Posted by Tal on August 01, 1999 at 14:42:38:
In Reply to: Re: Empathy = fear + identification? Wrong !!!!! posted by Ronnie on August 01, 1999 at 10:12:19:
> Tal, Andy said he didn't want to argue so much about you why you're wrong, because he just feels so. His opinion, your opinion is different, so what?
Differing opinions is fine. My opinions have differed with people here more than once, and we've left it at that with no hard feelings. But if you're going to state someone's opinion is wrong, it stands to reason you should follow it up with a reasonable argument. I can envision your reaction had I posted to the thread on gender below "you're wrong. Differences between men and women are all genetic. I know because I have a hunch."
> A neat way of driving a five nuts, by denying intellectual debate and talk about feelings alone. :)
Among others... :)
> I feel much like Andy--argumenting about your opinions feels like a drag. To me it's just because it seems the contexts behind ideas are theoretical and detach from real-life experience. The feelings caused by theories aren't much when compared to real-life experience, and when having a strong feeling function, talking about abstract theories isn't too natural to me. Anyway, some commets of mine follow.
> The empathy of twos *is* real, the reasons behind it may wary, but what is is. In your opinion it could be claimed that the thinking function of unhealthy fives is just an illusion as well.
The gravitation towards thinking in a Five is perfectly real, but the feeling of incompetence--and that the ability to function rests on gaining more knowledge--that a Five feels is an illusion. And this part of the Five's mechanism is what correspond's to the Two's covering up neediness, or to any other type's mechanism. These are all illusions--Twos don't really need an endless supply of affection; Fives would be perfectly competent if they stopped intellectualising, etc.
> In my opinion it's not, the ideas might be warped and strange, but still result of genuine thinking.
> I think what Andy was trying to say was if you'd try to emulate a two, you'd be afraid of the intense emotions flowing all over you.
It'd be impossible for me to emulate a Two, because I don't feel an overwhelming need for affection. I don't think a Two could begin to emulate a Five either, since the feeling that competence rests on knowledge isn't there. Nor am I afraid of intense emotions--the Four side of me wishes the defense mechanisms of intellectualisation would crack more often.
Aside from which, though I have a strong Four wing, I'm not an overly emotional person, and Twos are probably the most emotional of the types.
> Btw, I don't identify stronger with something that "could happen to me". I think it's a sixish trait.
I'm not talking about conscious fears. Sixes do indeed sit around fearing all the things that could happen to them. What I referred to was that there is a subconscious process going on called identification which leads you to feel closer emotionally to something which is similar to you than to something which is dissimilar.
You can't feel emotionally close to a rock, because you can't envision being a rock. You don't think of a rock as something with life (rightly so) or emotions similar to yours. For the same reason a person finds it harder to relate to someone living thousands of miles away than to someone living in their neighbourhood. Herein lies the reason for 'local' media: you don't see your local newspaper carrying headlines about car accidents in Venezuela, while if there is a fatal crash in your area it makes the front page. Why is this? It's because people, on a very deep, subconscious level, relate to the things they *know* and that are close to them.
Hence an emotional person is likely not only to feel more deeply, but to have a broader range of emotions than a rational person. Result: it's easier for them to empathize. It's impossible to empathize with someone who's feeling something you never have (we can feel for an ant because it's alive like us, not because we know what it's like to be an ant!) But if you've felt almost everything, that's rarely a barrier (though it can be a hindrance in itself).
> "all emotions are at root reactions to intellectual assessments"
> Do I sense something like "emotions are for lesser beings" here?
No; all emotions *are* rooted in intellectual assessments. Very basic, subconscious assessments. For instance, you feel sadness when your brain assesses that your current situation is now worse than it was previously (or that it stands to be worse than it is now), e.g. when someone close to you dies, the knowledge you have to go on without that person leads to a very fundamental judgement that your situation is now worse in that respect.
It's nothing like people sitting around a table working out complex equations thinking "oh, so now I should be sad."
As for reason vs. emotion... they both have their place, and both are indispensible. Along the same lines of Einstein's comment about science and faith.
> In any case, I find it more than a tad amazing that you first comment someone's opinion of empathy (being connected to the world) and in the next sentence you ask that person to state his opinion of empathy! You sure you're relaxed?
Yes.. I've got my legs up on a stool... a glass of orange juice with a little umbrella... I'm perfectly relaxed :)
The comment about clarification was in response to Andy's saying he wasn't going to elaborate. The response further down was to the little he elaborated.
> Why do you insist everyone feels and thinks the way you do? I don't feel more empathy towards someone victim of "what could've happened to me". That's a sixish reaction to potential threats in the surroundings.
Again, you're confusing conscious thought with subconscious. Sixes are probably the only type which consciously fixates on threat; that's very different from identification, one of the most basic qualities of humans.
> I feel most empathy towards people who acknowledge they aren't perfect and are burdened by their perceived or true faults. They are in the need of caring and nurturing and usually I have a personal contact to them.
Why is acknowledgement a key factor (this is something often mentioned by Twos)? Why don't you feel sympathy for all people who suffer, regardless of whether they turn to you and say "could you help me please?"
> I don't feel much empathy to someone I'm never in contact with, no matter if s/he is a block or a continent away.
This goes back to the point about identification. In Twos the dichotomy between near/far is usually even clearer than in other types. While in other types there's a gradient (most empathy for those close, little for those far, steady slope between), Twos usually empathize *very* deeply with those near them and very little for the suffering of those they don't know. Which is understandable given that someone three continents away can't possibly say thank you for your kind intentions whereas someone near you will lavish you with affection immediately.
> You *can* feel what another person is feeling.
If this were the case then you'd be able to feel what an ant (or any other creature) feels. But you can't, because it's impossible for you to know how an ant feels. In the same way it's impossible for you to actually experience someone else's emotions. What really happens is your brain gauges (based on the things you know about people's behaviour, etc.) what they are *likely* feeling, at which point your basic human identification creates the same feelings inside you. If you could really feel what others feel, you'd never go wrong! You'd always be correct in your assessment of other people's moods and emotional nuances. But we all know this isn't the case. It's all too common for people (especially Twos, a point Riso emphasises in his descriptions) to say "oh you must feel such and such emotion" when the person isn't feeling that at all. How could this be? If empathy was really feeling what someone else feels, how could you be misled?
On this point I think Eddie's post summed it up best: empathy is based on the ability to: a) correctly judge what someone is feeling (which is an intuitive and rational enterprise) and b) identify with the emotion you've identified. Twos fit the bill better than any other type, because they make it their business to learn to identify what people feel, and because they generally have an emotional nature and so find it to identify. The catch is that they usually ignore the original reason they seek to know what people are feeling in the first place, which goes back to my original post about the illusionary nature of the mechanism itself.