CMV: A lack of empathy predisposes people to being racist/sexist, so we should try to encourage empathy in childhood school curriculum

Empathy is an emotion. You can’t teach it anymore than you can teach people to feel surprised or happy. They just feel it or they don’t. Ty telling a depressed person that they just need to learn how to be happy. It’s the same thing.

It’s not even right to say that you can make people feel something like fear or sadness. You can do things, but that response that actually creates the emotion comes from them.

Say, for example, you kill someone’s cat. You have not taught them to be sad, or angry. They will likely feel some combination of sadness or anger. But you didn’t actually make that happen. You just created the conditions under which it can happen.

Everyone is different. And every situation is different. Some people will respond with great anger, they will hate you forever. Some people will just become depressed. Some people, rarely, even respond with hysterical laughter to situations of great stress. Under which you otherwise might expect fear or anger.

My point is, you cannot teach emotions. People feel them naturally. Some people are just highly empathetic, and some people aren’t. It’s just part of the vast spectrum of that which is the human condition.

/r/changemyview Thread