• TheGreatSpoon@lemmygrad.ml
    5·
    3 days ago

    He said he doesn’t believe in empathy, only compassion.

    I don’t believe in murder, only euthenasia. All these conservatives and their fake outrage disgust me. Poor kid was freed from his pathetic, miserable existence. God bless the shooter for sympathizing with Kirk and giving him the help he needed🙏

  • vatlark@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 days ago

    Snoops gives more context to his statements on empathy. He qualifies his statement by saying he prefers sympathy over empathy. He didn’t give any explanation.

    Interestingly he was correct that empathy is a relatively new word in English (early 1900s) and sympathy is much older (1500’s).

    If we age going to make a judgement on age alone, I don’t want to go back to the 1500’s.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Honestly, this sounds to me like something a sociopath would say, which is why I don’t buy it when these people are using the ‘full context’ defence here.

      The difference between empathy and sympathy is subtle, yet important, and (I think) exposes that he was a sociopath.

      I’m not sure how to explain what I mean other than that sympathy is passive whilst empathy is active. Sympathy exists at arms length, whilst empathy is truly felt. Or, perhaps, sympathy is cerebral whilst empathy is emotional.

      Does that make sense? I think sociopaths can understand sympathy, and maybe can tell themselves they ‘feel’ it, but empathy is a foreign concept – and in Charlie Kirk’s mind, a weakness.

      So, for me, the context actually makes this quote worse.