![]() ![]() Empathy feels extremely personal, but without experience, it’s completely empty-the projectile misses the target, the thrower “sins.” The dark side of the sympathetic tendency is that it can be absolutely indifferent toward the out-group or outcast it feels nothing, it annihilates what opposes its fellowship. Empathy implies that an inward feeling is projected (‘thrown forth’) onto an object (‘thrown against’). That’s why it often feels impersonal it’s supra-personal. Sympathy implies group experience, shared “subjectivity”-to be subjected (‘thrown under’) to something together. Therefore, the difference between “compassion” and “pity” is the difference between “suffering together” and “suffering on behalf of.” It’s the difference between a genuine together-feeling ( sympathy) and the personal imagination of oneself in the same “pitiful” condition ( empathy, ‘in-feeling’) and feeling for someone. The relation of pathos between individuals becomes the more abstract, “pathetic” (‘ liable to suffer’) relation between an individual and “the Law.” Instead of feelings that are “communal,” pity leverages feelings that are “commercial”-this is what we call “virtue signaling.” Pity is a reference to a relation, not a relation in-itself. Which is a step removed from the “compassion” which arises from shared experience, common understanding, mutual benefit and mutual loss. Here, again, we see the connection between “pity” and “piety” as worship, duty, obligation, displays of emotion, acts of servitude, and charity. Either way, inherent in the sense of “guilt” is the possibility of punishment or retribution-a type of exchange. When one does not repay this debt, one feels a sense of guilt-a word which comes from the Old English gylt, meaning “crime, sin, moral defect, failure of duty.” Gylt is perhaps connected to the Old English verb gyldan (‘pay, repay, yield, punish, sacrifice to, serve, worship’), from which also come the words “guild” (‘group of tradespeople’) and “gild, gilt” (‘cover with a thin layer of gold’). It’s relevant to note that duty comes from the Latin debere-a construction of de- (‘away’) and habere (‘to have’), meaning “to keep something away from someone” or “to owe.” From this, we get our term “duty-free”, as in “free from taxes or fees.” A sense of duty is a sense of indebtedness from it one feels obligated to repay. ![]() Instead, there is a sense of transactional duty, a display of one’s own piety… via “mercantile” exchange. What is lost between “pity” and “compassion” is the sense of explicit togetherness. The word “pity” there gains its meaning of a “disposition toward mercy,” or a kind response to another’s suffering. When one receives “mercy,” one says merci (‘thank you’). Pity, on the other hand, stems from the Latin pietatem, which means “piety, loyalty, duty.” In Old French it becomes pite, pitet, meaning “compassion, mercy, pitiful state, wretched condition.” Mercy shares the root merx (‘wares, merchandise’) with the word “market” it is a gift, wage, or reward given to someone deemed to be in a wretched condition. This still leaves some murky water between them.Ĭompassion comes from the Latin compassio (‘com’ + ‘pati’), which means to “suffer with” or “endure with.” It’s also a loaned translation of the Greek sympatheia (‘syn’ + ‘pathos’) which is “suffering together” or “feeling together,” as pathos describes anything that touches the emotions. “Mitleid” (‘pity’) was originally a translational loan-word to render the Latin word for compassion. This is a very interesting distinction in the German terms, but there is a bit more to it. In German you can find the difference in the words: - pity = Mitleid -> to suffer with someone -compassion = Mitgefühl -> to feel with someone ![]() ![]() What would you say is the difference between pity and compassion? ![]()
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