Empathy
Empathy is a very misunderstood concept in society. Empathy is often conflated with pity, compassion, and sympathy. It is none of these.
Empathy is not an emotion. Empathy is an ability to intellectually place oneself in the context of another, to attempt to understand their motivations, based on the specific set of circumstances and actions within said context.
Empathy can sense moral bankruptcy. Empathy can sense the emptiness within a psychopath. Empathy can sense nefarious motives. Empathy does not discriminate.
We need more of this — genuine empathy — not less.
Pity is feeling sorry for another person; it is the opposite of trying to understand or relate to them. At its core, pity is based on the assumption that one human being is somehow less capable of fulfilling their own needs than another human being, and is often a result of conditioning or weak character. The arrogance inherent within pity implies elitism.
Sympathy is similar to pity, but with less arrogance. Compassion is the capacity and willingness to feel for another person’s suffering, to such an extent, as if it were their own, and it is sincere. Empathy is a useful tool in understanding the motivations of others, and it can potentially lead to compassion, depending on what one discovers when empathizing.