Coming from a different perspective, I'm suffering from empathy fatigue.
When you are (usually) empathetic to other people, you (usually) give
others the benefit of the doubt, you (usually) try to see things from
other people's point of view, you (usually) try to meet people halfway,
you can run into some other issues.
Other people can expect you to always be the adult in the room, always
make allowances for other people, and always take the high road while
not expecting themselves to do any of those things.
After a time, you can come to feel that they are taking advantage of
you, are, in fact, playing you for a fool. And you can decide that it is
time to set some pretty firm boundaries, to stop being so accommodating
and understanding, and not to always take the high road.
There are people who are operating in bad faith and whose views are
genuinely morally repugnant. Trying to find common ground or common
cause with them, will, alas, cause you to cede ground to them that you
ought, for common decency, to stand firm on.
While I cannot approve of either physical or verbal violence, there does
come a time when we have to stand up for our values.
There is undoubtedly good in every human being, but some people actively
seek to do harm. Opposing them might be more important than
understanding and trying to work with them.
In game theory terms, it's great if everyone cooperates, but you need a
strategy to cope with serial defectors, too.
Alaric Snell-Pym wrote on 5/21/20 2:44 AM May 21, 2020:
On 04/05/2020 16:49, Thaths wrote:
On Sat, May 2, 2020 at 5:39 AM Udhay Shankar N <ud...@pobox.com> wrote:
Empathy isn't easy.
When my (almost invariably economically and socially left-leaning) friends
who are venting about how awful everything (Trump, Biden, Facebook, Fox
News, Amazon, the Democratic party establishment, Republican party, Sangh
Parivar, Modi, Boris Johnson, Brexit, ...) is, I have gotten into the habit
of saying that I agree with them that the world is polarized. I then say
that one way to counter polarization is to build bridges and change minds.
I then ask them to list just one thing that their bete noir, The Other
Side, is right about.
I've found it hard that a lot of vocal people theoretically behind
causes I support - women's rights, trans rights, general inclusiveness,
etc - have become increasingly polarized. I'm sick of taking flack from
"my own side" for attempting to debate people, for instance :-(
I find it hard to give up on somebody as "irredeemably awful",
especially if the consequence of that is to badmouth them in public
while ignoring/blocking anything they say in response... it just seems
like such an arrogant approach, and one that's almost *guaranteed* to
make anybody who has any sympathy for them decide you're definitely the
bad person :-(
I think that an important consideration, when a debate with somebody
gets difficult, so "What will witnesses who are undecided about this
topic make of this debate?"...
