Elsewhere I've been dealing with folks who suffer from lack of empathy. Got me thinking again. I'm sad to say, some of what I have to say includes me....Luckily I have been learning and I realize it.
Not so long ago I would have viewed people with substance abuse problems more harshly and with less empathy because their problems are self inflicted.
We all have to keep on our toes to treat others fairly and decently.
Most of us probably no empathy for people who are starving, living in poverty, living in a war torn country or need to flee to refuge camps.

Typically it seems to be the spoiled rich brats who are the problem( if you are wealthy , I do not automatically include you here)...and who seem to suffer from a serious lack of empathy.
Putting down all sorts of minority groups , less priviledged folks, people with disadvantages and other issues.
Sometimes it's malicious and sometimes they are unaware. Some of them probably never learned empathy from their parents (OR insert whoever raised them here).

If you speak up for the group that is being put down, suddenly YOU are the bad evil person. This is sad that some people resist learning empathy and want to get angry at the messengers. Lack of empathy seems like a serious problem in our society ( coming from the USA here).

A few examples I can think of:

Lack of empathy for people who:
- Are not rich.
- Suffer from a disease.
- Are handicapped.
- Are not privedged in some way.
- Suffer from substance addictions.
- Mentally ill.
- Brain damaged.
- Are homeosexual or other minority sexual orientation.
- Elderly people.

I could probably find more if I searched around.
I realize a few folks DO suffer mental issues which mean they have less empathy by nature and it comes harder to them to learn it...So we have to try and have empathy towards them for their lack of it. If that makes sense.

Discuss:
How do you feel about empathy?.
How do you react when you find people who lack empathy?.

A lot of folks who post to avatar sites are doing so from school, college, public computers. :/ A laptop costs like $500 now, also. I wouldn't be so quick to generalize who you find on the internet.

Working on quick generalizations might help with your empathy. =D

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone's shoes. I try to live by the whole, "don't judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes" type of thing.

I think I can say I've experienced a lot of things in my life, so I can have a lot of empathy. There's plenty of things that I can say, "I know how you feel" to. Things I have not experienced, like starvation or extreme poverty, I try to liken it to something I have been through so I can understand their frustration or pain.

Empathy, as I understand it, doesn't always include pity or sympathy. It's a learned trait, starting at a very young age for people, like when little kids try to comfort someone. (Which is always adorable. x3)

Some people don't have empathy, or have trouble understanding it. I know people with autism have difficulty with feeling empathy. My little brother has Asperger's (low, high functioning form of autism) and a lot of the time I have to explain things to him and tell him things like, "well, remember how you felt when this happened? He feels the same way" so he can understand.


But to people who don't have an obvious reason for not being empathetic, I get a little angry or even disgusted, and try to make them understand it. I hate it when people scoff at individuals who are homeless and say stuff like, "Oh, don't even give them money because they're go spend it on booze and cigarettes."
You don't know what happened to them, you don't know what they'll do with the money. Maybe they lost their job and can't get back on their feet. Maybe they have a mental disability and couldn't hold down a job, so they have no money. I have a (ex) close friend who has a lot of issues like schizophrenic and epilepsy, so he couldn't keep his job, and he has ended up on the streets numerous times. He's not a bad person, he's sick! He needs help! He doesn't want your pity, he just needs your help.
(Last time I heard from him he finally overcame his pride and is on the government disability thing.)

I think should develop their empathy and work off it. If you understand someone's situation you're more likely to help them.

I believe empathy is very important to your life. If you are honorable or not it is very important to be empathic. Remember empathy does not mean sympathy.
whether you want to use someone to your advantage. Or help understand and(or) help them empathy is important.

I encounter people who lack any empathy a lot. I generally try to avoid topics where their utter lack of understanding for other peoples situations would remind me of the mentioned lack of empathy. This is to avoid them upsetting me and possibly causing problems.

But too much of a good thing can be bad. I often feel I have too much empathy and spend all my time understanding other people when I barely understand myself. :/

It's strange...I was just talking about this on a different thread.

