would feel something if the day were not beautiful (which, in and of itself, is an emotionally charged word due to its subjective nature).

Further stripping emotion from the dynamic of information-sharing by limiting interaction to a functional level, such as a transaction, still contains an emotional element because humans are emotional beings. For example, “Your McSappy Meal is $5.99” can engender an emotion in the recipient who feels overcharged.

“One plus one equals two.” — “Can you prove that?” or “Do you think I’m too stupid to know that?” or “I’m not a friggin’ child in elementary school. Can’t you provide a better analogy?”

Being honest means being honest about the nature of the care demonstrated toward the feelings of the person with whom they share their information. To care about the feelings of others often implies enough sensitivity toward their emotional state to minimize a potential disturbance, but that’s not the complete spectrum of caring about the feelings of others. Far too many people “care” so much about how others feel that they devote significant energy toward ensuring others feel worse than they do.

Some people “care” so much about other’s feelings that they make a point of being utterly dishonest with themselves while sharing information intended to create harm or incite conflict while escaping the consequences of doing so through a mask of innocence they can declare as “being honest.”

All information shared between people implies an emotional dynamic within its conveyance, either strictly by the content or when augmented by the messenger’s intentions. There is no escape from feelings in communication, while “being honest” includes acknowledging the emotional component of their messages and the impact on the receiver.