Empathy is narcissism

Why does “Donna” deserve empathy, what makes her special, why should I even care about her. Empathy is a self serving trait same as any other narcissistic feature, it make the person feel special by proxy. ‘If every other human is special and a gift than so am I’[/quote]

Others are US
Including animals
Having empathy equates with having the ability to love
If you cant love then you have nothing
which is why Ns are so miserable all the time

But I agree with you on one thing
Empathy is not only self serving
Its self PRESERVING, not self preserving in an N sense but in an emotional sense

With all their grandiose thinking Ns are clueless about the world of Love & emotions.
Most Ns have the emotional maturity of a toddler
So they are missing half of whats going on in the world

All the while thinking they are Gods...

Real Gods would be ALL knowing, not short changed on emotional intelligence

ThisEndUp wrote:Why does “Donna” deserve empathy, what makes her special, why should I even care about her. Empathy is a self serving trait same as any other narcissistic feature, it make the person feel special by proxy. ‘If every other human is special and a gift than so am I’

Others are US
Including animals
Having empathy equates with having the ability to love
If you cant love then you have nothing
which is why Ns are so miserable all the time

But I agree with you on one thing
Empathy is not only self serving
Its self PRESERVING, not self preserving in an N sense but in an emotional sense

With all their grandiose thinking Ns are clueless about the world of Love & emotions.
Most Ns have the emotional maturity of a toddler
So they are missing half of whats going on in the world

All the while thinking they are Gods...

Real Gods would be ALL knowing, not short changed on emotional intelligence

My thoughts exactly. Thank you.

There doesn't need to be much of an environmental trigger if you're born with an antisocial propensity. Hard abuse is going to be correlated with callous-unemotional traits - but you can be born with these aswell.

What if a child is not abused, but rather, raised in an environment where s/he is not taught the value of morality, empathy, or helping others? Suppose this kid is not psychopathic from birth... Will they develop normally despite their lack of parental teaching, or will they adopt this worldview of self above others and taking what you want with no regard?

One of my favorite books (a professor of psychology) brought up the topic of altruism is self-serving. He is still getting beat up for writing it, but I am thankful he stirred the pot.

I don't have any strong position on empathy, other then I prefer to hang with people who view life in this way. We tend to be able to discuss hard topics with some give and take. It's also cool to end up in the I was wrong position. Being wrong is going to happen, but avoiding that we can be wrong, partially, or entirely, is weakness.

Altruism as self-serving is an old concept. It's same old evolutionary theory - it's just very trendy right now.
Altruism's a form of co-operation (self-serving) which is more effective than aggression on it's own for survival in the long run.

Empathy is just perspective taking with chemical reactions if you have proper development and activity in that area of the brain - and is for the same reason. It's real.

However, even evolutionary theory points out that true altruism exists as seen in some emergency circumstances (no benefit in or even detriment to the promotion of survival of the organism, its genes or its species) - see first paper below.

If you go that route, love, friendship, bonding, human connection is nothing than a chemical reaction encouraging a cooperation contract to keep offspring protected while it develops and for the promotion of survival of genetics or species.

If altruism doesn't exist, neither does personally meaningful self-actualization either
Just a survival drive.
Nothing more to life.

I find it odd that so many people want to dismiss the existence of things like altruism but want to hold meaning to human existence beyond mate, feed, kill, repeat in other areas.

One is language of the heart and the other is language of science (biology, chemical rxns and survival).

Same thing - different ways of referring to it.

Putting the Altruism Back in Altruism
https://science.umd.edu/faculty/wilkins ... ch2008.pdf

The Illusion of Intimacy
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... psychology

DaturaInnoxia wrote:Altruism as self-serving is an old concept. It's same old evolutionary theory - it's just very trendy right now.
Altruism's a form of co-operation (self-serving) which is more effective than aggression on it's own for survival in the long run.

Empathy is just perspective taking with chemical reactions if you have proper development and activity in that area of the brain - and is for the same reason. It's real.

However, even evolutionary theory points out that true altruism exists as seen in some emergency circumstances (no benefit in or even detriment to the promotion of survival of the organism, its genes or its species) - see first paper below.

If you go that route, love, friendship, bonding, human connection is nothing than a chemical reaction encouraging a cooperation contract to keep offspring protected while it develops and for the promotion of survival of genetics or species.

If altruism doesn't exist, neither does personally meaningful self-actualization either
Just a survival drive.
Nothing more to life.

I find it odd that so many people want to dismiss the existence of things like altruism but want to hold meaning to human existence beyond mate, feed, kill, repeat in other areas.

One is language of the heart and the other is language of science (biology, chemical rxns and survival).

Same thing - different ways of referring to it.

Putting the Altruism Back in Altruism
https://science.umd.edu/faculty/wilkins ... ch2008.pdf

The Illusion of Intimacy
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... psychology

Agree. We move forward by facing truths about ourselves.

Where did you get that from what I wrote?

DaturaInnoxia wrote:Where did you get that from what I wrote?

But when the goal is to just disagree to flank self-esteem, that is pointless eh?

It doesn't matter what I write, you will disagree, so that is a pointless exercise.

Manners73 wrote:I have the empathy debate all the time with my daughter.

She has absolutely no empathy or even sympathy for other people and I have to teach her that in order to get on in life you have to relate to what other people are feeling or at least learn to pretend to.

My empathy is more sympathy as I've learned to understand how someone might feel and I pull all the right faces and make the right noises.

I don't give two shiny shites about Donna to be honest and if I said I did then I would be lying.

People who say they have this empathy thing are lying or mentally ill.

Your duaghter has 0 empathy?

I'd love to meet such a female specimen.

xdude wrote:But when the goal is to just disagree to flank self-esteem, that is pointless eh?

It doesn't matter what I write, you will disagree, so that is a pointless exercise.

She merely asked a question.