Comment by ImPostingOnHN
5 months ago
Why limit that protective instinct to physical abuse?
What we see in the thread is people doing what you're talking about: trying to step in to stop abuse. The fact that it isn't a beating doesn't mean it isn't abuse.
I'm not limiting outward action. I'm making a case for additional inward action: empathy.
Edit: I think you're mistaking empathy with passivity.
I saw plenty of empathy in the discussion for the slop-copy author.
I also saw plenty of empathy in the discussion for Don Ho.
There was probably more of the second than the first, which makes sense, as the victim deserves more empathy than the perpetrator, especially while the perpetrator continues to victimize others.
You misunderstand empathy. Its purpose is to see things clearly: a wrongdoer, victimizer, etc. is still human. A victim is not more human. Empathy is outside circumstance. Only when you don't understand it, you start using it in concert with sympathy. They're different things. Ask yourself this: do you need a lack of empathy to recognize that someone is acting in a destructive way?
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