The Republican Party - or at least some of its notables and cheerleaders - have been struggling to define the meaning of the word "empathy". They believe it is not a characteristic that should be found in a Supreme Court pick. Dahlia Lithwick has the story in Slate, which describes various grandees denouncing Obama for saying that, in seeking David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court, he would like to find a figure "with empathy".
The problem for most of those quoted is that they appear to have confused the word empathy with sympathy. Both of which - judging by those quoted - are regarded as sentiments to be checked at the court's door. I am not sure who I am more shocked by. By RNC Chairman Michael Steele who described Obama's desire for an empathetic nominee thus: "Crazy nonsense empathetic! I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!" Or by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah who believes that possession of empathy means that "politics, preferences, personal preferences and feelings might take the place of being impartial and deciding cases based upon the law, not upon politics."
But there is an crucial difference. Both words have their root in the Greek word pathos (which does not have the same meaning that we understand in "pathos"). The first suggests an interconnectedness of emotions that indicates that the one feeling sympathy has an emotional common cause with the person, cause or event for whom the sympathy is being felt.
If one takes the Merriam Webster definition it can mean the following:
1 a: an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other b: mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it c: unity or harmony in action or effect <every part is in complete sympathy with the scheme as a whole
2 a: inclination to think or feel alike : emotional or intellectual accord <in sympathy with their goals> b: feeling of loyalty : tendency to favor or support <republican sympathies>
Empathy, however, is very different. The point about empathy is that it is largely the emotion of someone who is outside of the experience - often out of sympathy - who is required by an act of imagination to attempt to understand someone else's point of view or experience.
The reality, I fear, is that the misunderstanding of the distinction between the two words is not simply a question of ignorance. It is rather more sinister. Sympathy is largely passive most of the time. It is an emotion that you feel or that you do not. It cannot be constructed out of effort. Empathy is far more active. It requires facts, context and imagination in a process that will not necessarily bring one to sympathy but perhaps to a better knowledge of someone's situation and motives.
Which is why - for those quoted by Lithwick - it will always be suspect. Because knowledge is dangerous, above all the knowledge of how those who are our enemies, or of whom we disapprove, are inspired to behave.
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