This is a post about word usage, not about the murder of Charlie Kirk, but it started from seeing a lot of online rage about a statement of his. According to Snopes, he once said:

I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time.

It’s strange that of all the things he said, this should draw so much anger. If I were cynical, I’d say it’s because people saw an opportunity to pull the first sentence out of context and create a deceptive impression. In this case, cynicism is fully justified.

How much difference is there between sympathy and empathy, anyway?

“Empathy” isn’t a “new age term,” but it is surprisingly recent. According to Etymology Online, it didn’t enter the English language until 1908. It’s a loan translation of the German word “Einfühlung,” which itself is a coinage from 1858. Since then, “empathy” has wandered back to German as “Empathie.” Etymologically, sympathy is “feeling with,” and empathy is “feeling in.” What exactly is the difference?

The answers which I found online are from sources whose expertise isn’t clear. Here’s a sampling:

In short, empathy is about sharing feelings. Sympathy, on the other hand, is about acknowledging someone else’s suffering but from a bit of a distance. (jagranjosh.com)

Sympathy can acknowledge pain. But it doesn’t always validate or connect with it. Empathy, on the other hand, invites us to enter into someone else’s experience and simply be present with them in it.(climbinghillscounseling.com)

While empathy involves the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, compassion extends this understanding into the desire to help alleviate another’s suffering. (hopedreamrecover.ca)

“Empathy” has displaced “sympathy” for many purposes. Today “sympathy” is a weak word, usually meaning feeling sorry for someone. It’s a word you expect from a grandmother or a Hallmark card. Getting its original sense requires looking at older texts, root words, and cognates. For instance, Schiller’s “An die Freude” has these lines (used by Schubert but not Beethoven):

Was den großen Ring bewohnet,
huldige der Sympathie!
Zu den Sternen leitet sie,
wo der Unbekannte thronet.

That’s tough to translate, but here’s my effort: “Whatever dwells in the great ring shall honor Sympathy! It (sympathy) leads to the stars, where the Unknown is enthroned.” Clearly “Sympathie” is something big, not just a feeling of “Aw, that’s too bad.” Values-Academy.de defines “Sympathie” as “ein Zustand, den man „gemeinsames Gefühl“ bzw. „gemeinsamer Zustand“ nennen kann, welcher auch als „unsichtbares Band“ bezeichnet wird.” Translation: A condition that can be called “common feeling,” that is, “common condition,” which also can be designated as “invisible band.”

The English and German words come from the Greek “sympatheia.” The Stoics understood it as the idea that “all things are mutually woven together and therefore have an affinity for each other.” That seems close to Schiller’s intent.

The word “sympathy” has fallen a long way, and “empathy” has taken up much of the space it used to occupy. But if anything has a “new age” sound to it, isn’t it the idea that all things are mutually woven together?

Still, it’s excessive to be furious that someone prefers one word to the other.

And regarding Kirk: Murder is bad.