Can you empathize for the other side?

[Swede]

Empathy:verb To understand or be sensitive to another's feelings or ideas

This question will never get asked on freerepublic.


My grammar may be atrocious on edit.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Yes but I still think they are wrong

and that they are selfish bastards.

[stray cat]

2. Your right it won't - but how many here will respond postively?

[Swede]

6. They are our fellow human beings.

Not vampires or demons.

[blondeatlast]

3. No, and I've tried. I'm surrounded by Reps in my red county.

There seems to be a major disconnect in our philosphies. I really have tried, but empathy--nope, I've tried repeatedly.

[graywarrior]

4. Yes, because they make our side look good.

[MadMaddie]

9. ha, ha.. you are absolutely right!

[Swamp Rat]

5. What "other side?"

[Swede]

24. We are lost if we cannot.

Lost. I know they won't,we have to.

[tridim]

7. I would empathize if the other side stuck to the facts

Unfortunately that's not the case.

Ignoring reality is a choice. They all know Faux and Rush are lying to them, yet they still believe.

[Zoeisright]

23. +1

And I'd empathize if they weren't so vicious and hateful. Especially since Democrats are trying to help them.

[JerseygirlCT]

8. Well, yes.

I understand that fear and misunderstanding (often intentionally nurtured by those on the right in politics or media) drive a great deal of this.

They're being handed all sorts of misinformation, tailored specifically to their fears and doubts. I think many are reacting just as expected.

Now, the folks who are creating this fear and misinformation... them,I find very hard to emphathize with. Their motivation never seems to be a positive one; simply about inreasing their own wealth or power.

[silverweb]

10. No.

I used to, but I learned long ago that they treat anyone who approaches them with empathy as weak, to be marginalized and/or obliterated.

Furthermore, years of careful study and attempts to understand them have proven that their language is simply too purposefully deceitful, and their positions are too contradictory and hypocritical to be condoned.

[cali]

11. no, but I won't lie about them or put false quotes in their mouths

Can't say I empathize but I can be fair.

[mwb970]

12. If I believed what they believe, I'd be terrified too.

They are horrifically misinformed, and predisposed to believe anything bad about Obama and other progressives, no matter how implausible sounding. Some of them are actually stupid, but many more are smart enough, but totally ignorant of the real world. They listen only to the likes of Beck and Limbaugh, who confirm their misconceptions every day.

It would be easier to empathize with them if I myself had been brainwashed and had somehow escaped. But as it is, I'm on the outside looking in.

[JerseygirlCT]

16. I agree with your assessment. nt

[BOG PERSON]

13. I only understand when others attempt to make themselves understood.

Otherwise I save myself the trouble.

[Posteritatis]

14. To a point, easily or with difficulty depending on where in the other side I'm looking. (nt)

[spanone]

15. not if they are dealing lies. if they factually disagree, i can empathize

[merh]

17. I can with those I know personally, with the people that I know

enough about to understand where they are coming from or what has occurred in their lives that could cause them to have their feelings or positions. I can understand and accept them in my life (family, friends, etc). However, if they don't try to understand my position, when I am ridiculed or shouted down and treated differently because they don't extend me the same courtesy I have simply closed the door. It is the only way I have found to live with the inequity, with their closed mindedness.

As far as those I do not know, I try to understand but it isn't easy. I think everyone on DU should find a mixed board to post at. It is good to have DU to come to so that we know we aren't alone. It is a good place to vent and learn. But it doesn't provide a place to try to understand why "they" think as they do.

[Warpy]

18. I do all the time

It was part of my job as a nurse to get into people's heads to figure out what made them tick so that I could use what they had to offer in order to help them get better and stay out of the hospital.

Some of those people were angry Freeper types. Channeling that anger into a recovery effort was the goal.

Most of them have a great deal of both free floating anger and free floating anxiety. Both those things have been used very effectively by the far right and they're very obligingly hating everyone they've been given permission to hate. The sad part is that a lot of the anxiety and anger are perfectly justified. They just don't have what it takes upstairs to be able to figure out why they're anxious and who to be angry at.

