On Judging Others

Appropriate human empathy that you are talking about is the empathy of bystanders. Its the kinda of empathy that has people sit and watch an accident and ignores a general call to help. Its why EMT and rescue workers are taught to point at people and command them to call a number. It is an empathy of the lazy and the uncaring, the easy way out, its a brief emotional shocker that lasts but a moment. At least that is the kind of empathy, I think you are describing to me. Because I disagree strongly with that form of reaction. Because its a reaction conditioned into the bedrock of America. Feel sorry for the less fortunate and unwhole. To me that is the most disrespectful form of empathy, it eliminates and disrespects the person to the highest degree. It does not seek to understand, it does not seek to learn, its only a cheap thrill, an emotional voyeurism to see, then forget. To go further I percieve it as a superficial reaction, and I am not one to ascribe to superficial reactions for reactions to the superficial create problems that have reprecussions down the road. I would point out that you follow an artificial formula when attempting to discuss the great non-existent flooding, strata and evolution itself, that to me makes no sense because discussion is supposed to be a learning process not a 'repeat the party line' process. So how did that contribute to discussion?But it isn't a formula. Its me pitting against the cultural teachings of emotional voyearism. I see emotional voyearism, the knee jerk reactions, as being a destructive and apathetic cultural norm present in the US. Its a reaction that relieves a person of any responsibility to contribute to the betterment of humanity. Its like saying, oops I feel sorry for their situation, now to move onto something else. Thats very vague, I would wonder what you would have me examine?

What a puffed up self righteous prig. Get a heart yourself.Telling people how they should feel about things, about anything, is one of the lowest things I can imagine. Intrusive to the max. Offensive to the max. And this IS a perfect example of PC moralism, the most intrusive tyrannical bit of bullying ever invented. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Everybody does this. Didn't you know?

Everybody does [insert action word here], why aren't you [insert action word here]?Everybody is [insert religion here], why aren't you [insert religion here]?Herd mentality.

No, it's called living one's life, you self-righteous prig.

Oops, even the most even-tempered of them all, Sir Robin of Rohan, loses his temper sometimes. Alas. Well, welcome to the hell invented by PC.

How do you equate herd mentality with living one's life.To my understanding to follow in the herd is to follow someone else's reasons to be in life?Where as living one's life, to me, is to find and discovering personal reasons to live life? Even though ultimately my personal reasons may end up being very similiar to another person's, because there are only so many personal reasons and I can't claim to have a unique reason, but my personal reasons and my investment in them are unique relative to another person's. Would you agree with that?

Well, I mean really. Do you read what this person was accusing me of because I felt sorry for some Vets at the VA hospital?

This comment is despicable.

What is despicable about about that comment? Your reasoning and your thoughts behind your remark would be most welcome. Especially considering when you do decide to explain yourself in the threads, your posts are always extrememly well written and very thoughtful. Whether or not I agree with them is a different point though.

what do you mean he's heartless? DL is making the point that rendering a person as nothing more than an object of pity is wrong, and they are more than that even with the pysical problem they have substained i don't think he is saying what you are claiming, imo from his post he sees the fact that a person who feels empathy for a lost limb is not really very useful or meaningful to the person they have empathy for, so its more like "Wow that must have sucked for that guy, oh well.." if you think about it, whats the point of doing that? at work i could do the same thing from someone with a blackeye as an example, but the emotion would be better used by asking what happened to themyou call that offensive? i don't think you ever really thought about it from the pitied persons prespective, would you want to be pitied or talked to? or understood? i see a lot of people who have missing limbs and fingers and such and they want to be treated like normal human beings not pitied! you use the pc boogeyman so much this nonsense is meaningless, just give up on it and try to think outside the box for once

I know. Unbelievable. Unbelievable adolescent arrogant rudeness. Unbelievable ignorance, inability to think, inability to put themselves in another person's shoes. Unbelievable incivility. And these are the kind of people who preach against "judging others." Amazing.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

what do you mean dispicable? i would think with your level of cynicism that you would agree with DL, most people truely don't care if they think they can't do anything, so they watch to see what happens next, thats why people are trained to herd them to do things

Alas, there are too many of you on the other side of this great abyss of absolute incivility and crude ignorance. Sad.

No, I'm neither useful nor meaningful. What's your point?I never said I was. I was talking about my feelings. I was talking about the fact that life does not always consist of baby birds and flowers.