Empathy for the Devil
Regarding Obama’s call for empathy in a Supreme Court Justice.
I think Obama’s enlisting us to support finding someone who has empathy, was focusing on finding someone who has empathy for the “have nots” who either don’t have a voice, don’t know how to use their voice, and who in a competitive world can be ignored with impunity.
I think he was implying that we should hold ourselves to a higher moral standard where instead of ignoring those who do nothing for us and can’t hurt us and who we can ignore with impunity to make sure we don’t.
It goes along with one of my favorite quotes: “The measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it and those who are hurting IN it.”
One of the benefits of empathy is that when you walk in someone else’s shoes, you can’t step on their toes. That is because empathy is a sensory experience of where someone else is coming from, whereas most actions and behaviors are motoric. The hesitation most people in being empathic towards others often relates to a fear that it will detract from the power of your position, i.e. why care about other, when you can be right.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