I tend to be very empathetic. This is good in the sense that it helps you understand other people and how they feel.

It can also be a hindrance, because if you're bogged down in "feeling their pain", then you may not be able to see or do what needs to be done to help. A nurse or doctor who is too empathetic, may not be able to separate themselves enough from the patient's pain to *do* something about it quickly enough. This would be a huge problem in an emergency room, or for EMT's or firemen responders.

Sadly one of the few things I can do I empathize with hunger. It provokes me into buying food for people. Mind you I have never been hungry, I mean not really, not I have not eaten in days hungry, so I don't know why it bothers me at such a gut level to think of people experiencing it, but it does.

It bothers me to the point of buying a homeless guy a lunch, my coworkers candy and trying to feed anyone that comes to stay with me. I have even covered the few dollars that a customer was short while I was cashing her out.

I guess I feel that no one should go hungry, I do what I can to stop it.

In many other ways I am a rather cold person, and quite selfish.

I wish I was nicer.

How do you feel about empathy?.

I feel it's a good thing to have--we as a species would not have been able to survive at such high rates versus high mortality rates if we didn't care about each other (health care, law enforcement...) in cooperation with high birth rates.

How do you react when you find people who lack empathy?.

Well, I feel it's a real shame and personally I've met and live with one--I show him the same lack of empathy he's given my family.

For me its strange, I've got a lot of empathy for minoritys and people who are down on their luck and just trying to make it. People who are poor in the phyiscal world and in the world inside themselves. That said, I cannot STAND drug addicts. Myself I was only ever addicted to cigarettes, and manged to put them down cold turkey.

Where I work we have a lot of problems with people doing drugs of the injectable sort in our parking lot, and this might be part of it, but there are very few things that piss me off the same way junkies do.

The irony...Right now I'm struggling to show empathy towards customers. Keep in mind I work for a cellphone company (hardly a necessity...more a luxury these days) and I hear a lot of the same story. When people make boneheaded mistakes I really struggle trying to empathize with the customer as if they had a shred of common sense they wouldn't of gotten themselves in the predicament. Not to mention, there are people who try to con the system and get as many handouts as possible. (I have some crediting ability, so they try to butter me up...)

I do have empathy for people with mental issues, alcoholics, drug addicts, women in abusive relationships, and many other debilitating issues. I have seen people close to me suffer, and I know that for some it seems it's an endless circle of suffering that is very difficult to break. :(

ohh what I've give to be able to .. lack in empathy sometimes. I'm waaayyy too empathic and it can really hurt me sometimes..
like currently. :/
a friend of mine shot himself and I end up torturing myself and feeling for him, thinking about how he must have felt for all these years and
bleh.... >.> meanwhile his much closer friends are just moving on in life.

Sagitar - You really have to move on hun, as it was ultimately his decision to take his life. Your friends are only doing what they have to do and except that they couldn't change what's happened and move on. :(

I know I should move on and I know there's nothing none of us could have done anymore at this point, but I just can't help it. :/
and learning he had a big crush on me surely didn't help at all..

Actually I think too much empathy can hurt a person. Or at least how they cope with it.
There was a news story where someone reported a story about starving people. the person who reported the story and photographed was so deeply moved by the response they got they ended up committing suicide. They couldn't handle what they had experienced.

True. Some people can't handle their feelings in a positive way. Some can. I feel that empathy is very important nowadays as always, but more valued today because it IS so often lacked by many. I come from a neighborhood of many different people thrown into one - the ghetto of South Philly. You have these incredibly closed-minded and racist rich kids, homosexuals who don't bother anyone yet are constantly condemned, and the other races who are still picked on by the elderly. Why do we do this? Everybody's looking out for 'number one' nowadays. There are good people out there, and it's tough to discover when someone really understands you. Another thing to point out is that a good number of people tend to mistake sympathy for empathy.

I usually have a lack of empathy for girls in relationship crisis. But then again, I've never had one, so I think that empathy also requires a certain knowledge of something when it comes to certain situations.