[thinkingemote]

Thats sympathy. Empathy is different from sympathy.

I can be sympathetic without really empathising with someone, and I can have empathy with someone without being sympathetic. Empathy uses more energy.

Ingroups tend to avoid empathy with outgroups because that weakens the separateness between people, and ingroups try to strengthen ingroup sympathy. Pity is a form of sympathy.

Sympathy: "I feel bad for you"

Empathy: "I understand you"

Often an ingroup member will not understand an outgroup member but can sympathize with their troubles or feel pity for them. Sympathy doesn't cost as much as empathy. Empathy challenges one's ingroup cohesion.

[fellowniusmonk]

As someone who grew up in poverty, had my first heart surgery at 3 and was constantly confronted with dying and then had both parents die while I was young.

I think people greatly overestimate their ability to have/experience empathy.

I think the more divergent someones experience is, the more empathy is not available and the conceit that you can understand a complex issue you haven't experienced is a form of good hearted but self centered foolishness.

Give me sympathy, give me tangible help, give me money perhaps, you should feel bad for me and bad about what's happening and then stop putting sugar in your tea as a tangible effort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce) and then treat me with normalcy and respect and consider me as an equal.

There are parallels in the movie industry as well, one film directors quote (who said it and the exact quote I've long forgotten) I like to paraphrase went something like this: "Making creative movies to your vision was easier when the studio execs were old and would just go 'I dont get it but let the young people give it a shot' than when non-creatives started to meddle in movies because they think they have a knack for it".

This video was popular for while and set a lot of discourse around empathy/sympathy and imo it is harmful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBTYViDPlQ

[zzzeek]

should have been more specific. I am not a stranger to cult indoctrination. Plus I grew up with these people in the same house. So I actually know where she is coming from and to some extent what it's like to be indoctrinated (I had a bried stint with scientology 30 years ago). It's fully possible to be empathetic for someone's worldview and still know that they are completely wrong. I'm not sure how that's not feasible.

[fellowniusmonk]

I've lost several people to cults over the years and I sympathize.

People (not yourself obviously) confuse empathy and sympathy with agreement and that's simply not the case of course.

It's tough when you see yourself so strongly in someone else and share experience with them and they are destroying their lives by putting their trust in liars.

This is painful to see even in severe cases when someone is sucked in due to their own self serving biases.

It's frustrating though. Wrong people are still wrong. It's not that hard to "ground propositions" on the issues most people deal with in their practical lives (once you've conceded that physical reality exists.)

Good luck and hang in there.

[burrows]

What does ”I understand you.” mean? That I am able to correctly predict your future behavior?