Victim Conversation (off-topic moved)

[Ally]

You say tomato, I say tomahto. There is no way I could ever have empathy for anyone who lies, cheats, steals and abandons children as a natural part of their lives.

The absolute only way I can see ANYONE being able to have empathy for a person like that is if they somehow are able to rationalize and excuse the behavior.

We aren't talking about having empathy for children or real victims. We are talking about having empathy for people who made choices, and the only way I can possibly see anyone having empathy under those circumstances is if they have exonerated them for their choices.

Could you feel empathy for a child molester?

[babybird67]

Ally

Tom,

I am just as offended by bleeding heart, excuse for everything, poor victims of the world men as I am women. Gender is irrelevant when it comes to the perpetual cycle of finding excuses for what people choose to do.

why do you persist in misrepresenting my opinion?

I have never used the word "excuse" or suggested that excuses should be made for anyone, and i would be grateful if you could stop implying that i have. You do not have to resort to misrepresenting someone to win an argument: your intellect is stronger than that.

What i have said, is that one can have empathy for others, and try to understand how their lives turned out as they did: this does not absolve any of them of the responsibility for their own choices; it does however acknowledge that all choices are not available to all people at all times.

[Ally]

Tom,

I am just as offended by bleeding heart, excuse for everything, poor victims of the world men as I am women. Gender is irrelevant when it comes to the perpetual cycle of finding excuses for what people choose to do.

[Ally]

No Ryder it is you that are missing the point. Are you trying to agrue? that 'luck' is not the intrinsic igreedient of existence?

Because what ever their choices, the percentage odds of bumping into the notorious serial killer of all time at that particular moment in history seems almost infinitively high. And luck surely dictates what choices we will be faced with?

Let go the control freak within you

Pirate

I really should stop attempting to have conversations with the mentally defective who can't comprehend simple concepts. No, luck doesn't have anything to do with how a person lives their life. Choice does.

You are talking about random death. A person can get hit by a meteor or struck by lightning or be killed by a serial killer or a mob on the street and that relates to CHANCE, random circumstances beyond control. But chance has nothing ..absolutely NOTHING to do... with the choices they make in how they live their lives.

[babybird67]

hi again Tom

Babybird,

You don't seem stupid at all, but perhaps a bit naive. I think Ally is offended by naive women with rose-colored glasses. Or at least women she perceives as such. I can understand that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Yep, probably guilty as charged. I probably AM naive. But so what? It takes all sorts to make the world go round, doesn't it? I am sure a world full of Allys would be heavenly to some, but maybe hellish for others?

I tend to be idealistic, and optimistic, where others perhaps are more realistic and pessimistic.

I have teaching as my background, hence my belief that learning comes from growing within a supportive atmosphere, not one where the first foot you put wrong brings you unstinting condemnation and a "you deserve what you get" attitude.

A cursory glance at the varied contexts that people around the world grow up in belies the suggestion that good choices are always available to all. They are not. Neither is everyone equipped equally to make those choices.

Choice, or the lack of it, is situation and context-specific. There are no hard and fast rules, absolute truths or moral imperatives in that sense; each person must be judged within their own context and the choices available to them at that time.

And once again, moral approval is not necessary to the experience of empathy.

best wishes

[Jeff Leahy]

No, you are full of idiocy Leahy and once again, your inability to comprehend what you read makes you look like an idiot.

I never said people have unlimited choices. I said in every circumstance they have * A * choice. A person in Ethiopa still has a choice. They can work hard scrabble and do their best to survive and maybe they make it and maybe they don't, but if they lay down in the gutter and don't even try, they definitely aren't going to make it.

And these woman that we are discussing ALL had better circumstances and ALL had better options that they CHOSE to piss away.

No Ryder it is you that are missing the point. Are you trying to agrue? that 'luck' is not the intrinsic igreedient of existence?

Because what ever their choices, the percentage odds of bumping into the notorious serial killer of all time at that particular moment in history seems almost infinitively high. And luck surely dictates what choices we will be faced with?

Let go the control freak within you

Pirate

[babybird67]

Ally

no, rather lazily i didnt search around at all...i just picked the first one thrown up by my PC as i am multi-tasking talking to Steve in the chatroom!


And i agree - the definition of empathy IS very complex and throws up complex, intricate emotions...reflecting the complexity of the human mind and the complexity of making choices in the random and chaotic world in which we live.

I can empathise with the victims without having moral approval of everything they did. Empathy is not about exoneration or excusing...it is about UNDERSTANDING.

[Tom_Wescott]

Babybird,

You don't seem stupid at all, but perhaps a bit naive. I think Ally is offended by naive women with rose-colored glasses. Or at least women she perceives as such. I can understand that.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

Jen,

I noticed you searched around till you found the most simplistic and reduced definition of empathy you could find, one that doesn't even begin to describe the complexity of what the word empathy actually means.

Try this one: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner ; also : the capacity for this

[babybird67]

hi Tom

Babybird,

I figured as much, just had to ask due to the tone of the discussion.

no problem Tom. I hope the tone is passionate but respectful. I respect Ally's views and her right to have them, whilst totalling believing she is wrong!

By the way, don't my postings demonstrate i dont have a weak mind?

[Tom_Wescott]

Leahy? Is that Pirate's name?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

You do talk utter tosh Ally…I’m born in Ethiopia during a famine.

......

While your figuring out the potential life style choices I’ll leave you to the romantic notion that everyone has unlimited choice. The fact is they do not.

No, you are full of idiocy Leahy and once again, your inability to comprehend what you read makes you look like an idiot.

I never said people have unlimited choices. I said in every circumstance they have * A * choice. A person in Ethiopa still has a choice. They can work hard scrabble and do their best to survive and maybe they make it and maybe they don't, but if they lay down in the gutter and don't even try, they definitely aren't going to make it.

And these woman that we are discussing ALL had better circumstances and ALL had better options that they CHOSE to piss away.

[babybird67]

definition of empathy..

em·pa·thy (mp-th)
n.
1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. See Synonyms at pity.

No approval is required to approve ethically of the person one is empathising with.

[Tom_Wescott]

Babybird,

I figured as much, just had to ask due to the tone of the discussion.

Pirate,

Paul Stanley of KISS says, "It's funny how the harder you work, the luckier you get." It's true that some people just don't have a chance, but that's not the case for 95% of us, and certainly was not the case for the Ripper victims.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jeff Leahy]

You do talk utter tosh Ally…I’m born in Ethiopia during a famine.

Do I

a) Buy a ticket to the USA make a film about poverty and Marry a millionaire.

b) dig a well, irrigate the land, grow a huge crop and feed my fellow man

c) Bake bread from oats and bake them into cakes

d) Die of starvation like everyone else

While your figuring out the potential life style choices I’ll leave you to the romantic notion that everyone has unlimited choice. The fact is they do not.

I think Woody Allan said “people don’t like admitting the existence of LUCK because it means relinquishing control. If I’d been born in Germany I’d be a lamp shade by now.”

The fact is that life on the whole is about luck. And most of us just got lucky. Choice is largely the requisite of the rich. Unless of course you’ve done one of those American life style courses like the Landmark Forum..” I choose Vanilla ice-cream.” anything is possible sought of courses, like a giant sperm whale heading towards the earth trying to contemplate its existence only moments before hitting the earth. ..it's luck.

Pirate