Karl Rove Needs a Dictionary: Get Your Definition of Empathy Correct

Karl Rove is changing the definition of 'empathy' in order to lead the charge against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. But since the extreme Right is developing a penchant for objective truth at this time, it's important for them to get the objective definition of 'empathy' correct.

In his Wall Street Journal opinion piece, "'Empathy' is Code for Judicial Activism," Rove states, "There is a certain irony in a president who routinely praises America's commitment to 'the rule of law' but who picks Supreme Court nominees for their readiness to discard the rule of law whenever emotion moves them."

Rove is implying that an empathic person is one who lets their subjective feelings rule and that he/she uses this seeping mass of emotion to push an agenda. This, however, has nothing to do with empathy.

Empathy is an objective understanding of the subjective experience of another. In the process of empathizing, you're actually putting your ego aside in order to see what it is like to walk in another person's (or group's) shoes. This is why narcissists can't empathize--their own ego gets in the way of accurately understanding people and the world around them.

Empathy requires drawing on thoughts and feelings common to all humanity such as confusion, emptiness, joy, and hope. Even if it is not possible to relate to a specific event, it is possible to relate to some of the ideas, themes and emotions behind it. Empathizing in this way requires an objectivity and perceptiveness that is quite compatible with the rule of law.

Since empathy requires drawing on human experience to develop this kind of objective perceptiveness, it's important to have a wide range of human experience. A homogeneous Supreme Court that is only able to make meaning out of one small subgroup's views can never be as effective as a diverse Supreme Court that is able to more accurately perceive though the process of empathy.

Follow Caroline Presno on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drcaroline09

Comments

[VD1]

11:05 AM on 06/24/2009

http://www.videodictionary.tv/video/149/Empathy

[peacegurl48]

10:24 PM on 05/29/2009

EMPATHY is code for HUMANITY and our country needs to get back to being FOR THE PEOPLE.

[Leahk]

08:35 PM on 05/29/2009

Limbaugh's lack of a large body of tacit knowledge renders him incapabable of understanding Judge Sotomayor's meaning. Little does he know that the GOP has been had by a man who must have antcipated the GOP's "leaders" reaction. Why else would the President have outlined his criteria for a Justiced least two weeks in advance of his selection. He knew they'd nibble until they thought they had the big catch.

[AddyGmom]

07:54 PM on 05/29/2009

KaRo is soooooo not important any more.

[Donna Berry]

07:12 PM on 05/29/2009

This is just the conversation I had with my husband yesterday as we heard yet another comment about the uselessness, even "danger" of empathy in our Supreme Court Justices. When did empathy become a negative concept?....to answer my own question, probably when Pres. Obama used it in correct connotation to describe an appropriate replacement for Souter....then, it became a buzz word for those who blither endlessly and create faux cases of urgency against their political rivals. I was so glad to read this article. We need more individuals pointing out the difference between empathy and sympathy One of the first things I learned in nursing school was to identify those differences and it has served me well in life.

[Caroline Presno]

07:39 PM on 05/29/2009

Thank you for your comment which shows there is no "danger" of empathy in any profession.

[DoTheMath]

04:06 PM on 05/29/2009

Thank you. Well done.

[marleneca]

04:00 PM on 05/29/2009

Excellent article, Caroline!

[MsYellowDog]

02:12 PM on 05/29/2009

All of these Rethugs do not understand the difference between "sympathy" and "empathy." I guess their Ivy League Educations didn't make them any smarter.

[Caroline Presno]

02:42 PM on 05/29/2009

The distinction between sympathy and empathy is so important. When you sympathize, your own emotions and thoughts may get in the way of accurate understanding. Not so with empathy. Thanks for pointing this out.

[mommadona]

12:57 PM on 05/29/2009

"This is why narcissists can't empathize--their own ego gets in the way of accurately understanding people and the world around them."

@KarlRove = By George, I think you've NAILED him!

He's a piece of work, eh?

[Rogan]

12:16 PM on 05/29/2009

You'd think an "article" like this - essentially a bored lecture on a word's definition, and not a particularly obscure or "difficult" word, at that - wouldn't be publishable, let alone necessary. But that's what the Republican party and their corporate backers have done, to our media landscape, and political dialogue: it's like trying to get through to angry sociopathic hyperactive children. I mean, it's like that, talking to their pundits, and leaders. Talking to their (remaining) voters, is like talking to the walls. They're equally responsive, and equally likely to understand, or even try to understand, what I'm saying - walls, and voting Republicans (circa 2009).