I understand them pretty well. I won't accept their bullshit silently and I won't tolerate bad behavior, but I do understand where it's all coming from.

[AllieB]

19. I've tried, but I just can't.

They have no empathy toward anything that doesn't conform to their world view. They quite literally are against the principles of this country, and would be more at home in countries like Iran or back in the dark days of Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany.

[BOG PERSON]

20. Are you seriously comparing Iran to Nazi Germany

[AllieB]

35. No.

[donco6]

21. Why?

Half the people on this board anymore can't even empathize with OUR side.

[Overseas]

22. I can empathize with the public whose fear and anger have been manipulated

by professional right wing PR firms to be against the government instead of where it should be focused-- on the profit-driven insurance firms who have bled them dry. The private insurers were desperate to ensure that discussions this summer at town hall meetings avoided the abundant pain and suffering their rapacious policies have caused. During the Bush years of pro-corporate pro-war agendas, the private insurers really stepped up their money grabbing. Please see www.sickforprofit.com . The GOP and their right wing angels needed to divert the discussion so they stirred up fear and hatred in vulnerable populations and got them to storm town hall meetings against their own best interests. The corporations conducted professional bullying to protect their private profits. Sick, frightened, angry people were swindled into those right wing rallies. Their pain and anger continues to be manipulated and misdirected by multi-millionaire right wing radio and TV hosts and a 24-hour TV network run by Rupert Murdoch to oppose all Democratic reform.

I can empathize with people who are angry that the Bush Gang bankrupted the country and deregulated the financial sector so they had to toss $700 billion of our money to rescue Wall Street right before President Obama was elected. And left a country in shambles, domestically and internationally, for President Obama to clean up.

I can empathize with people who are angry that the top 1% in America own 95% of the wealth, and hope they go see Michael Moore's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story," opening soon. He may be able to show them just who has really been encroaching on their freedoms.

I can empathize with people who have seen the rich on Wall Street get billions while they can't even get free medical care or a moratorium on all foreclosures.

I can empathize with populist anger and hope it can be turned around to demand strict regulation of the financial sector, more stimulus funding, green energy and Medicare for All.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

25. I feel enough empathy to believe that they should go and get the psychiatric care that they need.

I think they are suffering from PTSD and paranoia.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. yes, but I know the day I don't

I start into the dehumanizing of the other side.

[Swede]

27. That is my point.

They are fellow humans.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

34. precisely.

[Speck Tater]

28. My mom HATES unions, and I understand why.

It's 1945. I was two weeks old. My mom was a country girl fresh off the farm who had married and moved to the big city. My dad was in middle management. The union at the company he worked for went on strike. He was one of the people who negotiated with the union. During negotiations thugs from the union repeatedly called my mother, the scared stiff 22-year old country girl, threatening her and her family (which at the time was only me, her infant son). They told her she better not let herself be caught alone away from the house. It scared the bejeebers out of her. She couldn't sleep at night fearing that every little noise was the union thugs breaking into the house to kill her newborn son. And the threats went on for weeks.

She has spent the last 64 years hating unions with a passion, and she will not listen to reason on the subject. I understand that, and I sympathize with it. She was deeply traumatized by those thugs.

While I do not agree with her about unions, that's OK. I still love her, and she still loves me.

It is possible to coexist peacefully.

[seabeyond]

29. empathy is an easy one for me. nt

[appamado amata padam]

30. Pity, or sympathy, but

no empathy for willfully ignorant, violent, boorish a**holes. No.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

31. depends on what side we are talking about? i have plent of empathy on some issues

that i think there is a genuine gray area. somethings however, i dont have empathy for. avarice is one such thing.

[earth mom]

32. No, I have no empathy for sociopaths/psychopaths. I only feel sorry for them.

Empathy would be wasted on them anyway.

[NoSheep]

33. Yes, That's why I want to shut down Faux news. The lies aren't helping my opponents in the long run