Welcome back, everybody. This is Food for Thought
Thoughts. If it were you, I'm your host, Neogentrics,
and this is Season 2. It's been a while. I'm
sorry that I haven't been back like I promised
I would. But, like I mentioned before, it is...
February, and it is Black History Month. Now,
there's only about nine days left in the month,
including today, making it about ten, but it
depends on how you look at it. Valentine's Day
wasn't as great as everyone would have hoped
it to be, and, you know, with that, a lot of
stuff happened to and from, to and fro, you know.
And as of recently, last time I heard, San Antonio
was in fact confirmed to have some cases of the
coronavirus. Now, This isn't as important as
what I was going to cover today, but I figured
I'd go ahead and bring it up. Now, with that
being said, it is Black History Month, and I
do plan to cover some black facts this month
before I, you know, finish out the month. And,
you know, like I promised, cover the other topics
that I have. But something that I wanted to go
ahead and cover, because I wanted to make sure
that other people understood it, is what is empathy?
What is sympathy? And, you know, how they differ.
Typically, we don't really consider these two
things to be separate. A lot of people consider
them to be the same thing or be related to each
other in some way or form. And they're not wrong.
In a way, they are related. Now, I'm going to
take a short break here. We're going to come
back. I'm going to talk real quick. briefly about
empathy, and then we'll come back after that
and talk about sympathy and then how they're
different. So, let's get started, shall we? So,
we're back. Let's go ahead and discuss empathy,
shall we? First things first. The dictionary
definition, right? It's the ability to understand
and share the feelings of others or another person
in general. Now, I can't say I understand how
this feels, or, you know, the general emotion
of it, because medically I'm inept, so I've been
tested for it, but apparently I am incapable
of feeling empathy. But, for those who know what
it is, I can give a brief overview of what it
is, and, you know, you can come to your own conclusion.
Now... Empathy, essentially, is the capacity
to understand or, you know, feel what other people
is experiencing from, you know, within their
frame of reference or their understanding in
some regard. You know, it's the capacity to place
oneself in another person's position, essentially.
You know, it basically encompasses a broad range
of emotional states all at once, okay? Well,
first off, why is this even important? Well,
while empathy may... fail you know sometimes
most people are able to empathize with others
in various situations and you know they have
the ability to see things the other person's
perspective or viewpoint and then you know in
a way sympathize with another's emotions which
plays an important role in our social lives in
other words the contribution of empathy to judgment
and you know moral judgment is of that standard
now With that being said, here's the theory behind
it, okay? These are just brief conclusions over
it. I mean, if y 'all want me to go more in -depth
on what empathy is, I can. But, um, the simulation
theory of empathy is essentially that it's a
theory that holds that humans can anticipate
and make sense of the behavior of others by activating
mental processes that, in a way, um... carried
into action, you know, would produce similar
behaviors. This includes intentional behavior
as well as an expression of certain emotions.
With that, there are certain characteristics.
The top 10 traits of empathy that exist, well,
you know what? I won't go into that because if
I do, then this whole episode will be on empathy.
But, you know, the trademark of an empath is
that they feel They absorb the other person's
emotions or physical symptoms because of their
high sensitivity. Some people are really sensitive
to this. And they filter the world through the
intuition that they have gained from that. But
then they often have a difficult time intellectualizing
how they actually feel. The last half is the
expression. Like, in every intimate relationship,
empathy is a key in relationship success. Showing
your significant other. you have with you that
you have the ability to understand how they feel
and experience whether or not you know it what
it means to be hurt in pain longing frustration
you know and make them feel hurt that's the greatest
gift you can give someone at least that's what
i've been told so with that being said we'll
take a short break here and i'm gonna cover sympathy
next Now, this segment is going to be fairly
short for the simple fact that, you know, like
I mentioned before, sympathy is a relation off
of empathy. Now, I can go on a tangent here and
cover what sympathy is, you know, in greater
detail. And, you know, it would be its own episode
on its own. But for the sake of this discussion.
Let's just look at sympathy on its own a little
bit, and then I'll go into, in another episode,
what the main drawback from these two things
is. Now, sympathy, by definition, means the feelings
of pity, sorrow for someone else's misfortune,
or an understanding between people or some type
of common feeling. With that being said, sympathy
is typically the perception, understanding, or
reaction to the distress or need of another life
form, typically animal or human. And this sympathetic
concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from
a person's perspective to the perspective of
another person, individual, or group member.
And this stems from a lot of things, from biblical
things to basic everyday life. And while sympathy
doesn't have any major level meanings or anything
of that nature, a lot of people don't seem to
understand the difference between the two. So,
with that being said, I'm going to end this segment
fairly early, and then we're going to go ahead
and talk about how these two are completely different.
So, picking up where I left off. So, if empathizing
is the ability to understand and sympathizing
is the ability to feel, then how would you describe
them completely different? So, first off, how
are empathy and sympathy the same? Well, in terms
of sympathy and empathy, they're often confused
and with good reason. I mean, both of the words
deal with relationship. a person has to the feeling
and experiences of another person, so that makes
them the same. So then, let's explore the main
differences between these terms and how they're
commonly used. Sympathy and empathy have roots
in the Greek term pathos, meaning suffering and
feeling. So, like I mentioned before, what is
sympathy? Sympathy is the older of the two terms.
It entered English in the mid -1500s, I do believe,
with a very broad meaning of agreement or harmony
and qualities between things or people. Since
then, the term has come to be used in more specific
ways. Nowadays, sympathy is largely used to convey
commiseration, pity, a feeling of sorrow for
someone else who... experienced misfortune or
someone died. I mean, you feel bad for them,
but you don't know what it is like to be in their
shoes. So, I mean, that's essentially sympathy.
I mean, consider the following. Say, how do I
put this? Pity may represent a little more than
the interpersonal concern, which prompts the
mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the
personal concern which demands the giving of
one's soul. Quote is from Martin Luther King
Jr. This is essentially sympathy. Well, if that's
sympathy, what is empathy? No, obsolete meaning
from the field of psychology. Psychologists began
using empathy as a translation for the German
term Einfühling. Well, however that's pronounced.
Anyway, the concept that a person could project
their own feelings onto a viewed target or objective.
Unlike sympathy, empathy has come to be used
in a broader way than when it was first introduced.
The term is now mostly often used to refer to
the capacity or ability to imagine oneself in
the situation of another, experiencing the emotions,
ideas, opinions of that person. As you get older,
you have more respect and empathy for your parents.
Now I have a great relationship with both of
them. Now, that's a quote from Hugh Jackman,
but it gives a pretty good idea. But essentially,
to sum up everything that I've covered so far,
the main difference between the most commonly
used meanings of these two terms is this. Sympathy
is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the
hardships that another person encounters, whereas
empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another,
which is why actors often talk about it. So keep
this in mind. Now while this wasn't a typical
podcast like the ones that I usually do, I just
wanted to go ahead and get this out of the way.
Now there is some other topics I'd love to cover,
and I'm going to get to those as soon as I can.
But with this out of the way, I can now focus
on those topics, and if the request comes in,
I'll do an episode that mainly focuses on just
sympathy as a whole. It's been fun, guys. Thanks
for listening. Until next time, this is your
host, Neogentrix.