Friday, January 27, 2023

 Friday, January 27, 2023

 

   I slept straight through till the alarm went off. Incredible. I also had none of those uncomfortable feelings in the morning that set me off on the wrong foot for the day. I started my in-bed exercises late.

   Yesterday, during driveway yoga, Yvette showed us a different way to do a stretch. When drawing a bent leg against my body, I usually started with both legs straight. Now, I started with both legs bent, pulled one up against my chest, and slowly straightened the other. It was more impactful. The other day, I varied how I had been doing another of the exercises. Instead of just leaning one leg inwards over the other, I twisted that leg over the other, Eagle Pose style. I always do a savasana between each exercise, which means I doze.

    When I got out of bed this morning, it was around 7:30- very late for me. By the time I had completed my morning libations, it was 7:50. I fed Elsa before going on our morning walk. It was too late for her to wait until we got back.

   My interest in Stephen Batchelor's talks on Buddhism has led me down a rabbit hole. I found Robert Wright, who also talks about 'secular' Buddhism but sees no reason to call himself a Buddhist as Batchelor does. Love the ingroup sniping.

   Robert Wright interviewed Paul Bloom, an academic psychologist. They talked about his concept of empathy. Ah, I found a like-minded soul. Bloom distinguishes between emotional and cognitive empathy. Empathy is often used to refer to emotional empathy. Bloom points out that emotional empathy is usually biased and can be dangerous. I emailed Bloom, hoping he would champion different terms for emotional versus cognitive empathy.

   

Dear Dr. Bloom:

   I have just become familiar with your argument against the value of emotional empathy. I have held this opinion for quite a while myself. I'm glad to know I'm not alone.

  I have looked up the definition of empathy on different sites; there's little agreement.

  I propose that emotional 'empathy' be called sympathy. To feel with.

  Cognitive empathy is called empathy. To think outside of.   I would love it if the prefix em- meant 'out of' in empathy as it does in emigrate, to go out of, versus immigrate to go into. But the meaning of the prefix in empathy is 'in.' 

   I prefer defining em- as moving out of because with cognitive empathy, you have to move out of the limits of your own state to understand the condition of someone different than yourself. I wish you'd champion the use of these terms, which I think will go a long way to clarify the terms' meaning and use. 

 

Unbelievably, he answered me. I'm in love.

 

   Thanks, Betty. You might be right, but I doubt that language can be changed like that. The word "sympathy" has its own meaning — roughly, to feel caring for someone in pain — and if you used it to mean emotional empathy, it would just cause a lot of confusion. But I agree with you that the terminology is a mess. 

 

Best,

 

—PB

 

Paul Bloom 

paulbloom.net

 

Encouraged, I sent back this response:

  

Thank you. How do you define emotional empathy if not to feel what others feel? Betty

 

As those who have followed My blog, you know this is a huge bug-a-boo for me.

    

After reading his response, I realized I had never checked the difference in the dictionary definitions between emotional empathy and sympathy. I did and sent another email to Bloom.

 

I admit I had never checked the distinction between emotional empathy and sympathy. Eh! You'd be a great person to suggest ways to clean up the categories. I haven't had a chance to read your book yet. In the meantime, I do what I can. You'd be vastly more influential and better positioned to clarify definitions. Go for it! What do you have to lose?

 

No, I'm not expecting an ongoing dialogue. I was shocked I got a response the first time.