You really should try to avoid ‘empathy’ and being ‘empathetic.’ It’s a false promise: you can’t merge your emotions with someone you don’t know. The primary reason people tend to seek this sensation is because their personal lives are unsatisfying and ‘empathy’ provides an outlet for emotional exertion that is usually unburdened by any true responsibility. OTOH you should strive for a clear eyed theory of mind and in this you owe your subject nothing but your best efforts to be accurate. You can be sympathetic to someone’s plight, but your goal should be to be honest, unsparing, and sober emotionally. These competing tendencies map pretty well onto lib and conservative behavior. Libs understand their emotional investment, excitement, and sensitivity as virtues, while conservatives look down on this behavior as a sort of intoxication. Conservatives pride themselves on showing the emotional restraint required to be clear eyed to the degree necessary to model the world accurately and inform good decisions.
