Socionics offers a helpful dichotomy between extroverted ethics (tend to action) and introverted ethics (intentions over action.) also notes we’re in an era dominated by introverted ethics, but would assume cycles rather than linear progression.
Maybe I've missed something, but I'm not really sure what this piece is trying to say.
Like you don't really seem to explain *how* AI is going to reduce the distance between CEOs and employees, or between this age and the next.
Although I do agree with one of your core statements - that every age has norms that seem barbaric or tyrannical when looked at from another age. We can never get everything right all at once. In fact I don't even think "getting it all right at once" is a coherent concept, now that I think about it.
I think empathy, used historically up to and including in 20th century fiction and nonfiction, implies a bond of obligation, not just feeling. Contemporary uses focus far too much on the emotional aspect and far too little on actually following through with the person one 'empathizes' with.
I use 'feeling act' to describe the belief that an empathetic bond is about feeling or demonstrating an emotion. Take "cares about people like me" in opinion polls, etc. I think there's been a social shift where people use the term 'empathy' to refer to this purely subjective feeling without recognizing the built up loyalty they have to that word is because its historical use implies an obligation that doesn't exist anymore.
This cries for an example; while I can come up with some, I am far from sure they get your intent right. You want empathy to be replaced by loyalty to some specific organizations? by a honor code a la medieval chivalry? by transactional promises? What specific situations would be handled differently?
This all said, I would place the blind spots of the previous decade (not the current, since it is transitional) elsewhere.
Firstly, I would say that the main problem is loyalty *from* organizations such as government, activists, NGOs, etc. Politicians and activists say they *care* about groups (minorities, working class, etc.) despite doing little to verify or ensure that their policies actually help those groups.
The best example is university bureaucrats, who often express their care and empathy attached to literally no action at all.
Historically, this would not be seen as empathy at all. Empathy was a bond that requires acting in their interest.
Oof. Yes, the connection between what politicians say and what they do used to be more direct to put it mildly, but then again any connection used to be more direct in the past. That the words "care", "represent", "empathize" have been hollowed out and are now being worn as skinsuits is quite well-known nowadays and probably more a consequence than a reason of anything. I still think people *know* that the true thing exists; they have just given up on expecting it from anything with an org chart.
I agree that AI will flatten the org chart of many a company, but less sure it will have the same effect in political parties. Is writing reports and speeches really the main job of a staffer, as opposed to making social connections?
Perhaps he means it's a passive emotion, especially reading from a nietschezian context, that is structural derived from the discrepancy in power between the one one gives empathy and the one who receives it (noblesse oblige).
Whereas today we made into an active one and encouraged a la Peter Singer's injunctive to willfully extend our empathy beyond it's natural bonds, to the whole world
Socionics offers a helpful dichotomy between extroverted ethics (tend to action) and introverted ethics (intentions over action.) also notes we’re in an era dominated by introverted ethics, but would assume cycles rather than linear progression.
Maybe I've missed something, but I'm not really sure what this piece is trying to say.
Like you don't really seem to explain *how* AI is going to reduce the distance between CEOs and employees, or between this age and the next.
Although I do agree with one of your core statements - that every age has norms that seem barbaric or tyrannical when looked at from another age. We can never get everything right all at once. In fact I don't even think "getting it all right at once" is a coherent concept, now that I think about it.
By pruning the leaves, and maybe the next leaves after that, I assume.
“The greatest lie of modernity is that empathy is a feeling act.”
I understand what you mean by the original essay, but I don’t know what “feeling act” means. It sounds like something like true compassion?
I think empathy, used historically up to and including in 20th century fiction and nonfiction, implies a bond of obligation, not just feeling. Contemporary uses focus far too much on the emotional aspect and far too little on actually following through with the person one 'empathizes' with.
I use 'feeling act' to describe the belief that an empathetic bond is about feeling or demonstrating an emotion. Take "cares about people like me" in opinion polls, etc. I think there's been a social shift where people use the term 'empathy' to refer to this purely subjective feeling without recognizing the built up loyalty they have to that word is because its historical use implies an obligation that doesn't exist anymore.
This cries for an example; while I can come up with some, I am far from sure they get your intent right. You want empathy to be replaced by loyalty to some specific organizations? by a honor code a la medieval chivalry? by transactional promises? What specific situations would be handled differently?
This all said, I would place the blind spots of the previous decade (not the current, since it is transitional) elsewhere.
This is a good question.
Firstly, I would say that the main problem is loyalty *from* organizations such as government, activists, NGOs, etc. Politicians and activists say they *care* about groups (minorities, working class, etc.) despite doing little to verify or ensure that their policies actually help those groups.
The best example is university bureaucrats, who often express their care and empathy attached to literally no action at all.
Historically, this would not be seen as empathy at all. Empathy was a bond that requires acting in their interest.
Oof. Yes, the connection between what politicians say and what they do used to be more direct to put it mildly, but then again any connection used to be more direct in the past. That the words "care", "represent", "empathize" have been hollowed out and are now being worn as skinsuits is quite well-known nowadays and probably more a consequence than a reason of anything. I still think people *know* that the true thing exists; they have just given up on expecting it from anything with an org chart.
I agree that AI will flatten the org chart of many a company, but less sure it will have the same effect in political parties. Is writing reports and speeches really the main job of a staffer, as opposed to making social connections?
So the greatest lie is a definitional change? That doesn’t sound like a lie.
The lie is misrepresenting the benefits of the previous definition as a result of the new definition.
Perhaps he means it's a passive emotion, especially reading from a nietschezian context, that is structural derived from the discrepancy in power between the one one gives empathy and the one who receives it (noblesse oblige).
Whereas today we made into an active one and encouraged a la Peter Singer's injunctive to willfully extend our empathy beyond it's natural bonds, to the whole world