Thursday 14 July 2016

Against Racism: empathy or love?

https://mattstauffer.org/257/please-remember-my-black-son/

So what we need is empathy? ("Our problem is that we don’t empathize with Black people.")

CCC 1767: "passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will."

Empathy is entering into and sharing in the passions/feelings of another. It is a passion (a feeling, an emotion, a reaction). It is "neither good nor evil" (etc. - see above). When empathy has the effect of encouraging one to disengage reason, to disregard facts, it is evil. (Consider: "I have a lot of empathy for serial adulterers." Sure - but that's not a good thing!)

http://qpolitical.com/1-heres-one-thing-obama-wont-tell-dallas-shooting-police-officers/

Love drives out hate.

Empathy may be useful, or not. Empathy may just mire a person in another person's irrational passions. Empathy in itself is not a strength. Empathy is different from love. And it is love, not empathy, that drives out hate. Empathy alone may lead a person to wallow in vain passions. Love leads to - it demands! - forgiveness, reconciliation, understanding. But only because genuine love is a participation in the love of the one God, who is justice, mercy, truth. Empathy is only a participation in the fragmented and contradictory world of individual passions.

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