Is It Possible To Run Out Of Empathy?

[frankfrank]

There is a term I've heard used for becoming desensitized to horrific human events - "COMPASSION FATIGUE" - enough people recognize this, that a term actually exists.

Compassion often combines empathy AND sympathy.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

I think addictions are often points at which our empathy breaks down. We sympathize with anyone suffering, but we don't really understand how a person decides to steal from his mother/wife/children, how he chooses to drive when higher than a kite, or that he may readily threaten with a weapon a convenience store clerk in a robbery. We intellectually know what is going on, but we don't empathize with those terrible choices.

interestin

tinku

 

[mikey3000]

Yes, sadly, feelings are growing numb. But the terror will escalate to new and shocking levels and re-ignite our anguish. I wish I were wrong.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

Yes, sadly, feelings are growing numb. But the terror will escalate to new and shocking levels and re-ignite our anguish. I wish I were wrong.

no figaa dat
_onlee past 200 ear no enuff ?_

beside world uni put tageda tey 1 brain cell maybe a geet idea
_or a 1st worldee pubwix wots a jawjaw so murccccccccch disova 1_

anyway

tinku

 

[mikey3000]

Slops my man, you are absolutely right. This time I predict, hmmm...lets say Vermont at the end of the month, to coincide with the DNC. Wouldn't that be a hoot.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Not really, some times it just turns into anger or frustration.

 

[rareboy]

I think that you can run out of empathy....but hopefully never out of sympathy.

I'm old enough to remember all the events from the 1960's.

My grandparents, of course, could recount all they went through from the 1930's in Europe.

I think that we now live in an age where we are expected to invest so much emotional effort into every act of terror or crime against relatively small groups of people or individuals that we become desensitized and sometimes grow even a little resentful that the events just keep coming...it is as though we actually expect that the horrors will stop.

Well they won't.

They haven't for all the recorded human history. They aren't going to stop this week or next month or the next century.

We now seem to be able to accept mass starvation, state or tribal genocide, mass incarceration, or hundreds of thousands killed in wars of adventure....we seem to be have come to terms with all these things...but now, if a madman opens fire in a nightclub, or someone shoots some police officers...there seems to be an expectation, driven by the news media and social media that every one of these events be treated as though it is the equivalent of the WORST ATROCITIES EVER!

So here's the thing.

When the US starts to get its shit together on guns and racism....I will start to invest more emotional capital into mass shootings.

When all Abrahamic religions join together to disavow the violence, misogyny and homophoia of their Talmudic tribal bronze age texts..then I'll feel something again when any person is killed or terribly hurt in some way.

And when Empires stop trying to play proxy wars in order to gain resources...then my soul might be stirred again.

But that just isn't going to happen. So I know that every surprise terrorist event is just going to be news cycle fodder for a couple of weeks...exploited by every person with an agenda. Every war will be endless, mass starvation will continue, mad leaders will encourage their mindless followers to commit atrocious crimes....all of this is just a blip on the radar of history.

 

[MrRochesterNY]

Can you run out of empathy ?

Not if you never had any.

 

[Cormac135]

Not if you never had any.

That must be terrible for you.

 

[medic1]

At times and in certain situations, yes it is.