Empathy and Sympathy

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最近在想這兩個詞：Empathy and Sympathy，覺得挺有意思，分享幾句抽象枯燥的感悟。

因為中文對 Empathy 的翻譯不理想，就用英文也寫了一篇。

Empathy 的意思是自己對他人的處境和感受的理解和體會的能力，不僅僅是同感，還包括自己沒有經受過的，甚至是有相反感受的經曆。這本是人與生俱來的能力，也是生活中的積累，但這個能力的大小卻因人而宜且差別極大，隻有不斷學會怎樣與自己的感受相連又要學會怎樣拋開主觀的感受才能擴大這個能力。用我們熟悉的詞語善解人意和設身處地來描述 Empathy 的含義是比較接近的。

Sympathy 可以簡單翻譯成同情。

同情可以因理解而產生，固有同病相憐之說。而這個理解和體會他人的能力可以擴大到不因同病而相憐，這是人的一種潛力，需要有心去挖掘。

同情的行為也可以不因深刻理解而產生，但是不容易達到因理解而產生的另一種高度，也不容易持久。

所以，擴大對人的深層次和全麵的理解加體會是非常重要的，也可以改變自己由一些主觀、狹隘、偏執、極端的思維所造成的錯誤判斷和行動。

Recently, I’ve been thinking of these two words: Empathy and Sympathy. They are different, but related.

According to Wiki, Empathy is defined as “the capacity to recognize feelings that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient (in fiction writing) being.” The key word here is the capacity. As humans, we were all born with some level of this capacity; yet, as individuals the level of the capacity various tremendously.

On the other hand, “Sympathy” is defined as “an extension of empathic concern, or the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another human being.”

As we can see that “Sympathy” can come from “Empathy” but may not be an inevitable result. Understanding and feeling what others feel opens one’s eyes, awakens one’s conscious and softens one’s heart. Consequently, increasing the capacity of one’s empathy can help increase one’s sympathy with an exception of no conscious and compassion at all.

Furthermore, we can think about the opposite. One can also have sympathetic action without having a good capacity of empathy. However this action would not automatically improve the capacity of empathy and would not be extended or sustainable to reach the level of sympathy that originated from empathy. If sympathetic action can also lead to the improvement of one’s capacity of empathy, then the result could be dramatic, because they enhance each other.

Therefore, improving our capacity of empathy through consistent learning and practicing is fundamentally important, which also help avoid prejudice, stubbornness and narrow vision caused wrong judgments and actions.