this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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Selfishness can be trained away, lack of empathy not very much it seems.
Happily we store all these non-empats in position of power.
I think empathy can be trained. Children in general (I mean very young children) have no empathy. They're vicious little sociopaths. But if they're gently introduced to empathy as they grow, by the time they're, like, 5 they will have empathy. (Those who were not taught to be empathic by 5 will never be able to develop it.
coughMuskcough coughTrumpcough
But you can lose empathy over time. Trauma can make you lose empathy. Fury (c.f. my above rant about COVID-19) can make you lose empathy. Tragedy can make you lose empathy. THAT kind of empathy loss, however, can be re-learned. It's not even all that hard. The world just has to stop beating up on you a while, or you just have to meet someone who has it worse than you do to snap back.
Well yes that was what I was meaning, if you don't have empathy as an adult it seems it's impossible to acquire.
Yeah, it seems you need a baseline instilled into you at critical junctures of your upbringing to have it at all. After that it can be trained, in effect, but only if you have it to begin with.