Opinion | Have Some Sympathy

And from Proceedings, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute: “Sympathy has to do with sharing emotions but is still focused on the individual who is sympathizing, rather than truly seeking to understand another’s perspective.” Spare us your sympathy, in other words.

But what did sympathy do to deserve this treatment? And what makes empathy so superior?

Etymologically speaking, sympathy was here first. In use since the 16th century, when the Greek syn- (with) combined with pathos (experience, misfortune, emotion, condition) to mean “having common feelings,” sympathy preceded empathy by a good four centuries. Empathy (the “em” means “into”) barged in from the German in the 20th century and gained popularity through its usage in fields like philosophy, aesthetics and psychology. According to my benighted 1989 edition of Webster’s Unabridged, empathy was the more self-centered emotion, “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another.”

But in more updated lexicons, it’s as if the two words had reversed. Sympathy now implies a hierarchy whereas empathy is the more egalitarian sentiment. Empathy, per Dictionary.com, is “the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the emotions, thoughts or attitudes of another” while sympathy stands at a haughty, “you poor dear” remove: “the act or state of feeling sorrow or compassion for another.”

No wonder, one educator said to me that he was told in a recent diversity, equity and inclusion training program that “sympathy counts for nothing.” Sympathy, the session’s leader explained to school staff, was seeing someone in a hole and saying, “Too bad you’re in a hole,” whereas empathy meant getting in the hole with them.

Perhaps you have heard about this hole. Brené Brown, the best-selling author, may be the one who popularized the hole metaphor, which makes a moral distinction between sympathy and empathy. “Empathy is a choice and it’s a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling,” she says in a YouTube video.