Grumpy Mum ([info]hightext) wrote,
@ 2004-02-20 16:58:00
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Current mood: cold
Current music:OutKast

Tonge lashing
I heard this piece on Radio 4's Today programme too, and felt the same way . I found myself wanting to do an impression of Pamela Stephenson on Not The Nine O Clock News from 20 years or so ago, when she played a social worker saying "I know these people, I understand what they have been through and I think we should.... cut their goolies off". I think empathy is important and all too often lacking, but as Josie Appleton says, it can be so narcissistic and ultimately sterile to keep going on about how empathetic one is.


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It's the context
(Anonymous)
2004-02-23 11:13 am UTC (link)
Hmm, I'm not quite so sure. Empathy as PART of a process of resolution is fine. Tonge is doing that part of the job; and others are doing other parts. I found her intervention thought-provoking. I think it'a bit specious to caricature her as only offering empathy; I think she's trying to add that to the debate.

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Re: It's the context
(Anonymous)
2004-02-23 04:17 pm UTC (link)
I would expect a politician to offer more than empathy. Empathy is the easy bit. I also query whether empathy is useful in trying to reach a resolution. I've spoken to doctors and social workers who say you can do a better job if you don't try to empathise with everyone that passes through your hands.
I even more question whether it is useful to a peace process to express empathy with terrorists - people who have deliberately killed innocent non-combatants.

Grumpy Mum

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