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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/29uypS0:
Are you familiar with affective vs. cognitive empathy? I ask because these kinds of sentiments often come from confusing the two. Affective empathy is the visceral “I feel your pain” kind of empathy, and policing that is really - to use the dreaded word - problematic. If you aren’t familiar with cognitive empathy, “empathize with a murderer” can feel like a demand that you internalize and excuse their murderous urges. And that definitely isn’t what I’m going for.
When I talk about empathy, I’m talking about cognitive empathy, which is the ability to intellectually understand someone’s emotional state. Which is so, so important. On the practical level, it’s absolutely crucial to curtailing violent crime and seeing that its perpetrators get the rehabilitation they need. You can’t fight something you don’t understand. We’ve wasted money, time, and human lives waging wars on drugs and on terrorism, and we’re hilariously ineffective precisely because we aren’t addressing the causes. These issues are systemic, and we’re throwing riot police at the symptoms while ignoring the core dysfunctions.
Empathizing with a person or a group is crucial in avoiding othering them. Othering isn’t just cruel - it’s ineffective. Treating someone like they’re no longer a real person or a valued part of society is a terrible way to improve their behavior. If you’re just a rapist, just a murderer, just a drug dealer, where’s your incentive to become anything else? Humans have this nasty habit of sinking to the level that’s expected of them. Sometimes the thing you need to hear is “you did a bad thing, yes, but you are more than this, and you can make amends and move past it.”
Are you familiar with affective vs. cognitive empathy? I ask because these kinds of sentiments often come from confusing the two. Affective empathy is the visceral “I feel your pain” kind of empathy, and policing that is really - to use the dreaded word - problematic. If you aren’t familiar with cognitive empathy, “empathize with a murderer” can feel like a demand that you internalize and excuse their murderous urges. And that definitely isn’t what I’m going for.
When I talk about empathy, I’m talking about cognitive empathy, which is the ability to intellectually understand someone’s emotional state. Which is so, so important. On the practical level, it’s absolutely crucial to curtailing violent crime and seeing that its perpetrators get the rehabilitation they need. You can’t fight something you don’t understand. We’ve wasted money, time, and human lives waging wars on drugs and on terrorism, and we’re hilariously ineffective precisely because we aren’t addressing the causes. These issues are systemic, and we’re throwing riot police at the symptoms while ignoring the core dysfunctions.
Empathizing with a person or a group is crucial in avoiding othering them. Othering isn’t just cruel - it’s ineffective. Treating someone like they’re no longer a real person or a valued part of society is a terrible way to improve their behavior. If you’re just a rapist, just a murderer, just a drug dealer, where’s your incentive to become anything else? Humans have this nasty habit of sinking to the level that’s expected of them. Sometimes the thing you need to hear is “you did a bad thing, yes, but you are more than this, and you can make amends and move past it.”
