Communication is a two-way road. We need to be tactful and mindful of how we're communicating and empathizing with people. Simultaneously we need to work on ourselves so that we don't spontaneously react when we're triggered. When conflict arises, often times more than one person is at fault.
Indeed, the empathy piece I'm often suspicious of because the personalization of an interaction causes at least as many problems as it solves. We can't fake empathy, we can't empathize with everyone, and it's presumptive to expect others to treat us as a peer, so I err on the side of civility over empathy. The conventions of civility are designed specifically to avoid humiliating people unintentionally, where empathizing can get into personal business where humiliation and its conseqeunces become inevitable.
Comments
Communication is a two-way road. We need to be tactful and mindful of how we're communicating and empathizing with people. Simultaneously we need to work on ourselves so that we don't spontaneously react when we're triggered. When conflict arises, often times more than one person is at fault.
Indeed, the empathy piece I'm often suspicious of because the personalization of an interaction causes at least as many problems as it solves. We can't fake empathy, we can't empathize with everyone, and it's presumptive to expect others to treat us as a peer, so I err on the side of civility over empathy. The conventions of civility are designed specifically to avoid humiliating people unintentionally, where empathizing can get into personal business where humiliation and its conseqeunces become inevitable.