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I don't like when people treat empathy as an all-or-nothing, or when they say that not having empathy makes you a bad person. I am capable of empathizing with people, but only when they think the same way I do, which means I hardly have empathy at all. For example, if something makes someone upset, I can understand their thoughts/feelings if the same thing would make me upset. Otherwise, it's like I'm looking at an alien creature. It's why I've never understood why people get offended at jokes when they know that they're jokes, or why people don't find communism as upsetting as racism, and so on. And on the rare occasion I do think I've modeled someone mentally, I usually end up being wrong.
What would you call this phenomenon? Limited empathy?
Schmittposting? /s
Schmitt's whole gig was that the key distinction was between friend and enemy. I can commiserate when one of my friends has a setback. If they argue in favour of something I believe in weakly or in a cringeworthy way, I can sort of empathize with them. Much less so if an enemy makes a weak argument or embarrasses himself.
Everyone has some kind of Schmittian impulse. Not too many people are sympathetic towards pedophiles or cartel drug fiends. I imagine many pedophiles or cartel drug fiends have or are experiencing pretty poor conditions. But who cares? They're enemies.
Edit: If they think like me then they'll probably be my friend, our beliefs will be similar and we'd probably get along.
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